History of oriental dance

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The roots of belly dance are probably in the traditional dances of the Orient or originally in Africa .

All theories about the history, the origins, purpose, development, form, influences and changes of oriental dance cannot be proven and lack historically verifiable sources. It was not until around 1700 that sources (e.g. travel reports or old photographs) were available that provide information about the dance, posture and costumes of oriental dancers.

The painters of Orientalism painted the Orient and oriental women and dancers, but they did not all work with their own sketches of the originals. Many of them portrayed the West's view of the Orient, a rather transfigured wishful thinking.

Representations and descriptions of dancing women are known from many millennia and from many cultures of the ancient Orient.

One can assume that the belly dance goes back to old fertility, worship and beard dances from, for example, initiation rites . It may also have been used to prepare for childbirth as, among other things, it trains the muscles of the abdomen and keeps them flexible.

Pre-antique figurines and reliefs

There are many pre-ancient figurines, reliefs and cave paintings that surprisingly show a very typical arm posture of oriental dance. Both arms are raised above the head in a sickle shape. This typical dance pose is of course also found in other dances and the early Homo sapiens danced all over the world .

This means that these figurines or reliefs are no proof that the oriental dance emerged from very early birth, initiation or fertility dances and retained its “typical” posture for thousands of years. To date, there is no evidence to the contrary for this theory.

Venus of Willendorf, around 25,000 BC Chr.

From the Upper Paleolithic and later times there are many female figures, as well as reliefs of women or goddesses. Gravettia can be found from around 28,000 to 21,000 years ago, figures interpreted as symbols of fertility (or goddesses?) Such as Venus von Willendorf indicate religious ideas. Some theories want to recognize a very early veneration of femininity or the woman giving birth, or a matriarchal cult or an early matriarchy. Evidence of matriarchy in early archaic cultures has not yet been found. For representatives of the women's movement , especially the differentialist branch, matriarchy in particular means a period of prehistory and early history in which women created and shaped culture, but did not rule. Today there is a consensus among historians as well as feminists that there were no societies where women were ruled (see there).

The first three-dimensional sculptures from this period mostly showed female figures with strongly emphasized gender characteristics such as large breasts and wide pelvis or hunting animals. They were made of stone and clay, but probably also more easily perishable material such as wood or bone. Some details of the female statuettes were not or almost not carried out, such as faces, arms and legs. Some researchers interpret the depictions as the fertility goddess ( mother goddess ), possibly also as an indication of a prevailing matriarchy , but they are certainly not real portraits. It can be assumed that the average normal Stone Age woman had no chance of assuming such sweeping forms.

Some theories would like to connect these finds and paintings as evidence of adoration of the primordial feminine or an early goddess with the oriental dance called the "primordial feminine dance" in order to reinforce the spiritual power of the oriental dance would have a history dating back decades.

These theories, too, are only conjectures.

Dance in ancient Egypt

Egyptian painting with dancing women and musicians, around 1400 BC Chr.

The clearest and most impressive images of dancing women can be found on ancient Egyptian wall paintings. The characteristics of Egyptian painting are mainly known from finds in the burial chambers of the pharaoh families and high officials. Even in the prehistory of Egypt , rock art and ceramic paintings were made.

Tomb of the night , scene: musician, around 1400 BC Chr.

The Egyptians were a religious people who were very oriented towards the hereafter , but at the same time also turned towards this world. Hardly any other people in world history has dealt so intensely with death. At the same time, the ancient Egyptians were not turned away from this world and lived in a way that affirmed life, love and body.

In ancient Egypt, dance played a major role in religious cult and secular festivals. There were stricter and livelier forms of dance, as well as ecstatic-acrobatic dance forms. The dancers were professional dancers. There was no dance as an element of a couple relationship, one let dance, so to speak. The costume of the dancers depicted on the wall paintings was practically non-existent, or limited to a pleated cotton hip scarf, sometimes just a pearl necklace tied around the waist. Dance descriptions are not passed down. On some forest paintings you can still see individual movements of the dancers and the instruments used for the accompanying music, sistrum , flute , cymbal (Turkish zil ) and drum (Arabic tabl ).

How the "Egyptian" dance changed through the various empires under the various dynasties is not known. It is also not known whether it changed at all. Since Egyptian painting mainly depicted scenes from the lives of privileged people, the dance scenes shown are only a tiny impression of a dance that was not accessible to all people. The ancient Egyptian dance, the steps, movements and music of which have not been handed down in writing, must not be regarded as a general "dance of the people" or even a forerunner of today's belly dance. Above all, there is a lack of sources and reliable research results.

It is very likely that other dances developed in the Egyptian people than in the privileged upper class. These dances were not recorded by painting, so these sources remain closed to research. It is very likely, however, that oriental dance has its roots more in the "dances of the people" than in the isolated world of the nobility, rich officials and the priesthood.

The representations of dancers in the Egyptian burial chambers are often modeled on today's dancers without taking over the depicted costumes of the dancers. In these dance interpretations, Babylonian and Egyptian goddesses and their myths are also used for "oriental dance interpretations". Likewise, the symbols (the crown of Hathor , the wings of Isis ) and the animals of goddesses are used in the dance (see also: snake dance , pharaonic dance ).

European travelers of the 18th and 19th centuries

The first travelogues published in Europe, which described dancers, their dances and costumes, were written between 1712 and the beginning of the 20th century. These descriptions also do not allow any precise conclusions to be drawn about the dances and dancers seen. The descriptions of the European travelers fluctuate between astonishment and astonishment at the suppleness of the dancers and disgust for the overly openly shown physicality. One should consider here that in Europe the freedom of movement of women was restricted by a corset and that free movement, as seen in untied women in the Orient, was felt to be unnatural, almost immoral.

Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824–1904)

Important travelers to the Orient, many of them women, who left information about oriental dance in their books and travelogues, were:

After Napoléon Bonaparte invaded Egypt in 1798, Europe's interest in the Orient, especially Egypt, was sparked (see Napoleon's Egyptian Expedition ). Napoleon's military expedition, though a failure, was a scientific success. In the Inscriptions de L'Egypte , which were made on the orders of Napoléon, a comprehensive record of all discoveries found in Egypt (from mummies to clay vessels to the etchings of entire temples), the intellectual elite of Europe suddenly gained insight into the previously completely unknown culture and prehistory Egypt.

As interest in Egyptian history grew in intellectual circles in Europe, Egypt became a universal source of inspiration for artists, painters and fashion designers. The fashion of the empire style at that time, mainly based on ancient Greece, suddenly took on opulent oriental elements. The women's robes were no longer sewn from light white fabrics (especially muslin ) but from heavy and colored materials, and the turban , decorated with feathers and pearls, became fashionable.

Oriental dance in burlesque , variety , cabaret , revue

"Little Egypt" approx. 1893

The strangeness of the Orient has fascinated people since the first travel reports of European travelers. Above all, the closed world of oriental women and oriental music had an effect on Europeans and nurtured fantasies of what the dances of these exotic figures could look like. Around the turn of the century before last, these topics were taken up by many dancers without any connection to traditional oriental dance and presented in dance productions, especially on cabaret and variety stages. This is how a separate genre of "oriental dance" with erotic connotations emerged exclusively in the West - which only had an effect on the Orient through the media of the 20th century.

At the time of the world exhibition in Chicago around 1893, the relatively unknown dancer Little Egypt performed "oriental dances" for the first time in front of an international audience. At the end of the 19th century, showing a bare belly, as well as showing a bare foot or uncovered hands and arms, was socially sanctioned.

The dances of Little Egypt, which later appeared in burlesque performances in the USA , were a sensation despite or perhaps because of the display of normally covered body parts. Officially, only indignant attention was paid to the dance and the dancer, but her name is still a household name to this day. There are photos of various dancers who also called themselves Little Egypt.

The American dancer Ruth St. Denis (1879–1968) studied various religious and esoteric teachings. Her dance education was based on the Delsarte system . A cigarette poster of the goddess Isis made a lasting impression on her and inspired her to create her first dance in 1906. In the next few years Ruth St. Denis dealt more and more with oriental topics, which culminated in her full-length dance production "Egypta". As a collaboration with her husband Ted Shawn , the production "Dance Pageant of Egypta, Greece and India" was created in 1916. Her " Denishawn " school in Los Angeles became a central training facility. She choreographed the Babylonian dances in DW Griffith's monumental film Intolerance . With their company both went on a big tour to the Far East in 1925/26. In addition to the group pieces, Ruth continued to create solo dances such as The Spirit Of The Sea , White Jade , Angkor-Vat . Together with La Meri (Russell Meriwether Hughes) she founded the School of Natya, which is dedicated to oriental dance. The American oriental dance scene in particular admires Ruth St. Denis as a pioneer of oriental-inspired dance.

Maud Allan as Salome

Loïe Fuller first appeared in public as a serpentine dancer (a dance with oversized veils) in 1892. In 1893 she had her costume and “stage devices for creating illusion effects” patented in France and London. With her productions she enthused and inspired many artists of her time. Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec , Jules Chéret , Will Bradley , Thomas Theodor Heine , James McNeill Whistler , Maurice Denis and many others immortalized them in their works of art. She was the first to work with colored light projections and electric light. Gabriel Pienré wrote the music for Fuller's interpretation of Salome in 1895, which was premiered on March 4, 1895 in the Comédie-Parisienne as a lyric pantomime by Charles H. Meltzer and Paul-Armand Silvestre .

The theme of Salome, the deadly dance of a woman with its tragedy, as staged by Oscar Wilde in his play in 1893, served as a template for many dancers of the younger generation. After the turn of the century, the famous fin de siècle , many dancers took up the theme of Salome and reinterpreted it for themselves. The most famous dancer who dedicated herself to the performance of Salome for a long time and with incessant success was Maud Allan . The first performance of The Vision of Salome took place on December 2, 1906 at the Carl-Theater in Vienna . Her dance was seen as a further development of the dances of Isadora Duncan , the pioneer of "free dance".

Another dancer whose main occupation was Asian dances and who took advantage of the oriental boom of the beginning of the 20th century was Mata Hari . Under this stage name she presented imitations of Indian temple dances . The scene in which she was last seen "naked" was a sensation. This was followed by appearances in the salons of Baron von Rothschild , Cécile Sorel, Gaston Menier and Natalie Clifford Barney . Many people would count Mata Hari among the oriental dancers without looking at them, because of the distinctly exotic nature of their costumes. However, Mata Hari never had dance training and danced mostly to show off her nudity at the end, which boosted her career.

literature

  • Wendy Buonaventura: Serpent of the Nile: Women and Dance in the Arab World . Interlink Publishing Group, 1998, ISBN 1-5665-6300-3
  • Wendy Buonaventura: Belly dance , Kunstmann Verlag, 1998, ISBN 3-88897-106-3
  • Donna Carlton: Looking for Little Egypt . IDD Books, Bloomington, Indiana (USA), first edition 1995, second edition 2002, ISBN 0-9623998-1-7
  • Richard Fester, Marie EP König, Doris F. Jonas: Woman and Power. Five million years of the prehistory of women , Fischer, Frankfurt, 2000, ISBN 3-596-23716-5
  • Eluan Ghazal: The sacred dance. Oriental dance and sacred eroticism . Simon & Leutner, 2005, ISBN 3-922389-95-3
  • Eluan Ghazal: snake cult and temple love. Sacred eroticism in archaic societies , Simon + Leutner, 1995, ISBN 3-922389-63-5
  • Dietlinde Bedauia Karkutli: The Belly Dance Book . Rowohlt 2002, ISBN 3-499-61328-X
  • Karin Van Nieuwkerk: A Trade Like Any Other: Female Singers and Dancers in Egypt . University of Texas Press, 1995, ISBN 0-29278-723-5
  • Brygida M. Ochaim, Claudia Balk: Variety dancers around 1900. From sensual intoxication to modern dance , exhibition by the German Theater Museum in Munich from October 23, 1998 to January 17, 1999. Stroemfeld, Frankfurt / M. 1998, ISBN 3-87877-745-0
  • Rosina-Fawzia Al-Rawi: The Grandmother's Call. Or the doctrine of the wild belly . Promedia, Vienna, 1996, ISBN 3-85371-110-3
  • Ernst Schubert: Travelers in the Middle Ages . Publishing house for regional history, Bielefeld 1995, ISBN 3-89534-155-X .

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