So what is belly dance all about?

Belly dance is now many different things to different people.

To some it's a keep fit class with more interest and stimulation than going up the gym.

To some it's a pleasant way to socialise with new people and make new friends.

To others it's a stress release, forgetting all your mundane worries as you get into the music and into studying.

To some it's a way to build a new relationship with their body.

To some it's all about learning a new skill or developing existing ones.

To some it's their personal time out away from the kids to focus on themselves.

To others it's adding something else to their list of things they've tried and enjoyed in life.

To others yet it's all about the history and culture of this fascinating dance form and it's origins in the Middle East; it's evolution through it's import to the west and the amazing things that have grown of it as it met other dance forms and grew further.

To some it's being part of something empowering for women (thought we do not bar men from any of our classes if they are genuinely interested in learning to dance - dance is NOT a purely womens art).

To others still it's just beats sitting in and watching TV.

Why not come along to a class and explore how many things from the list it could be to you... or even find some new meanings for it for yourself.

Records of dancers in the middle east performing dances recognisable as related to what we now know as bellydance go back a long way.

Early illustrations show Ghwazee dancers, performing in small groups. Industrialisation and the migration to towns changed the face of society and in the more oppressive environment the mournful style of Baladi developed (sometimes described as dancing in a wardrobe due to it's restrained nature). The west interpreted this dance for the silver screen and the Golden Age dancers were born, cabaret developed it's own edge and in more recent years American Tribal Style, or Tribal was born, combining elements from various folk based dance with bellydance and developing into it's own unique style of dance and costume(sometimes described as "wearing your whole wardrobe").

It is possible to recognise different styles from different countries in both dance and costume, Egyptian and Turkish dance are both beautiful, but distinctly different, Turkish often having a distinctly folky or acrobatic edge with stunning vertebrae threatening back bends (not something we will teach). Egyptian being more likely to have a haughty, coy or refined edge of character play.

Belly dance is still incredibly alive with new forms being slowly recognised all the time. The revival in burlesque and gothic are influencing belly dance styles and new dance fashions will doubtless continue to feed new belly dance styles (eg: American Gypsy) A few years ago Belly-Bolly (a hybrid with Indian Bollywood style dancing) was very popular. With the internet providing instant access to many different peoples ideas and names it can be confusing and doubtless is faster moving than it needs to be for lasting concrete styles to coallece out of the inspiration and sweat. Many styles are the latest fashion, others have strong roots in history, others are natural evollutions from other areas (eg: shaabi - arabic street dance, picked up by formal dancers and studied and passed on to classes around middle england).

Some dancers specialise in specific styles from those listed above and have little interest in others. Most dancers find some styles suit them more than others, it just depends what comes more naturally to them. Some dancers just don't care and love dancing whatever the label that fits it. For many more advanced dancers it is a matter of passing through all of these stages - from being a generic dancer, to testing out specialities, to exploring even those which are less natural to them, back into being a general dancer with a deeper and wider palette, for others one specialisation is home to them and it grows at the expense of all other, but usually at it's best when a dancer has studied other variants too.