Crescent Magazine: V4I1 "Dance" Excerpt
from "Swirling Skirts & Shining Beads" by Dawn Devine Brown

Belly dance is an old traditional folkloric dance that has been passed informally from mother to daughter, teacher to student, since its origins in the depths of history. Most dance scholars agree that belly dance arrived in the West in the late 19th century during a cultural craze for all things Middle Eastern. Orientalism touched all of society, and motifs taken from an exotic and imagined East appear in literary works, musical compositions, and fine paintings. A series of extravagant World’s Fairs brought the “real thing” — dancers and musicians, cultural tableaux and exotic foods — to Europe and the United States.

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While the term belly dance might be a bit of a misnomer for a dance style where the emphasis is on hip-work, the traditional two-piece performance dance costume is perfectly suited to emphasize the movements characteristic of this dance form. The bra, which is designed to at once cover and support, is usually richly embellished. The matching belt draws the eyes downward to hips that generate the movements of the dance. Fringe, coins and other dangling design elements decorate the costume and emphasize the movement, amplifying subtle motions so audiences can see from a great distance the precise isolations that are distinctive to this dance vocabulary.

You can continue to read "Swirling Skirts & Shining Beads" in Crescent Magazine's Dance issue, V4I1. Order your copy!