|
|
|||||
PreambleWhile it is easy to say some form of dance is i.e. Egyptian, in reality it is a much more complex issue. For example, the Roma / Gypsi started out in India, spread all over the Middle East and Mediterranean, and went as far as Spain. The Roma in Spain were then met by the local population, and later Spain itself was occupied by the Moores coming from Morocco for 900 years, from 711 until almost 1500. Or take Turkey: the Ottoman empire (1299 to 1922) included Anatolia, the Middle East (yes, all of it), parts of North Africa, and much of south-eastern Europe to the Caucasus. Or for a short time, Greece actually had conquered all the land from Greece to Egypt, and as far east as India, an area later occupied by Rome (who didn’t go quite as far east, but more west to Morocco and Spain and north to Germany/France/Belgium).The borders of many of these countries are totally artificial (i.e. Isreal) based on how the colonial powers at the time divided up the country. To make things even more complex, people move till this day, i.e. a large part of the population in Jordan is actually Palestinian, a large number of Russians work in middle eastern countries as belly dancers, … . But for what it's worth, certain styles of belly dance have been associated more with certain countries than others, and here is a list of some of them: Note: While Middle Easterners make the distinction between "city dance" (stage, cabaret) and "country dance" (regional folk dances), Westerners use the umbrella term of "bellydance" to refer to a broad range of styles united in the use of certain isolation movements, the most prominent and pervasive of which are the isolations of the hips. Ok, they don't have a country on their own, but since the Rom/Roma/Gypsies have a tremendous influence on belly dancing in every country of the world, they do deserve their own page.
|
