​I'm here today with a stern reminder that slut-shaming has no place in belly dance.

I've been seeing a lot of posts lately by some of my colleagues and predecessors, singling out dancers in Cairo for comment and judgment on their revealing choices of costuming. Here are a number of reasons why this is not okay:

1. The female body in movement always has been and always will be controversial under patriarchy. Particularly the types of movements we do. You might think you are setting yourself apart from dancers wearing more revealing costumes by wearing more conservative costumes, and certainly there will be some people who will be more accepting of your role as a dancer if you do so, but there will always be people who will consider you a sex worker and/or place you at the bottom rung of society simply for being a woman who chooses to belly dance in public, especially if you are getting paid to do so. This is a fact that needs to be understood, leading to point #2

2. Slut-shaming other women is NEVER going to elevate you, it is never going to help you succeed, it is never going to "elevate the art form" and it is never going to make you look good. All this does is drag all of us down, including yourself. It drags the art form and women as a whole down, much more than a revealing costume ever could. See point #1 as to why. For the simple fact that you choose to belly dance in public, you are automatically placed on the same side of the spectrum as the strippers and sex workers you vilify, by a good chunk of the general public, both here AND in the Middle East. You can't "elevate" yourself out of that, certainly not by publicly shaming someone else for wearing just a few inches less than you would. Leading to point #3

3. You shaming another dancer for wearing a skimpy costume or doing moves that in your view are "too sexual" is the exact equivalent of some conservative person pointing you out and shaming *you* for one of your performances, saying your costume is too skimpy because you are showing your belly or legs, and that your dancing is sexual because you are moving your hips. How would it feel if someone did that to you? If you wouldn't like it if it was done to you, then stop doing it to other dancers. In fact, it's much worse when it's a dancer doing it to another, because we should know better, since we all can and do fall victim to these types of attacks.

4. Stating that "costumes were so much more tasteful/classy back in the 50's/60's/70's/80's" is rosy colored glass nostalgia plain and simple. Since the dawn of raqs sharqi we have always performed in revealing costumes. Bra/belt sets with sheer skirts and high slits on curvy female bodies were as scandalous back then as the mini skirts and bodysuit styles are today, and here in the US in particular, the orientalist image of the sexy, seductive, half-naked harem dancer has always been played up since the dance was brought here, by event producers, club owners, dancers and musicians alike so don't even get me started on that. In fact, if anything, the stereotypes I am constantly battling against as a dancer here come from that history, which many of the dancers now bashing younger dancers in Cairo took advantage of long before I or any of those dancers were born. My audiences here in the US have no clue what dancers in Cairo are wearing today.  But their expectations have been set by, and their biases come from the decades of Orientalist stereotyping and portrayal of belly dance that was homegrown right here in the US. Which leads me to point #5

5. As non-Arab/non-MENAHT dancers it is absolutely not our job to "elevate" any Arab or MENAHT dance or art form. This smacks of white saviorism and it is not our role to play. We are guests to this art form and we are very lucky that it has been spread to our corners of the world, that we have the exposure to it and freedom to take part in it. We can enjoy learning and performing this dance but this dance is not ours to elevate or to save. Arabs and folks from other MENAHT regions do not need our saving, or our meddling--not in their art forms nor in their politics or anything else. If you are not MENAHT and you think it's your job to uplift, elevate, or save belly dance, know that this attitude is rooted in colonial/imperialist thinking.  Please sit with this. This dance is not ours to save. Take as much time as you need with this. It's perfectly okay to enjoy something without laying claim to it, and those of us who are citizens of colonialist/imperialist countries, particularly those of us who are descendants of colonizers themselves really need to sit with this one and examine our deep-rooted colonialist biases and thinking.

6. If you are not performing in Cairo today you have no idea of the current social contexts or the power of current trends or the pressures to look a certain way and wear certain type of costumes. You have no idea of the strength and courage it takes to be a dancer in a society that is that conservative and patriarchal, in the current political environment. You have no idea what these dancers are sacrificing and risking every day to perform this art, how much they are ostracized and vilified for doing what they do. Especially the ones who are native Egyptians. They do not need your voice added to the choir of judgment they already deal with 24/7. It's very easy to judge the costuming choice of a working dancer in Cairo from the comfort of an American home when you can go to your 9-5 job or get a retirement check that pays your bills, but to actually be out there hustling this ruthless industry in the heart of its homeland is a whole other ballgame. So maybe refrain from judging something you will never understand since you are not living a reality that is anything like it right now.

I'll close out this little lecture by stating that it's perfectly valid to have your own opinions and tastes. It's OK if something isn't for you. But if you don't like revealing costumes, just don't wear them. Make more conservative choices in your own style. You can be the change you want to see in the world, without bashing your colleagues and successors in the process.

It is never okay to single out and point out another dancer's choice in costume and invite the whole world to jump in and criticize her. That's slut-shaming, it's a form of bullying, it's low, it's mean, it's unnecessary and it does us all a disservice.

Let's be better than that. Let's do better than that.

​-Yamê

It might seem weird that I'm saying this, when my whole job is about moving bodies, understanding bodies, and using my own body to create art. But I'm saying it anyway.

The shape of my body does not matter. The shape of your body does not matter. And the amount and distribution of each of our body fat most especially does not matter.

It matters that your body is strong enough to support you in living the life you want to live, to the best of its ability - and that will shape how your body looks, to some extent. It matters that your posture and alignment bring you comfort and freedom of movement, and protect you from injury, and yes this will also affect the outward shape of your body.

But the outward shape itself? It's a distraction from the things that really matter.

As a dancer, it's a distraction from technique, expression, musicality, stagecraft...

And as a human being living life, it's a huge distraction from actually living and enjoying life. And also a distraction from all the incredible things the people around us (women especially) are doing, if the first thing we see when we look at them is how well their body shape matches, or doesn't, some ideal beauty standard.
​

​

Rachael Borek is an Egyptian style bellydance performer and teacher in Manchester, UK.

She has been studying, performing and teaching Egyptian dance since 2008, having trained with many top instructors from Egypt and the UK. Her mission as a teacher is to make bellydance classes an accessible and uplifting experience for everyone, including those who feel they are not natural dancers. 

Rachael offers Egyptian dance courses and one-to-one lessons both in Manchester UK and online.

You can follow her work on
https://rachaelbellydance.co.uk/
​or ​https://www.instagram.com/rachaelborek

If you have some experience with raqs sharqi (commonly known as "belly dance") you might have noticed that in order to be a well-rounded dancer, it's necessary to know so much more than just belly dance! 

The classical music we use, as well as our entrance songs and drum solos feature shifts in rhythm and instrumentation that are important to understand and reflect in our dancing.

These different "sections" within our music take us on a journey through different Middle Eastern musical genres. Some of those genres are specific to certain regions of the Middle East, where people might dance a certain way which reflects their customs and traditions. 

It's important for us to know the regional dances that go along with the types of music that come up for us often, so that we can interpret our music appropriately. 

​Saidi people speak their own dialect of Egyptian Arabic and have unique customs, music, dances, and traditions. The word Saidi can be used to refer to anything that comes from Upper Egypt. 

In the context of belly dance, when we talk about Saidi we are usually either referring to music and/or dances from the Said region, or to Saidi rhythm. ​

An important tradition in the Said is a dance and martial art known as tahtib (or tahteeb, تحطيب), where participants engage in mock fighting with sticks, done to music.

The roots of this practice date back to ancient Egypt, where it was used as a military skill, alongside archery and wrestling. 

These days, tahtib is mostly practiced as a social game or as a mock fighting dance for entertainment, traditionally done by men.

In more recent decades, women developed their own versions of stick dancing (raqs assaya) for performance, playfully imitating the men's movements in softer, more feminine ways.

In the women's versions of Saidi-style raqs assaya, a smaller and lighter stick or cane (a stick with a hook at the end) is used. When danced as part of a belly dance performance, the stick or cane might be decorated with shiny metallic tape or sequins. Female dancers often wear glamourized versions of baladi dresses when dancing to Saidi music. 

Saidi music typically features the tabl baladi, darbuka, and daff on percussion and the very distinct mizmar and rebaba on melody.

A very common rhythm in Saidi music is Saidi rhythm, a 4/4 rhythm played as "dum tek, dum dum, tek."

Saidi rhythm is also found outside of Saidi music, so the rhythm alone does not necessarily mean that a song or section of a song is Saidi.

Saidi music also features a variety of other rhythms, such as malfuf (2/4), fellahi (2/4), maqsum (4/4), baladi (4/4), and others. So it's important to consider the instruments and the feeling of the music and to do some research before deciding on how to interpret it. 

​

It’s the first day of spring and with the new season officially here now, there is so much we can celebrate and look forward to.
 
This is a time to celebrate our victories—having survived a long winter both literally and figuratively (a global pandemic), we are now arriving at a time when we can plant new seeds of potential, and we can nurture the things we want to see grow, within ourselves and in our world.

Soon our environment will be blooming with new life. Yet right now much of that life is still unseen potential. The trees around us are still mostly naked without their leaves, we can still see the leaves they’ve shed over the past few seasons littering the ground and we still have many cold days ahead of us.
 
There is so much we can learn from the seasons and the way they shift, so much we can apply to our lives, with the awareness that our bodies are a part of nature, our lives reflect the cycles and other principles of nature as well.
 
Spring has arrived, yet this does not mean winter is suddenly and magically gone forever. We still have to mourn and to grieve all that we’ve lost over this long winter. This is part of the process for transforming and integrating those losses so that they can become fuel for new ideas, experiences and relationships to bloom in our lives.
 
In nature, death is the fuel that feeds new life. Here where I live, in the forests we can see the leaves that were shed by the trees throughout the fall and winter become the compost that nourishes the soil to grow and sustain life in the spring.
 
Trees that fall and die become a part of the new landscape, shaping new highs and lows on the ground as new layers of soil eventually cover them. Animals that die become food for other animals to survive and carry on with their unique and important roles in their ecosystems, and become nourishment for the soil underneath.
 
Death and life are inextricably linked. Without death, there could be no life.
 
Likewise in our lives, we experience many deaths… both literal and figurative. Yet all those deaths can be transformed into new life. When we allow ourselves to mourn them and to honor them, we can witness this transformation as it occurs.
 
We’ve all lost so much over this long winter.
 
We’ve all lost old ways of living life or old ways of being we’d grown accustomed to. Many of us have had to give up dreams, or parts of a future we’d envisioned for ourselves, when we thought the future would be different from what it ended up becoming.
 
Many of us lost jobs, or old ways of doing our work, or the ways we used to think about our work, the value of our work, and our purpose in the world.
 
All of us lost people who were near and dear to our hearts.
Some of us walked away from harmful relationships, or had to come to terms with someone we loved choosing to walk a different path.
 
Most of us were touched by the deaths of loved ones, whether it was a tragic death from the virus, or a sudden and unexpected accident, or an expected death from long illness or old age… losing a loved one is never easy. And it’s always so painful knowing that a loved one is gone forever, in their physical form.
 
We need to give ourselves the space to grieve and to mourn. When we give ourselves that space, and we honor our losses, we can transform even the deepest losses into nourishment… they can become our inspiration for new ways of thinking, new ways of being, new ways of expressing, new ways of interrelating, new ways of acting and creating…
 
There is so much to celebrate right now, so much potential to be excited for as spring begins. Just remember that if you are struggling with loss, if you are feeling pain, if you are mourning… you are exactly where you need to be. Our celebrations of life cannot be separated from honoring and integrating the deaths we experience in our lives.
 
Whatever you are feeling today, feel it fully, let it be your teacher, let it be your guide, let it shape the landscape of the garden you are growing this coming year, let it inform you of which seeds you want to plant, and which plants you want to nourish and help grow. ​

Did you find this post useful? Would you like to see more like it? If so, comment below letting us know!
​
You can also visit our blog map to find more of our articles, or subscribe to our newsletter or Facebook page to be the first to find out about our next post.

And you'd like to learn belly dance online, check out our available classes here. ​

What if I told you that most of the countless hip isolations we do in belly dance come from just 6 foundational hip movements?
 
Would that motivate you to practice these movements for a few minutes on a regular basis?
 
What if there were 6 videos you could reference, to learn the technique for each of these movements...
 
Would that make learning this beautiful (and surprisingly difficult) dance a little less daunting and intimidating?

If you answered "yes" to these questions, I have good news for you!

Here's my gift to get you started on your belly dance journey with your best hip forward!

Or if you already take belly dance classes (especially one of my classes), these videos are a great tool for practice between classes. 
 
Try out these 6 essential hip movements below: 

Once you're comfortable with the 6 essential hip movements above, challenge yourself with our bonus Hip Combos video below!

Some people do very well with pre-recorded videos... but if you want live feedback & support, our online classes provide that. Check out our schedule below to see what we're offering right now!

A huge theme for this coming year is this idea of embodiment and how we can live our lives in ways that honor our bodies and their physical and emotional needs.

As the year comes to an end, here are a few questions we can reflect on, to help us set the stage for living more embodied lives in 2022:

​

• “What does it feel like to be in my body in this moment? What does the experience of being in my body feel like each day? How has my body been generally feeling throughout this year?”

The answers to these questions will vary from day to day and from moment to moment, and there is no wrong answer. What’s true for you right now?
 
Whether the experience of being in your body is a very pleasant one in this moment (maybe you are enjoying a delicious meal, or smelling a scented candle or you just finished a really fulfilling movement session) or a very unpleasant one (maybe you are sick or injured and in a lot of physical pain, maybe you are suffering from depression or another type of emotional pain), making the time to simply take note of how you feel can be so helpful and important.

• “What can I do to help my body feel better each day? What changes can I start making as I head into 2022, to make the overall experience of being in my body more pleasant next year?”

 
Again, there is no blanket right or wrong answer here, but these questions can help you explore the right answers for you.
 
If there is a form of movement that your body is craving, how can you make that into a regular practice? If there is a type of food that makes you feel good from the inside out, how can you integrate that into your diet?
 
What are the activities that make you happy, that make your heart sing? How can you carve out more time to do them more regularly?
 
Is there anything that doesn’t make you feel good, that you can do away with in your life, or make less time for? Have you been getting enough rest on a weekly basis, or does something need to change so that you can get the rest you need?

There is a misconception that you have to show your belly or wear a fancy costume just to go to class... but this is simply not the case.

In reality, what you need to wear is anything that makes you happy, that you feel comfortable and confident in, and that allows you to move freely. 

You don't have to show your belly unless that makes you happy and you are comfortable with it.

It does help to wear clothes that aren't too loose just so your teacher can see your movements, but you don't have to show skin or wear anything super tight if you are not comfortable with that. 

It's also nice to bring a hip scarf or any fabric to tie around your hips to emphasize your movements, but that is not required.

As for footwear, typically we dance barefoot, but if you are uncomfortable dancing on bare feet, you can wear dance slippers, jazz shoes or foot undeez instead.

If you normally wear orthotics, it's acceptable for you to wear whatever shoes and orthotic inserts you normally wear, but you'll need to check with your teacher about their policy for wearing "street shoes" inside the studio. It's possible that they might ask you to have designated shoes just for dancing if street shoes are not allowed on the studio floors. 

And that's it, so plain and simple! Wear anything comfortable that allows you to move and allows for your movements to be seen, and have fun!
​

Did you find this post helpful? Would you like to see more like it? If so, comment below letting us know!
​
You can also visit our blog map to find more of our articles, or subscribe to our newsletter or Facebook page to be the first to find out about our next post.

And you'd like to learn belly dance online, check out our available classes here. ​

“Belly dance” is a colonial misnomer placed on dances from the Middle East, North Africa, Turkey and Greece. It stereotypes and pigeonholes a rich and complex art form and erases the people and cultures it comes from. Why are we still using the term? Let’s unpack a bit of the history and cultural baggage behind it.
 
Over the past few years and especially the past couple of months, I have been doing a lot of deep reflection on the art form I have dedicated the latter half of my life to, the dance most people where I'm from know as "belly dance."

I have been reflecting deeply on the terminology I use, how to define this dance and how to describe what I do to people who don't know me, to paint a more accurate picture of my life's work. I have also been reflecting on my role as a non-Arab woman, living in the US and teaching an Arab dance. 

The truth is that average people in our culture don't actually know what belly dance is, and upon hearing this term the image they conjure up in their heads is, at worst, a wildly inaccurate representation of what I do, and at best it is a simplistic and incomplete view of an extremely rich, culturally diverse and socially complex art form that is both incredibly beautiful and powerfully transformative. 

The picture of me, sexily shaking my bits in a sparkly 2-piece costume does not even begin to account for everything this dance is, everything it represents, and everything that is involved when someone decides to seriously learn belly dance. The costume and the movement are only a tiny fraction of what this dance actually is or could be.