Originally published in Shimmy Magazine. Jan 2010.

Bellydance is very near & dear to my soul. In fact, I first learned about bellydance through my own interest in meditative & sacred dance practices more than 15 years ago! It was back in 1994 that my own love for meditative movement inspired further research. It didn’t take long for bellydance to come up in my search as it is considered to be rooted in the worlds most ancient dance practices.

What I learned though my initial searches only confirmed what I already knew to be true on intuitive levels. This being that dance was originally practiced as a form of celebration, community & personal enrichment long before it ever evolved into the performance art that it has today become. The feeling of community, camaraderie & spiritedness present at the core of our dance is still prevalently experienced, expressed & shared by Middle Eastern dance artists of today.

To the Egyptians, dance has always been embraced as an expression of celebration, joy & sharing. Herein lays the true motivating essence behind Middle Eastern dance. In this way, Bellydance is as much of an “inward dance” as it is a physical display. Celebration of social connectivity continues to be the predominant feeling present at the root of traditional style Middle Eastern dance. Whether you are dancing for social enrichment, holistic wellness, personal pleasure or professional performance, in the eyes of a middle eastern audience member, the best dancers are the ones who can accurately convey the inward, emotional aspects of the dance through their performance.

This brings us to the importance of learning how to connect with your own inner being and with others on essence levels with your dancing. In order to cultivate an ability to convey the true heart of bellydance, one must approach their training from a holistic perspective –mind, body and spirit. There’s a time for drilling the physical body, for focusing the mind and a time for just allowing the spirit to dance freely. A true master expresses a unity of all aspects of the self while dancing & thus creates a space for spectators to awaken the same within themselves. This is the Yoga of bellydance.

Here are some tips for cultivating an understanding of essence of bellydance.

1. Learn to FEEL your music. Get out of your head & into your spirit with your dancing.
2. Learn about the structure Middle Eastern music & dancing to it in the classical form.
3. Watch old video clips of actual Middle Eastern dancers, paying attention to the feelings, essence or energy they convey with there dancing.
4. Go to Arabic clubs & watch middle easterners dance socially. Dance with them, lets them show you how to convey the spirit of mid-east dance.

Check out this performance. This dancers tecnhique is not the most polished or refined in the world but she really gets the true essence of Baladi music & dance (folkoric music & dance of the people) and the croud absolutely LOVES her for it.