History and Evolution in Belly Dance and How Instructors Keep Classics Alive While Choreographers Create New Styles - Part One

By Alexandra King

Ballet is a perfect example of how art morphs and becomes defined by the child it bares through fusion. Ballet was born as a simple folk dance - a minute, in the court of Louise IV, in France in 1581. King Louise IV loved the art, he performed with other artists and contributed to the choreography and development of the dance. What King Louise and other monarchs did was marry opera, music and (recreational) dance into a spectacle that went on for hours in the courts of Europe. It was art and entertainment on a grand scale never before seen. France, Italy and England hosted these events primarily, but in time and over the centuries, the art not only morphed into a complex, athletic art but it migrated across continents throughout the world.

What we recognize today as "classical ballet" is the highly developed, romantic version of the earliest iterations of ballet from the 16th century. From a simple, recreational style of dance it evolved into a complex art which is highly athletic, very technical and which focuses on storytelling, versus pure dance. Then, in the twentieth century, it shifted to more abstract choreography and gender-neutral parts. It also began to infuse it's technique with world dance - particularly eastern motifs and technique, giving it an edginess and broadening the characters and therefore the number of parts available to artists. This happened during the Industrial revolution when globalism was happening and west-met-east in all things art! The artist well known for bringing eastern aesthetics to dance in the west was Ruth St. Denis.

In the early twentieth century, Ruth St. Denis brought world (mostly eastern) dance to the art and created the foundation for a "fusion style" we came to know as Modern dance. Her creations inspired choreographers everywhere to blend technique, stories and characters from other cultures into their ballet repertoires. Don Quixote, Bayadere, The Firebird and Schéhérazade to name a few. Much of this fusion came from Russia in the late 19th and early 20th century, which expanded on this trend and improved the quality of the art through rigorous training and discipline.

Russia embraced ballet starting in the late 17th century with the reign of Peter the Great, who introduced it as part of his efforts to westernize Russia. The art form was further developed with the establishment of the Imperial Ballet School in 1738, laying the foundation for its rich history in the country and beyond. Russian ballet, in turn, influenced American choreographers and contributed to the idea of fusion in dance. The dances they adapted were primarily from the "Stans" (Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, etc.), and Armenia. Choreographers took basic steps and movements from these countries and layered them with ballet technique and movement, thus furthering the development of ballet as one of the greatest dance styles in the world.

Then ballet migrated across every continent creating variations on the original classical European and modern styles. Styles such as Danish ballet, Japanese ballet and American Ballet came into being. Each new style added it's own cultural spin to the dance and gave it a new aesthetic and improved training methods. The same thing happened to all dance because globalism brought fusion and tremendous opportunity for choreographers to be creative!

I began dance as a ten-year-old studying ballet, pointe , tap and jazz, and later discovered world dance and in particular belly dance. As an elder from this early period, I have watched the same thing that happened to ballet, happen to flamenco, belly dance and Indian dance. Every 10 years a new style of belly dance has been born, starting with the American Cabaret, then the Egyptian cabaret came to the US, then the American Tribal Belly dance and finally Tribal Fusion. This parallels ballet in that it synthesized the core art with other arts, (break-dancing, Middle Eastern folk and folkloric styles, yoga and even ballet). Every time this happened there was a halaballoo over the changes and the original artists cried - "FAKE ART!" or "CULTURAL APPROPRIATION!" Nothing could be further from the truth!

Cultural appropriation destroys art - fashion- culture, often claiming it is as its own art. One religion, art or cultural norm is adapted into the new version and the old one is oppressed discredited, disrespected or destroyed. The meaning of the original is lost and eventually the original (art, culture or religion) is lost. This is very different than fusion. Fusion, is the process of creating a new art - like a child - with two or more other (things) while maintaining respect and reverence for the old or early versions. Fusion creates a recipe for a new version, without destroying the parents. Examples of this are Jazz, flamenco, Bollywood and the American Cabaret. Where the line crosses is when uneducated dancers and choreographers decide to teach without a. knowing how to teach and b. without knowing the history of their own style

The responsibility for carrying forward the original while teaching or creating the new is always in the hands of the instructors and choreographers. which is why instructors must be well-educated - not only as creators but as teachers. Teaching anything requires an understanding of the principles of instruction as well as knowledge and understanding of the history and evolution of the art one is teaching. And, this is how I have observed the art of belly dance become fractured and old styles fall away - the teachers were not skilled in the art of teaching, and did not know how to integrate the historic styles into a new version.