Beyond Moves, Combos, and Choreography

Belly Dance Fitness..â is a new exciting workout. Dynamic Aerobics Oz Style instructor Taryn Noble is assisted by popular belly dancer, Seda Jurin, to show how you can combine all the fitness principles with the beauty and grace of belly dancing movements. Includes extra bonus features.

Sumptuous color photography combined with comprehensive and detailed easy-to-follow instructions demonstrate a unique way for women to get and keep fit while expressing their sensuality through Belly Dancing. Would-be dancers who have longed to learn the intricacies of this ancient dance form can now experience the pleasure of learning and mastering all the basic steps, putting together an individualized routine and adding magic to their performance with veils, swords, and the tiny finger cymbals known as zills . Each complex movement of the body is painstakingly broken down into concise step-by-step directions that are easy to follow. Perfect for the basic beginner, the instructions also offer alternatives and additions to the movements to accommodate a dancer’s growing skill. The lavish sequence of images captures each delicately curved hip and splayed finger; the arch of a foot and the arc of a backbend; and the careful placement of a leg. You can practically see the stomach rippling sinuously, the hips shimmying wildly, and the hair whipping around as the dancer twirls.

In these essays, dancers and scholars from around the world carefully consider the transformation of an improvised folk form from North Africa and the Middle East into a popular global dance practice. They explore the differences between the solo improvisational forms of North Africa and the Middle East, often referred to as raqs sharki, which are part of family celebrations, and the numerous globalized versions of this dance form, belly dance, derived from the movement vocabulary of North Africa and the Middle East but with a variety of performance styles distinct from its site of origin. Local versions of belly dance have grown and changed along with the role that dance plays in the community. The global evolution of belly dance is an inspiring example of the interplay of imagination, the internet and the social forces of local communities. All royalties are being donated to Women for Women International, an organization dedicated to supporting women survivors of war through economic, health, and social education programs. The contributors are proud to provide continuing sponsorship to such a worthwhile and necessary cause.

Spice things up with exotic music, the twirl of silk, and the rhythmic clapping of finger cymbals. This instructional book includes floor gymnastics, back bends, poses, and stretches--and proves that belly dancing can be as easy and fulfilling as yoga.

This study examines the popular appropriation of Middle Eastern belly dance in the United States. Female American belly dancers find themselves engaging in an activity that has been informed by often contradictory discourses of women's sexuality. These discourses stem from a history including the fascination of European colonialists with Middle Eastern dancers; its importation to World's Fairs and cabarets; its highlighted role at tourist destinations in Middle Eastern countries; and its feminist appropriation as an index of the shifting views of female sexuality in the United States. Given the various connotations of the dance, dancers need to employ both delimited and expansive strategies as they find themselves constantly in the process of reframing the meanings of their performances, strategically colluding with or working against the meanings embedded in the popular image of the dance. For the dancers, these strategies are employed most visibly in terms of style, including costuming, movements, attitude, facial expressions, and music, as well as verbal maneuvering within these categories. While genre works to contain the dance and to offer a sense of continuity, style allows it flexibility and becomes the place where appropriation works and change happens. Focusing on the dynamics of style and its importance to the rhetorical strategies of the dancers, this study explores the many ways in which global is annexed into the local practice of belly dance in America.