What is Folkloric Belly Dancing?

Series Summary

The various strains and versions of Middle Eastern Dance have become commonly referred to as Belly Dancing in the West, despite the multiple origins and cultural mysteries. It is generally accepted that the tribal and religious dances that we recognize as belly dancing originated in Egypt, though it's also true that Turkey and the Roma people practiced versions as well. Today, belly dancing is performed in the Western world as a form of entertainment, exercise and as a hobby. In this free belly dancing video series, belly dance instructor and professional dancer Johanna 'Xenobia' Krynytzky teaches folkloric belly dancing moves. Krynytzky gives demonstrations of many moves, including shoulder pushes and pulls, hip drops, hagalla walks, bumps and pops, and more. Krynytzky also gives tips for practicing the moves piece by piece, covering which muscles are used and how to drill the technique into muscle memory. Belly dancing is an art that requires great practice to teach the body fluid movements, and Krynytzky gives advice any dancer could appreciate.

Video Transcript

"Folkloric Styling in your Belly Dance comes from many different places. There's many different cultures and villages and they each have their own unique styling or signature moves that are indigenous to their areas. So sometimes when you're dancing to a piece of music, it could be a beautiful, oriental floor piece that has orchestra music, it's cabaret style. But there's little parts that might call for a little bit of folkloric moves cause I'll put in some of the more folkloric and traditional musicians and musical instruments in the music so that you want to then match that with some of those steps. So it's very important to be familiar with some of the folkloric stylings of the different areas so that you can incorporate that into your belly dance and make it a lot more earthy and get the feel for the music and really bring the tradition into your dance. And it fills it out very nicely. And makes the dance be a lot more encompassing of all the different cultures that you might represent, even in just one dance. So, be sure to study up on some of the different folkloric stylings and we'll probably have a few here for you too to check out. So stay tune."