Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On… Belly Dancing in Rhode Island You don’t have to look like a harem girl to dance like one. In fact, according to Deborah Korkmaz of Dance Oasis in Warwick: what observers remember about a belly dancer is not her age or her size…but her moves. The oldest belly dancer performing today is over 90 years old. It ain’t what you’re shakin’, it’s the way you’re shakin’ it. Sure, stick skinny model types can belly dance, but this is one area where curves are queen and you’re supposed to have a jiggle in your wiggle. Who invented belly dancing? Gypsies? Bored odalisques once upon an Arabian night? Maybe, but it was a guy from New York by the name of Sol Bloom who introduced it to America. Bloom later went on to become a Democratic senator but before that, he was entertainment director for the Chicago World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893. Sol introduced a scandalous attraction called “A Street in Cairo”, which blew the buttons right off the straight laced fairgoers of the time. The show featured snake charmers, camel rides and exotic dancers who paved the way for Little Egypt and Gypsy Rose Lee. Bloom is generally credited, or deplored, for inventing the term “belly dancing.” Likely he simply anglicized the French name for it: danse du ventre or “dance of the stomach.” In America it is still called “belly dancing”, but the art as it’s performed today falls somewhere between hoochie coochie and the ancient folk dances of the Middle East and Africa. Call it what you will…this is a dance of seduction in which women joyfully use what the Good Lord gave ‘em. The bump-and-grind may be finessed, but it’s definitely there. Somehow belly dance manages to be both demure and erotic. Or maybe those terms are not mutually exclusive. American belly dance is sometimes called “orientale” or “raks sharki” but it is basically a combination of folk, classic and baladi including Egyptian, Turkish, Lebanese, Armenian, Greek and Algerian styles. Some Middle Easterners claim to be shocked by how the West has “debased” what they think of as a sacred dance, but many of them consider it a “low” dance even in their own countries. In ancient times, women would publicly belly dance for their dowries. Spectators would throw coins which the women would attach to their clothing. Hence the reason modern belly dancing costumes are often trimmed with jangling coins. Belly dancing is basically an earth-connected, centered dance. The walk is feline: toe, ball, heel…one foot directly in front of the other. Picture a tigress on a tightrope. Unlike today’s club dancing, belly dance is provocative but not lewd. Unlike say, ballet, belly dance moves are natural and unforced; instinctively female. The shoulders roll to lift the breasts; the fingers beckon with a come hither curl. The hip dips, the tummy ripples, the toe circles. An arm snakes up to sweep the hair off the neck (cools the dancer off and looks really sexy, too.) Belly dancing is performed to Eastern music, which sounds very different to our Western ears because it is. Western music is tension and relaxation, in regular rhythm, building on chord progression. Eastern music is arrhythmic or free rhythm and unharmonious, which is not a criticism, just a fact. The instruments are different, too: the riq (tambourine) the oud (lute) the zagat (castanet) and the doumbek (drum) make music that stirs the senses, gets the blood flowing: Dum tek-a-tek. Dum tek-a-tek. Dum tek-a-tek, ching ching! Belly dancing won’t sweat off the pounds like jazzercise but sure, you can lose weight by belly dancing. The staccato hip movements and shimmies burn up calories. Ribcage isolations and hip articulations are challenging to master but can firm and tone your body. The point is, belly dance gets you moving and just about any woman no matter her age or shape can do it. The exercise is isometric, weight-bearing, low impact, and you can do it in chiffon. The movements of orientale and raks sharki are gentle enough even for pregnant women. In fact, Lamaze birthing classes teach many of the same moves that are used in belly dance. I’m told belly dance eases arthritis, low back and neck pain. One of Deborah Korkmaz’s students started belly dancing after she had brain surgery. She swears it’s improved her balance and muscle control. I observed a small class at Deborah’s studio on Warwick Avenue in Warwick. Three ladies plus Deborah, all of them very different in age and body type and personality, executed their hip drops, snake arms, figure eights and shimmies in perfect unison, yet each looked different doing it. Every woman puts her own interpretive spin on the belly dance. Belly dance, in antiquity, was a dance for women, by women. A celebration of the sacred female, if you will. Apparently it still is today. Women who belly dance love being with each other. The group is a circle, welcoming, forgiving, protective and noncompetitive. One of Deborah’s students, Linda Osga, is a Rhode Island yoga instructor. She believes belly dancing and yoga share the same easy, deliberate flow of movements, and both release chi (life energy) and hit many of the same chakras (centers of spiritual energy) “It’s a kind of moving meditation,” she says. Another student of Deborah’s, Amy Budd, is a Providence-based theater artist, who performs an old fashioned strip tease in her popular stage act, which evokes the legendary ladies of burlesque.(See ladymissiris.com) “As a performer,” Amy says, “belly dance helps me refine my burlesque movements, the basic bumps and grinds. As a woman, belly dance has literally changed my shape, gave me curves, defined my waist.” Through a friend of a friend, I found a sixtyish Eastside lady who takes private lessons. First name Ruth, last name, withheld. “The fact that I belly dance is nobody’s business but mine and my husband’s,” she told me. No need to ask Ruth why SHE belly dances… And if the spiritual and physical benefits of belly dance aren’t incentive enough, you get to play dress-up too. To be a belly dancer is to look the part. For classes, the costume is usually a choli (a halter top with sleeves) a gauzy wraparound skirt and a hip scarf, usually trimmed with coins. (According to Deborah, the coin scarves are more than merely decorative. If you’re doing your moves correctly, the coins should jingle in unison.) You shouldn’t belly dance barefoot. You could wear ballet slippers but then nobody could see your toe rings. Deborah suggests a flat soft Hermes sandal that laces up the leg. Other accessories might include necklaces, belly chains and bangle bracelets. And this is just for CLASS. For exhibitions, performances and competitions, everything goes. Veils (you don’t need seven; one will do nicely) headpieces, harem pants, bras, boleros, caftans, overskirts, see-through dresses, scarves, belts and gloves. Usually decorated with embroidery, woven silver, tassels, coins, paillettes, mirrors, sequins, beads or bells. Notions manufacturers must be making billions on the belly dance craze. You can buy bindi to decorate your face, zills (tiny cymbals) for your fingers and bells for your ankles. While you’re at it, put a ruby in your navel and get a tattoo. Dance Oasis stocks imported and handmade belly dance apparel. Deborah says it is actually cheaper to import costumes from the Middle East or Canada (Canada?) than to make them yourself, but be warned: it ain’t cheap to look like a poor slave girl. Each dance, and the culture from which it springs, has its appropriate costume, and props. Dancers may use swords, boas, baskets, fans, candles, canes, or “wings of Isis” which are like something out of a Vegas floor show. Speaking of showgirls, Deborah and her handpicked students form a troupe which performs monthly at Effendi’s Mediterranean Grill on Reservoir Avenue in Cranston. Women: don’t worry: dancers will not grind their hips into your husband’s face. Men: behave yourselves and do not stick dollar bills into the dancer’s cleavage. Go not to leer, but to admire and have a great time. There are several good belly dancing studios and instructors in Rhode Island and throughout New England. What should you look for? Experience, street creds and good word of mouth. Dance Oasis carries insurance, and Deborah Korkmaz asks students for a doctor’s okay before they can enroll. In belly dancing studios here and everywhere, you’ll see women of all ages and sizes undulating to their inner goddess. Some ladies who belly dance say they dance for themselves, but occasionally a lucky husband or boyfriend can score a front row seat. In any case, a woman who belly dances gets back in touch with her femininity and maybe she’ll shed some inhibitions along the way. She feels better about herself and stops obsessing over a little extra flesh or a few gray hairs or some real or imagined imperfections. She holds her head higher, her spine straighter, and sways her hips when she walks. People notice how beautiful she is. Her husband suddenly remembers why he married her. Their sex life improves. All that for a few bucks a week for belly dancing lessons? Yeah, I’d say that’s money well spent.