Egyptian dancers call for protecting belly dance
Several belly dancers in Egypt are leading a campaign to preserve their traditional dance from whom they describe as intruders that have sexualized the dance performance.
Egyptian oriental dancers have been fighting to protect their profession from "intruders" who they feel distort the dance style for a long time. But as more non-Egyptian dancers are coming to Egypt to start their career and new music genres emerge, the fight becomes tougher.
Most Egyptian oriental dancers used to dance to classical Arab music or songs by Umm Kulthum by translating the melodies through their body moves and using their faces and muscles to express the meanings of the songs, without uttering a word. These performances would give the audience a kind of sacred feeling and pure enjoyment of this authentic Egyptian art form.
Although few Egyptian dancers such as Fifi Abdou, Dina, Lucy and others still offer this great experience, a new generation of dancers prefers to dance to "mahraganat" ("festival") songs. Mahraganat is a genre of Egyptian electronic and street music that first emerged in the wake of the 2011 revolution.
“Few dancers now dance to traditional music. I prefer to dance to mahraganat because it gets people dancing and jumping due to its fast beats,” Nora, an Egyptian belly dancer who dances in different venues in Cairo, told Al-Monitor.
