Customer Reviews

Belly Dancing: The Sensual Art of Energy and Spirit

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

Belly Dancing: The Sensual Art of Energy and Spirit by P. Coluccia, A. Paffrath and J. Putz: While still wondering, should I try oriental dance perhaps? ... I came across this book, and I found it a very encouraging and easy-to-understand introduction for beginners or those who consider taking up belly dance. It gives you a lot of background and history and has great photos. There are very interesting chapters on oriental dance for children, and how it can be helpful for women with painful periods. Next, the movements are explained and illustrated with photos so that even a complete beginner can try them with some success! But the book doesn't stop there, it also has interesting chapters on Eastern music, scents and, yummy!, some great recipes. The book certainly won't replace a good class, but if you want a taster of oriental dance, why not start here! It certainly got me started.

How can a book possibly describe belly dancing? If you think it just can't be done, turn to Belly Dancing: The Sensual Art Of Energy And Spirit by Pina Coluccia, Anette Paffrath and Jean Putz to see just how the dance can be embodied into a book form. A history of belly dance moves from artistic and spiritual insights to physical movement, with chapters focusing on both health benefits and routines. Chapters covering the basic stances and their meanings are also included. Beginners will welcome this clear examination of belly dance routines and meaning.

I really liked this book because it gives you a lot of info regarding the beginings of belly dance and it's a great read for anyone interested in belly dance.

If you want an honest appraisal of what we actually know about the beginnings of the art form and exercise we now call bellydance, read this short article by Ph.D Andrea Deagon:
[...]
Unlike the authors of "sensual art of energy and spirit," Deagon has done research, instead of making stuff up. Exploring women's history should be done honestly, with rigorous documentation.

As we look at Egyptian movies made in the 1940s, we can see that what was called bellydance back then was substantially different than what we call bellydance today, and the dancers of the '40s were much different than the street and village dancers of the late 19th century. To cut to the chase, we really have no way of knowing much about ancient forms of dance, be it for religious or entertainment purposes. A few images and descriptions of Middle Eastern dancers before 1900 survive- not enough to know what the dances really looked like or to understand the complex culture of the dancers.

The authors do bellydance an great disservice by attaching their new age mythological baggage to it. Bellydance is under attack by both Christian and Islamic fundamentalists, and one of the reasons is these false "spirituality" claims. Go to an Egyptian village or talk to one of the Ghawazee about chakras, and all you'll get is a blank stare. Insisting that any dance has some mystical connotation is a sure way to prevent many women from being allowed to participate or even watch it. Supposed ancient meanings of movements have as much relevance to modern bellydance as the mathematical mysticism of Pythagoras does to balancing your checkbook.
Is bellydance sexy? Yes, but no more so than ballet, and in some respects is more modest. You'd never see a bellydancer kick her leg up to her shoulder. The authors have fallen prey to the Western assumption that because a dancer moves more than just her legs, she is being overtly sexual- the same charge colonialists made against uncorseted women all over the world. Do you get sort of high while dancing, as you do with any other healthy exercise? Yes. Does it have anything to do with goddesses or childbirth? Not unless you give that meaning yourself.

The book has a lot of good historical information for bellydancing. It has beautiful pictures too.

I bought this book, looked through it fairly thoroughly (reading every word would clearly be a waste of time in this case), and threw it out.

There is precious little instruction or indeed *information* in this book. What little instruction it provides is inadequately illustrated or not illustrated at all; and given my lack of enthusiasm about the book as a whole, I have already bought another book of better value and will instead get my instruction from that (Belly Dancing For Fitness by Tamalyn Dallal).

What we have instead is a lot of guff about goddesses, a lot of gratuitous swipes at Western attitudes and history (which the authors of the book clearly don't understand), too much talk about the pelvic floor muscles and female genitalia (we got the idea; no need to belabor it in graphic detail), too much about pregnancy (sort of a niche subject for a book this size) and dancing with snakes (same). On the other hand, I saw nothing about actually playing the zils (finger cymbals). There was instead a totally irrelevant section at the end about chakras and Middle Eastern food, which has nothing at all to do with learning to belly dance.

One has to wonder what the publisher was thinking. If this book was simply devised to 'get one in the mood' and revel in the naughty daringness of it all, I suppose the book takes a step in that direction. Personally I found it annoyingly beside-the-point, unhelpful, flaky, and a waste of time and money.

I was very pleased with this book, it was in excellant shape and I recieved it quickly.

The author and their publishing/public relations people, whoever, needed to have re-thought this choice of review. I wonder how many people are turned away by it. I for one am. Are the Bellydance Superstars skinny little sticks??? -- Excuse me if I don't understand the specific dimensions of what constitutes a stick. I think I'll try another bellydance book.

I was looking for a nice book on bellydance, but just from the review, I can tell this isn't a very nice book. According to the review: "Skinny little stick women look funny doing this dance but regular sized women suddenly look graceful, elegant, and confidently sexy."

So I guess only the minority of women who are "regular size" can do this dance. That leaves out the 60 percent of American's who are overweight and whatever percentage are underweight. Or if "regular" means overweight here, then that leaves out the 40 percent who aren't.

Whatever it is, it's not nice to be dissing women that way! Bellydance is a dance for women by women and should be supportive of ALL women, not critical like that. There's enough of that out there already!

And, by the way, Rachel Brice could be described as one of those skinny stick women and she looks AWESOME and is an amazing dancer. The same could be said for Sonia (from Sonia and Issam Bellydance: The Art of the Drum Solo) and Adore, currently touring with Bellydance Superstars.

Your friend Tom.
i agree with holly. the review of a book is chosen by the author or publisher to represent the contents of a book. choosing an offensive critique of women in general as either "skinny little stick women" or "regular women" does say a lot about the contents of the book or it shouldnt of been chosen. i think its disgusting. reviews are listed by authors and publishers to represent the contents of a book, period. toned and fit women are attractive as belly dancers as watching the body and muscles moving is more interesting than watching a bowl of jello bouncing. describing overweight women as regular only enforces are cultures chronic obesity and all the associtated health problems as diabetis and heart disease etc. this isnt at all necessary and very offensive.