Walking the Wall

Up too late yet again, and browsing through Wikipedia on various and unrelated topics, I came across this notation under Belly Dancing, or specifically,  Raqs Sharqi (the original name for Belly Dancing), or even more specifically, what caught my attention:

“It is a woman’s dance,
celebrating sensuality and power of being a woman. Sohair Zaki, Fifi
Abdou, Lucy, Dina, who are all popular dancers in Egypt, are above the
age of 40. Many feel that you have limited life experiences to use as a
catalyst for dance until you reach ‘a certain age’.”

This
is of interest to me as learning to Belly Dance  is on my list of
“things to do
before I die” (now that the jumping out of airplanes is checked
off)  and I am quite relieved to learn that not only am I not
too old to learn…I’m actually a little to young to really do it well!
I agree that belly dancing is a very sensual and powerful
representation of the female and this idea is supported by the f act
that, apparently, belly dancing wasn’t even anything meant to be seen
by a male (the men having their own belly dancers–who were male). It was a woman’s art that was shared only with other women.  What
is provocative about this style of dance is how upholding it is to
women as individuals: it is a dance originated by women for woman; one
needn’t be a size 2–in fact, quite the opposite, a bit of
curvaciousness (I’m not certain that is a word)  lends itself to the art; while there are moves specific
to the style, all in all it is a freeform style of individual
expression, and more importantly, you can even use a sword! Surprising
that what is often viewed as a sexist thing women in harems were forced
to perform for male entertainment–is actually a powerful statement of
female expression.