THank you for your thoughts, SanderO. They are very interesting and insightful to me. And that's okay; most people don't understand belly dance. I wrote an article a while back that explains some of the characteristics and aesthetics, mostly via a comparison to western dance forms such as ballet. comparison of belly dance and western dance. If it seems biased towards belly dance it is only because its purpose is to explain what belly dance is, not to exhault ballet as high art (most people already know the latter).
Also, just for comparative purposes, a different dancer dancing very purely in the Egyptian style to the same piece of music:
I mostly agree with this. As much as I admire ballet, I wouldn't call it *the* ultimate aesthetic but it is amazing and beautiful. I just think there are other dances and ways of moving just as amazing, but in other ways and for different reasons. I do completely agree that most people merely inhabit their bodies and lumber around, a fact I find very sad. It is sad because just about anyone could be more than that if they valued the function and potential of their bodies more.
Yes, pretty much. There is a lot of bad fusion out there. Some of us are purists who are offended by the concept that the dance needs to be westernized or "made better" by adding ballet to it, but at the same time fusion can be great art when well done, and Sabah does a very nice job with this. Very few dancers are so proficient in ballet and belly dance as to be able to pull this off. I would hate to see it catch on as a trendy thing in which every ballet dancer who's had a belly dance class (or vice versa) butchers both forms by trying to combine them.
Me too!!