A Canadian Family

“The truest expression of a people is in its dance and in its music.” – Agnes de Mille

This is one of a series of posts that will chronicle dance in our family

from the early 20th to the early 21st century!

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Guest Post by Carol-Ann

My earliest memory of dancing was dancing on my father’s feet as a little girl. I also took some tap and ballet while growing up. So when I hit middle age and was looking for an interesting kind of low impact exercise – Belly Dancing looked to be a good fit. I’ve been dancing for about a decade now and have tried several different types of oriental dance to keep up the interest factor. It’s fun to dance to unfamiliar exotic music and the ‘jingle’ belts and costumes really motivate you to keep swinging those hips. It may be low impact (easier on the joints) but it’s a real aerobic workout nonetheless. Classes are available at all kinds of venues – local cultural centers, theatres, dance schools and gyms.

It is known as ‘Baladi’ in Quebec but is also known by many other names such as Belly Dance, Oriental Dance or Middle Eastern Dance/folkdance. It generally describes a group of dances originating from a wide geographic region including Asia, the Middle East and Africa. The influence of the traditional cultures in each region gave rise to many sub categories of dance from Egyptian/Raqs Sharqi to Lebanese folkdance.

Baladi is a living art form. It evolves as it is shared between women with each successive dancer adding a pinch of her own spice to the mix before passing it on to another. As individual dancers are influenced by the world around them new styles will continue to appear as they have for countless centuries. Read more »

April 17, 2010 Posted by Evelyn Yvonne Theriault | . | baladi, belly dancing, dance | 1 Comment