Belly dancer performs, gives lessons at Mt. Lebanon Public Library
For her next belly-dancing number, you won’t even see Sourie Iskabah’s belly to begin.
”Excuse me while I do a slight costume adjustment here,” she told her audience July 20 at Mt. Lebanon Public Library as she draped a shiny beige veil over her blue-green bedlah outfit.
Starting with demonstrating the art with a pair of performances and concluding with a lesson complete with class participation, Iskabah provided a history of belly dancing, from its ancient origins through modern methods, during a well-attended library program.
Her first dance featured a cane, which balanced perfectly on her head as she went through a series of complex moves in the latter half of the number, prompting one participant to ask: “The cane has glue on it?”
Of course not, as has been the case since the cane dance started in Egypt, with the performances originally done by men.
“It was much more folkloric in nature. The men didn’t do the intricate belly moves and the intricate footwork,” Iskabah explained. “It was typical for the women to take the cane off of the men and mock them with it, jokingly. So the women then started to dance with the cane.”
The origins of belly dancing are a subject of speculation, but suffice it to say that cave drawings depict such activities. Egypt, India, Greece and Mesopotamia – today, that’s Iraq – are among the nations that lay claim to providing long-ago starting points.
The art form eventually made its way to Europe and then the United States, notably with the performances of a dancer called Little Egypt at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893. Three years later, the same woman possibly was featured in a Thomas Edison film, which Iskabah showed during her program.
She also showed videos portraying notable contemporary performers, including Rachel Brice and her Indigo Belly Dance Company, and the San Francisco-based troupe Fat Chance Belly Dance.
As for the interactive portion of the program, nearly everyone present participated in learning such moves as “snake arms,” and “Persian arms” and “camels,” and then doing their best to execute them under Iskabah’s direction, with all stomachs staying shirt-covered.
As for Iskabah, the Charleroi native and Regent Square resident studies under Amy Cottrill, who under her dancing name of Amethyst is nationally known. Both women will participate in a free performance and mini-lesson from 2 to 3 p.m. Aug. 13 at Piccadilly Artisan Yogurt in Mt. Lebanon, where you’ll be able to give it a try, yourself.
And you won’t even have to bare your belly.