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What is Pharaonic Dance? - Page 2© Shira
Of course, modern dance was important to Western culture for many, many reasons. The early modern dance artists who were inspired by motifs of ancient Egypt and Greece may not have been historically correct in their depictions, but they reinvented the entire institution of theatrical dance in Western society. Today, we need to view their work as wonderfully creative innovation, not as re-enactment of ancient dance.
"Some years ago I saw some modern dancing girls perform Egyptian dances. The common characteristics of all these dances were the insipid, jerky movements, unaesthetic postures, and abrupt turns of limbs. Although some of the girls asserted that it was the ancient Egyptian pictures of Egyptian dancers which they copied, I could not recollect seeing such movements and postures on any ancient Egyptian pictures." Lexova's book contains 76 pages of illustrations, and interestingly the only two that show the right-angle wrist and elbow positions that we normally associate with Pharaonic dance are figures 77 and 78, which are not Egyptian at all, but rather come from Etruscan tombs in Italy. Lexova's point, of course, is that the early 20th century dancers who brought this "Egyptian" posturing on stage were certainly not using real Egyptian information as their source. Still, even if Lexova could find no historical, factual link to ancient Egypt in those angular arm poses, Europeans and North Americans now widely associate them with that culture. Unfortunately, the ancient Egyptians didn't leave behind any video tapes or DVD's for us to show what their dance forms looked like. We have to guess as best we can from the artwork and textual descriptions left behind. Pharaonic dance is not a mainstream part of the Oriental dance scene today. Once in a while someone will do it, but more likely you could sit through an entire belly dancing festival without seeing any Pharaonic dance at all. I'm not knowledgeable about modern dance, so I can't comment on whether the use of ancient Egypt by Isadora Duncan and Ruth St. Denis for inspiration has continued today among those who have built on their original visions. Within the belly dancing community, you are most likely to see Pharaonic dance in these situations: Video Delilah from Seattle has done some work with Pharaonic dance, and is even working on an entirely Pharaonic video for future release that would include some performance and some instruction. In the meantime, you might take a look at her video titled "Dance to the Great Mother", which captures a Pharaonic dance she created to celebrate the role of women as life-givers. In her performance on this video, Delilah is 8 months pregnant. See the "Resources" section below for more information.
The copyright of the article What is Pharaonic Dance? - Page 2 in Middle Eastern Dance is owned by Shira. Permission to republish What is Pharaonic Dance? - Page 2 in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
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