Belly Dancing Information

In 2 days, me and my mom are going to start a belly dancing class together (I am 13). She brought it up a couple of days ago, and we both thought it would be fun. We both like the graceful way they move their bodies and their beautiful costumes. We are doing a class together, so it is like a mother-daughter thing. I am actually looking forward to it, which surprises me, because I have always laughed at the thought of belly dancers. So, I was just wondering, what does everybody else think about belly dancing?

I really enjoy Belly Dancing. Honestly, it is an AMAZING work out.

When I first started, the first 10 minutes of Belly Dancing hurt worst than the first time I did an hour of Hip Hop Abs.

It takes a lot of muscle control to do the dances properly, and gracefully.

I hope you have fun!

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I live in York, Pennsylvania and would like to take a belly dancing class, preferably no more then 15 minutes from my home! Mostly because I haven’t achieved my license yet, so my mum still has to drive me, and refuses to drive further then that.

Help please? : (

Shira.net has a few PA teachers listed.
http://www.shira.net/directory/dir-us-pa.htm

To find a teacher within 15 minutes you’ll have to be very, very lucky. There might be some local classes that aren’t showing on the internet. If you can’t find a teacher, take some other form of dance, and/or yoga to get you into condition for when you do manage to get to a class further away.

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Ive benn belly dancing for a few mon ths and i cant find hip scarfs anywhere i dont want to buy online is i live in los angeles california and im thinking down town or cerritos mall, please help!

Do you want coins, tassels and fringe, burned out velvet? etc.?

I buy almost all my hip scarves online. Here are some sites that I use all the time: (The Red Camel has lurex scarves very inexpensive!)

http://www.missbellydance.com/Hip_Scarf_s/111.htm

http://www.bellydance-shop.com/index.php

http://www.moondancebellydance.com/

http://theredcamel.tripod.com/index.html

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i start next week. I am latina and i can move my hips.
I think learning belly dancing is gonna be so much fun!!

Do I have to show my belly thou? I don’t now what to wear. Shouldn’t I wear something that shows how my belly is moving so the instructor can correct me?

Thanks!

I think wearing a form fitting tank top, leggings, and a belly dancing wrap (those things with the jingly bell things) would be appropriate, and cute. When I took belly dancing classes everyone wore something similar to that. In most places wearing revealing clothing can be looked down upon and makes others feel intimidated, especially if you are "sexy". Belly dancing is a lot of fun, but it IS harder than it looks, and you will feel results immediately!

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I am 14 and love the art of dancing. I have been dancing all my life and i want to try something new as i usually stick to Street Dancing. How old would i have to be to start belly dancing and where is a good place to go in Nottingham , UK for teenagers to start? Thankyou

You don’t know if you don’t ask so here some links to look at.

http://www.tatihafsa.com/

http://nottinghambellydance.co.uk/ (this teacher instructs students under 16)

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is belly dancing a good way to help get rid of/minimize love handles? do you have any dvds you could recommend?
thanks!
generally, its a good thing to help you get back in shape. but, normally women who belly dance have more hips and weight in that area.

some gyms have belly dancing classes, and some rec centers too. type bellydancing classes into google with your area code ad see what comes up.

otherwise, try amazon.com for some dvds, or a bookstore.

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Salsa is a internationally popular dance style that has it’s roots in Latin America, Africa, the Caribbean and North America. The Word Salsa translates as the world for sauce and also can-notes a spicy flavor hence the sensual aesthetic of the dance.

The origins of salsa start in cuba when African rhythms came to the new world through slave trade in the form of the rumba. The sounds of these ancient times were used to call forth various Gods. Slaves were forced to convert to Christianity but managed to preserve their heritage by using code words to refer to their own Gods. In Cuba, African drum rhythms blended with the cuban official music and dance of Danzon. A style known as the Cuban son emerged and we now start to hear the claves play a central part of afro-cuban music.

Radio Broadcasting came to Cuba in 1922 along with Americans seeking to escape prohibition laws. This exposed a large population of westerners to cuban son and for the first time, afro-carribean music became popular in america. Renamed the Rumba, the music and dancing begin to appear in American salons in the 1930s and is still a popular style today among ballroom dancers. The rumba in many ways looks like a slower version of salsa. It’s got some of the footwork elements, the cuban hip motion, and arm styling.

Even with the Danzon (which has its origins in English social dancing), you can see the beginnings of the basic back and forward break of the basic time step.

In the early 1900s a cuban composer named Orestes Lopez wrote a Danzon piece called Mambo. In 1943, a famous band leader and a friend of Lopez named Perez Prado began to call his own brand of music “Mambo” meaning “conversation with the Gods”. The African influence is clear from the name. Perez’s Mambo was a more upbeat version of the Cuban music that contained big brass and drum sound to it. The story goes that he came up with a dance to go with his Mambo music and introduced the Mambo dance at La Tropicana night-club in Havana in the year 1943. Prado Perez took tour in the United states in 1951 and Mambo became a craze and Perez became known as the famed Mambo King.

The mambo dance first appeared in the United States in New York’s Park Plaza Ballroom - a favorite hangout of enthusiastic dancers from Spanish Harlem. However, the real breakthrough for the Mambo came when it gained its excitement in 1947 at the Palladium which was located in downtown Manhattan. The Palladium opened its doors as a club for whites only. However business was poor and so a Spanish music promoter named Federico Purgani was able to persuade the club owner to book latin music. He agreed but for Sunday matinees only. It opened its doors to Puerto Ricans and Cubans and became a rare spot where whites, blacks, and latinos could come together. From the doors of the palladium, the music and dance style known as the Mambo took America by storm. The palladium era were the glory days of Mambo and the nights were filled with the rhythms of the three Mambo Kings Tito Rodriguez, Tito Puete and Machito. Both of the Tito’s brought a Puerto Rican influence to mambo music and also their fusion of jazz into the Afro-Cuban sound added another wonderful layer of complexity paving the way for a new flavor of latin music that would be later called “Salsa”.

Palladium Mambo and cha-cha was the progenitor of Salsa but is still quite different. It had a lot more open work and the dancers dance on all different beats. There was no dancing on1 or on2 and there was no formalized technique. Dancers of different backgrounds such as ballroom, tap, jazz and swing all danced the mambo a their own way.

May 1966 marked the end of the palladium era as the nightclub closed its doors and the big 3 found their new home inside The Corso. Mambo music was played almost every night of week and it was here that a young Puerto Rican man named Eddie Torres learned how to dance the mambo by watching the dancers in the club. By this time, The mambo had already evolved into a slot dance and the cross body lead was there.

The 1970s gave rise to merengae, early forms of hip hop, disco and the hustle. Which was cool, okay kind of, well, i guess it’s not as bad as boy bands.

Among other aficionados, Eddie Torres kept mambo alive by teaching the dance and standardizing the break step on the 2 and the 6. Torres began to dance on 2 when June Laberta explained music theory to him. Tito Puente Also confirmed to Torres that dancing on 2 was a marriage with the music because the break step synchronizes with the accented slap of the conga drum.

1973 A Puerto Rican named Izzy Sanabria launched a TV show called “Salsa” along with Latin NY Magazine and in 1975, Latin NY Magazine hosted it’s first ever Salsa Awards. Coverage of this event by the N.Y. Times, News-week and Time magazine generated worldwide interest in what seemed to be a new form of music. Some musicians protested the term “salsa” complaining that Izzy was merely putting a new label on Cuban music but in many ways, it was new and had evolved to something unique in its own right.

What was originally of African Cuban origin had found a home in America and adopted by the Latino community of New York. Innovations made by Puerto Rican musicians such as Tito Puente, Tito Rodriguez, Willie Colon and Hector Lavoe transformed Afro-Cuban based music to a unique New York Latin Music. Modern salsa is something that was evolved here through the fusion of different cultural influences making what some might consider a home grown American phenomenon.

In the 1980s Eddie Torres began to formalize mambo 0n2 and made it something professional dancers could learn by standardizing the basic time step and teaching a repertoire of moves that had names to them. We now call the dance salsa since the term salsa has become internationally accepted to refer to music of African-Cuban origin as well as New York’s Latin music and their dances. Moving salsa education out of the street and into the studio made it much easier for students of the dance to learn spins and as result, the salsa today emphasizes more partner-work and closed position dancing. This is also attributed to the popularity of the hustle in the latino community during and their incorporation the partner-work into salsa, so I guess some good did come out of the disco days after all. Formalizing salsa made the dance much more marketable because it meant it could be taught in a class. Now Studios all around the world offer salsa classes and has become one the most popular social dance styles. There are people dancing salsa in London, Taiwan, Korea, India, even japan.

So in a nutshell, africans were brought over to cuba as a result of the slave trade. Their music blended with that of the cubans and a marriage between the clave and african drums was now formed. Mambo came along much thanks to Perez Parado who took it to america, he introduced the big band sound by adding brass instruments and Americans loved it and so began the glory days of mambo, innovation by New York’s puerto rican musicians added a element of jazz and the sound of the pianos. The music was transformed into what Izzy Sanabria labeled as salsa.

Pereze Parado spiced up Danzon and taught a new more energetic dance called the mambo. The mambo came to the U.S. and incorporated elements of ballroom, swing, jazz, and tap while preserving it’s latin steps. In the 70s, the influence of the partner-work aspect of the hustle left it’s mark on the mambo and was brought off the street and into the studio in the 1980s by Eddie Torres and was now called the salsa.

The history tells a story of a style of dance that is really a fusion of many different cultures and the dance continues to evolve this way today, with the newer generation mixing in components of hip-hop, belly dancing, and adding lifts and aerial moves from ballroom and swing. So now that you know the awesome rich kick ass history of salsa dancing, you’ll be able to go out and dance as a informed individual but more than just filling your head with knowledge and turning you into a salsa brainiac, I hope that this short article has help you gain a new appreciation of our awesome spicy saucy dance known as salsa! Thanks for reading

Todd
http://www.articlesbase.com/sports-and-fitness-articles/the-history-of-salsa-dancing-706739.html

read comments (3)

Salsa is a internationally popular dance style that has it’s roots in Latin America, Africa, the Caribbean and North America. The Word Salsa translates as the world for sauce and also can-notes a spicy flavor hence the sensual aesthetic of the dance.

The origins of salsa start in cuba when African rhythms came to the new world through slave trade in the form of the rumba. The sounds of these ancient times were used to call forth various Gods. Slaves were forced to convert to Christianity but managed to preserve their heritage by using code words to refer to their own Gods. In Cuba, African drum rhythms blended with the cuban official music and dance of Danzon. A style known as the Cuban son emerged and we now start to hear the claves play a central part of afro-cuban music.

Radio Broadcasting came to Cuba in 1922 along with Americans seeking to escape prohibition laws. This exposed a large population of westerners to cuban son and for the first time, afro-carribean music became popular in america. Renamed the Rumba, the music and dancing begin to appear in American salons in the 1930s and is still a popular style today among ballroom dancers. The rumba in many ways looks like a slower version of salsa. It’s got some of the footwork elements, the cuban hip motion, and arm styling.

Even with the Danzon (which has its origins in English social dancing), you can see the beginnings of the basic back and forward break of the basic time step.

In the early 1900s a cuban composer named Orestes Lopez wrote a Danzon piece called Mambo. In 1943, a famous band leader and a friend of Lopez named Perez Prado began to call his own brand of music “Mambo” meaning “conversation with the Gods”. The African influence is clear from the name. Perez’s Mambo was a more upbeat version of the Cuban music that contained big brass and drum sound to it. The story goes that he came up with a dance to go with his Mambo music and introduced the Mambo dance at La Tropicana night-club in Havana in the year 1943. Prado Perez took tour in the United states in 1951 and Mambo became a craze and Perez became known as the famed Mambo King.

The mambo dance first appeared in the United States in New York’s Park Plaza Ballroom - a favorite hangout of enthusiastic dancers from Spanish Harlem. However, the real breakthrough for the Mambo came when it gained its excitement in 1947 at the Palladium which was located in downtown Manhattan. The Palladium opened its doors as a club for whites only. However business was poor and so a Spanish music promoter named Federico Purgani was able to persuade the club owner to book latin music. He agreed but for Sunday matinees only. It opened its doors to Puerto Ricans and Cubans and became a rare spot where whites, blacks, and latinos could come together. From the doors of the palladium, the music and dance style known as the Mambo took America by storm. The palladium era were the glory days of Mambo and the nights were filled with the rhythms of the three Mambo Kings Tito Rodriguez, Tito Puete and Machito. Both of the Tito’s brought a Puerto Rican influence to mambo music and also their fusion of jazz into the Afro-Cuban sound added another wonderful layer of complexity paving the way for a new flavor of latin music that would be later called “Salsa”.

Palladium Mambo and cha-cha was the progenitor of Salsa but is still quite different. It had a lot more open work and the dancers dance on all different beats. There was no dancing on1 or on2 and there was no formalized technique. Dancers of different backgrounds such as ballroom, tap, jazz and swing all danced the mambo a their own way.

May 1966 marked the end of the palladium era as the nightclub closed its doors and the big 3 found their new home inside The Corso. Mambo music was played almost every night of week and it was here that a young Puerto Rican man named Eddie Torres learned how to dance the mambo by watching the dancers in the club. By this time, The mambo had already evolved into a slot dance and the cross body lead was there.

The 1970s gave rise to merengae, early forms of hip hop, disco and the hustle. Which was cool, okay kind of, well, i guess it’s not as bad as boy bands.

Among other aficionados, Eddie Torres kept mambo alive by teaching the dance and standardizing the break step on the 2 and the 6. Torres began to dance on 2 when June Laberta explained music theory to him. Tito Puente Also confirmed to Torres that dancing on 2 was a marriage with the music because the break step synchronizes with the accented slap of the conga drum.

1973 A Puerto Rican named Izzy Sanabria launched a TV show called “Salsa” along with Latin NY Magazine and in 1975, Latin NY Magazine hosted it’s first ever Salsa Awards. Coverage of this event by the N.Y. Times, News-week and Time magazine generated worldwide interest in what seemed to be a new form of music. Some musicians protested the term “salsa” complaining that Izzy was merely putting a new label on Cuban music but in many ways, it was new and had evolved to something unique in its own right.

What was originally of African Cuban origin had found a home in America and adopted by the Latino community of New York. Innovations made by Puerto Rican musicians such as Tito Puente, Tito Rodriguez, Willie Colon and Hector Lavoe transformed Afro-Cuban based music to a unique New York Latin Music. Modern salsa is something that was evolved here through the fusion of different cultural influences making what some might consider a home grown American phenomenon.

In the 1980s Eddie Torres began to formalize mambo 0n2 and made it something professional dancers could learn by standardizing the basic time step and teaching a repertoire of moves that had names to them. We now call the dance salsa since the term salsa has become internationally accepted to refer to music of African-Cuban origin as well as New York’s Latin music and their dances. Moving salsa education out of the street and into the studio made it much easier for students of the dance to learn spins and as result, the salsa today emphasizes more partner-work and closed position dancing. This is also attributed to the popularity of the hustle in the latino community during and their incorporation the partner-work into salsa, so I guess some good did come out of the disco days after all. Formalizing salsa made the dance much more marketable because it meant it could be taught in a class. Now Studios all around the world offer salsa classes and has become one the most popular social dance styles. There are people dancing salsa in London, Taiwan, Korea, India, even japan.

So in a nutshell, africans were brought over to cuba as a result of the slave trade. Their music blended with that of the cubans and a marriage between the clave and african drums was now formed. Mambo came along much thanks to Perez Parado who took it to america, he introduced the big band sound by adding brass instruments and Americans loved it and so began the glory days of mambo, innovation by New York’s puerto rican musicians added a element of jazz and the sound of the pianos. The music was transformed into what Izzy Sanabria labeled as salsa.

Pereze Parado spiced up Danzon and taught a new more energetic dance called the mambo. The mambo came to the U.S. and incorporated elements of ballroom, swing, jazz, and tap while preserving it’s latin steps. In the 70s, the influence of the partner-work aspect of the hustle left it’s mark on the mambo and was brought off the street and into the studio in the 1980s by Eddie Torres and was now called the salsa.

The history tells a story of a style of dance that is really a fusion of many different cultures and the dance continues to evolve this way today, with the newer generation mixing in components of hip-hop, belly dancing, and adding lifts and aerial moves from ballroom and swing. So now that you know the awesome rich kick ass history of salsa dancing, you’ll be able to go out and dance as a informed individual but more than just filling your head with knowledge and turning you into a salsa brainiac, I hope that this short article has help you gain a new appreciation of our awesome spicy saucy dance known as salsa! Thanks for reading

Todd
http://www.articlesbase.com/sports-and-fitness-articles/the-history-of-salsa-dancing-706739.html

read comments (3)

I am good at controlling my hips and all but I don’t know what to do with my arms can you help!!??

Oh, yes!! Belly dancing is fun, and exciting, and great exercise, too!
There are movements to complement the steps and other movements in belly dancing. Find a full-length mirror to learn and practice–it’s what I did.
Slowly raise your arms above your head when you are moving your hips, curving the hands just so, turning them inwards. Keep the motion fluid. When turning, emphasize one hip by bringing one arm down and brushing that hip. It helps if you go to a belly dance class or watch a learn-to-belly dance video. Play with it, and have fun with it. Learn how to isolate different parts of your body, moving them differently from the rest of you, keeping an eye on the rhythm.
Keep it up. You are doing fine.

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No Wonder Dancing Feels So Good……

Music and dancing has been a part of many different cultures for centuries. It is part of celebration and entertainment. And whether they knew it or not, way back when the dancing began, there are numerous amazing health benefits. Now that the American population is facing a major obesity epidemic, health benefits from dancing is something that should be taken a closer look at.

The Health Benefits of Salsa Dancing

Not only is dancing an exceptional way to let loose and have fun, but it also provides some terrific benefits for your health.

In fact, Mayo Clinic researchers reported that social dancing helps to:

* Reduce stress

* Increase energy

* Improve strength

* Increase muscle tone and coordination

Dancing

Dancing the night away can burn more calories per hour than riding a bike or swimming.

And whether you like to kick up your heals to hip hop, salsa or country, the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute says that dancing can:

* Lower your risk of coronary heart disease

* Decrease blood pressure

* Help you manage your weight

* Strengthen the bones of your legs and hips

Salsa dancing is a unique form of exercise because it provides the heart-healthy benefits of an aerobic exercise while also allowing you to engage in a social activity.

The amount of benefit you get from dancing depends on, like most exercises, the type of dancing you’re doing, how strenuous it is, the duration and your skill level.

Salsa Dancing

* Builds endurance and stamina

* Helps with weight loss

* Relieves stress

* Helps you release toxins via sweating

* May help lower blood pressure and improve cholesterol levels

* Can lead to a reduced heart rate over time

Dancing Off Those Calories

How many calories will you burn while dancing? That depends on the type of dancing. Here’s a range of some of the most popular varieties, based on a 150-pound person, per hour:

* Swing dancing: 235 calories/hour

* Ballroom dancing: 265

* Square dancing: 280

* Ballet: 300

* Belly dancing: 380

* Salsa dancing: 420+

* Aerobic dancing: 540+

Mental Benefits of Dancing

Dancing is a unique form of exercise because it provides the heart-healthy benefits of an aerobic exercise while also allowing you to engage in a social activity. This is especially stimulating to the mind, and one 21-year study published in the New England Journal of Medicine even found dancing can reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia in the elderly.

In the study, participants over the age of 75 who engaged in reading, dancing and playing musical instruments and board games once a week had a 7 percent lower risk of dementia compared to those who did not. Those who engaged in these activities at least 11 days a month had a 63 percent lower risk!

Interestingly, dancing was the only physical activity out of 11 in the study that was associated with a lower risk of dementia. Said Joe Verghese, a neurologist at Albert Einstein College of Medicine and a lead researcher of the study, “This is perhaps because dance music engages the dancer’s mind.”

Verghese says dancing may be a triple benefit for the brain. Not only does the physical aspect of dancing increase blood flow to the brain, but also the social aspect of the activity leads to less stress, depression and loneliness. Further, dancing requires memorizing steps and working with a partner, both of which provide mental challenges that are crucial for brain health.

So clearly dancing is excellent for your body, mind, and soul. Pick up a new heart healthy habit and learn to dance salsa.

Shannon M
http://www.articlesbase.com/health-articles/the-amazing-benefits-of-salsa-dancing-421617.html

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