The Belly Dance Book:
Rediscovering the Oldest Dance

Cover

Title The Belly Dance Book: Rediscovering the Oldest Dance

Author Tazz Richards (editor)

ISBN 0-9700247-03

Publisher Backbeat Press

Category Non-Fiction

Shira's Rating (on a scale of 0 to 5)

<== Buy from Amazon.com in the U.S. (Prices quoted in U.S. dollars, shipped from U.S. warehouse.) Not available from Amazon's U.K. store.

What It's About

This book is a compilation of articles written by a variety of authors about various aspects of belly dancing. The style comes across as that of an anthology. About a quarter of the book covers history of the dance, another quarter covers costuming, and the rest is divided among snakes, props, use of the dance for spiritual aims, make-up, business, and music. A source directory in the back lists teachers, performers, and vendors.

Nearly all the articles in the history section were excellent. My favorite ones were written by prominent dance researchers, including Morocco ("Dance as Community Identity in Selected Berber Nations of Morocco"), Tarik abd el Malik ("It's Not Just for Women - Men in Oriental Dance"), Elizabeth "Artemis" Mourat ("Dances of Ancient Egypt"), and Dr. Barbara Lüscher ("The Golden Age of Egyptian Oriental Dance"). Morocco's and Tarik's articles also do appear on their web site.

The costuming section is almost entirely written and illustrated by Dina Lydia, also known as the Costume Goddess who has published several full-length belly dance costuming books of her own and who runs the Ask the Costume Goddess column elsewhere on this web site. If you enjoy her column on this web site, you'll probably enjoy her contribution to The Belly Dance Book. It contains a solid amount of information that does not appear here on the web. If you already own most of her costuming books, then you'll find that the section she wrote for The Belly Dance Book overlaps with what you already have.

Disclosure: I also contributed approximately a quarter of the material in this book, but I was not paid for these contributions, and I am not paid any sort of royalty for sales of it. One of my articles covered props (finger cymbals, cane, veil, sword, candles, tambourine): history, tips, etc. The others addressed how to become a professional dancer, spirituality, and suggestions for song titles for dancing with props. Unfortunately, the finished book contains an early draft of my spirituality article instead of the final draft, so I've posted the "correct" version of that article elsewhere on this web site to ensure that the version I wanted you to read is available to you! To see the others, you'll have to buy the book, because I have not previously published them anywhere else.

Its Good Points

There are several articles in this book that I enjoyed reading. Of course, I liked the ones I wrote myself! <smile> But beyond my own contribution, the history section is excellent, written by several very credible researchers. Meleah (the producer of the make-up video titled "Face It!") contributed a very good article about stage makeup. Dina Lydia's costuming articles provide a snapshot of her writing style - if you're not sure whether to buy her books, you might first sample the chapters she wrote for The Belly Dance Book, and if you like those, you'll find that her own books cover those topics in more much depth. I also like Aziza Said's article about surviving stage fright.

The overall book design was laid out very attractively, with many photos and illustrations. The large-size format of the book (the same size as a piece of copy paper) allows the photos to be displayed large enough to be easy to see. Unlike the annoying spiral binders on many books published by members of the belly dance community, this one has a real spine that doesn't tangle with everything else on my bookshelf.

On The Negative Side....

The anthology format used for the book, with a diverse group of writers, makes for irregular quality and continuity. Although some articles cover their topics in a great deal of depth, others came across as short and superficial, such as one of the snake articles.

In Conclusion

Overall, the book largely feels more like a large collection of magazine articles bound together than it does a planned, carefully organized book. Still, it packs a lot of information into its pages and offers excellent value for the money. Dancers of all skill levels are likely to learn something new from it. I think it would make an excellent addition to most dancer book shelves. But, as noted above, I am somewhat biased since I wrote about a quarter of the content!