That's weird. I can access from Google just fine, but trying to access it from here gives the login screen. Here's the quote:

"Many of the moves in belly dancing are borrowed from nature, especially from snakes. Morad mentions the undulations and figure eights as movements that are particularly snakelike. "A lot of women freak out when I tell them that, because they don't like snakes," she says.

When belly dancing was developed in the Middle East, most of the movements had specific meanings. "They believed that by imitating animals they would gain the power of that animal or take on those characteristics," Morad says."

I didn't get it, but if you keep seeing it, try bugmenot.com .

Just for the sake of opening up conversation...

I am not a beginning Middle Eastern dancer...I've studied seriously for over 12 years...everything I can get my hands on...every workshop I could find and afford. Several excellent long-term instructors. An excellent and generous community of dancers at my level who support and cheer each others continued exploration and achievement.

I AM a beginning African dancer with an unbelievably knowledgable teacher Noemia Reis. This quote (at the heart of this debate) is true of African dance. We are often emulating snakes, birds, horses, etc. In the dances she teaches, there is no "dancing for fun" or "social dancing". All dancing has a purpose...invocation, blessing, emulating nature and creature's from nature. From other African teachers I've learned African dances of freedom, dances of healing, dances of seduction and more....but always a purpose and meaning.

If I understand correctly, in very very old Africa, once they shared a single language and single religion. (Am looking forward to further researching this assertion.) Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Egypt are all African countries. African dance is certainly one of the varied and fascinating roots of our dance. I've been fascinated both by similarities in movements but also in some drum rhythms (Ayoub in particular so far).

A second root that come to mind that supports the quote is Khalbelia Gypsy dance from Rajasthan. They call themselves the "snake charmer" gypsies and their movements invoke the cobra. It's gorgeous and easy to see some of the roots our dance form in their dance. It is a generally accepted idea that "Gypsy" Rom originating from India have carried and impacted our dance throughout place and time.

It only takes two generations to lose a language (we know that from our American heritage where some grandkids can't communicate with their grandparents). In Alaska we are learning that it only takes 3 or 4 generations for an entire language to become extinct...several of our indigineous languages are less than 15 years from extinction as the last fluent elders are in their late 60's early 70's. Just because it's no longer recognized, does it mean it didn't exist? Is dance any different? Just because we forgot the meaning does it mean it never existed?

Also, I can't remember where I read it but somewhere I've heard our dance form referred to as "la dansa serpiente" (or something similar).

I love Kajira's analogy of our dance as a really big tree with many many branches and many many roots. Taking our inspiration from so many places, times, cultures, etc will ensure meaningful and interesting debates from here to eternity... :-)!

I'm not saying she's correct in passing this off to the media and it's not something I share in my classes. It's certainly not a part of our generally accepted history as blessed by Morocco, Aisha, Artemis, etc.(at least as far as I know). Just thought it might be the bones of an interesting discussion.