Grandmother's Secrets: The Ancient Rituals and Healing Power of Belly Dancing

Grandmother's Secrets: The Ancient Rituals and Healing Power of Belly Dancing | Rosina-Fawzia B. Al-Rawi | Explained perfectly from a arabic woman

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Grandmother's Secr...

	Grandmother's Secrets: The Ancient Rituals and Healing Power of Belly Dancing Rosina-Fawzia B. Al-Rawi Interlink Publishing Group, 2000 - 158 pages average customer review:based on 34 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Come, sit next to me, says Grandmother. Take this chalk in your hand. Now draw a dot and concentrate all your energy into this one dot. It is the beginning and the end, the navel of the world. So Fawzia Al-Rawi describes her grandmother's first lesson about the ancient craft of Oriental dance. Grandmother's Secrets always circles back to this grandmother and this young girl, echoing the circular movements of the dance itself. Al-Rawi has written a strikingly graceful and original book that blends personal memoir with the history and theory of the dance known in the West as belly dancing. It is the story of a young Arab girl as she is initiated into womanhood. It is a history of the dance from the earliest times through the days of the Pharoahs, the Roman Empire, to the Arab world of the last three centuries. It is a personal investigation into the effects of the dance's movements on individual parts of the body and the whole psyche. It is a guide to the actual techniques of the dance for those who are inspired to put down the book and move. Al-Rawi conveys in this book not only the history and technique of grieving and mourning dances, pregnancy and birth dances, but the spirit of these age-old rituals, and their possibilities for healing and empowering women today. Rosina-Fawzia Al-Rawi grew up in Iraq and Lebanon and was educated at the Universities of Cairo and Vienna. She is an expert in Arabic studies and ethnology, and the author of Golden Sky, Red Earth: Women's Lives in Palestine. She lives in Jerusalem and Vienna, where she teaches belly dancing.

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Grandmother's Secrets

This is a wonderful book beginning with personal experiences by the author who is from a Middle Eastern culture that is followed by historical information and then a more practical guide for belly dancing. It gives insight into what belly dancing is really meant to mean and how it glorifies the woman's body without shame. I don't think many people (maybe Americans) realize this because it came to our country after the wars and was done strictly for entertainment of men who looked upon women as objects for their enjoyment. On a less serious note, it is indeed an enlightening book and I thoroughly enjoyed it...you will too---man or woman!

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Explained perfectly from a arabic woman

This as an excellent book. Rosina talks about growing up as a child...what the dance means for women and all the different rituals and meanings of movements of dance. This book is for someone who wants extensive knowledge about the background of bellydance and its meaning. I appreciate that it is written by an arabic woman because no matter how good a belly dancer is from america or wherever else...the middle eastern woman is born with it in her blood..it has been their escape and freedom and personalization as a woman for centuries. I couldn't put it down....give it a chance!!!

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Great read for all belly dancers

It's a good book to read if you are or want to become a belly dancer.

I consider this a good book for my collection

This book has a good story that makes you want to hear more, introduces bellydance moves, and introduces the idea of healing with dance. The author grew up in Baghdad and shares her childhood memories.

Tired "secrets" of women's spirituality in Middle Eastern garb

Al-Rawi's account of her own introduction into a middle-eastern inflected version of women's spirituality is charmingly told, if occasionally a bit too good to be true. Perhaps the rose-colored glasses of recollection are to blame rather than any conscious attempt to manipulate the narrative...and the reader. However, when the focus shifts from personal reflections to general discussion of the titular "secrets," we are handed yet another variant of the women's spirituality mythology that appears in Eisler, Sjoo, Walker, Stone, Gimbutas, and even in the works of late 19th/early 20th century patriarchs like Engels, Bachofen, Jung, and Neumann. Of course, there are always good political reasons to perpetuate this story. The political goals have shifted several times over the past hundred years or so, and the interpretations offered alongside the mythology have been adjusted accordingly. In a way, it's refreshing to see this old torch taken up by a new, multicultural generation, and Al-Rawi gamely and competently spins a veil of Eastern mysticism around this tired narrative. Grandmother's Secrets is a fun read if you haven't already been overexposed to the alleged secrets. If this is a story you've already heard from other writers, the cosmetic changes made to it here will not hold your interest.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

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