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INTRODUCTION:

“Skirt dancing” is a term that I apply to a type of dancing popularized from the mid 1980s to the present. The dancer manipulates her silhouette by deliberately holding and swirling a very full skirt. The voluminous yardage of the skirt creates a flamboyant, dramatic and exciting effect. This dance style has been used by dancers who are fond of Rromany (Gypsy) dance, fantasy Rromany dance, Turkish Oriental dance, American Tribal style dance and American Cabaret dance (which should more accurately be called “Vintage Orientale.”). However, this dance is not purely Rromany, it is not Turkish Oriental nor is it strictly from the Vintage Orientale genre either.  There are ample mythconceptions about skirt dancing and its authenticity. I will try to explain why this issue is so complex.

SKIRT DANCING AND VINTAGE ORIENTALE

Lastly, we must respect and preserve the older, original versions of all dance forms so that they will not be lost. However, dance is a creative phenomenon and we should feel free to elaborate on old ideas. I also encourage people to create new genres. There is no shame in this and there is no need to apologize for creativity. We can now see that skirt dancing is a genre that included many elaborations on older ideas. As always we are free to do what we want to do. However, we are not free to misidentify what we are doing. Thanks to its tremendous popularity, skirt dancing took on a life of its own. It is a relatively new addition to our Middle Eastern dance vocabulary, but it has a right to be here.