{"id":196897,"date":"2018-07-05T07:00:36","date_gmt":"2018-07-05T09:00:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/?p=196897"},"modified":"2018-07-06T11:29:46","modified_gmt":"2018-07-06T13:29:46","slug":"group-combines-belly-native-dance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/group-combines-belly-native-dance\/","title":{"rendered":"Group combines belly and native dance"},"content":{"rendered":"

S\u00e3o Paulo \u2013 Although they wear belly dancer outfits, they also don Amazonian feathers, seeds, masks and handicraft. The main movements come from the Arab folk dance, but they also perform bow-and-arrow gestures, native-like squats and foot-stomping culled from Brazil\u2019s dan\u00e7a do boi (<\/em>the \u2018ox dance\u2019).<\/p>\n

On stage, the Manaus-based company Belly Dance Jungle combines belly dancing and regional Amazonian folk dances. They tour\u00a0Brazil showcasing different versions of belly dancing, which incorporate elements from native dances and dan\u00e7a do boi <\/em>to the sound of Amazonian popular music.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Ma\u00edse: native Brazilian and Portuguese descent<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It all started in the early 2000s, when the group\u2019s founder Ma\u00edse Ribeiro, from Manaus, returned from a season studying belly dancing in S\u00e3o Paulo. She enrolled in the Luxor belly dance school and had lessons with Arab dancers.<\/p>\n

What she heard from Egyptian teachers was that something was lacking in belly dancing as performed in Brazil: that although the technique was on point, emotion and identity were lacking. That got her thinking, and she came up with the idea of expressing the culture of her own land, Amazonas, through the Arab folk dance.<\/p>\n

She did research with the local tribes Tukanas and Dessanas\u00a0and realized that their shared many common traits with the dabke, a Middle Eastern dance style. \u201cThe natives will also pair up and dance in a circle. They\u2019ll do half-circles and stomp their feet,\u201d Ma\u00edse told ANBA. She points out that both belly and native dancing rely heavily on circular motions.<\/p>\n

A Portuguese and native Brazilian descendant, Ma\u00edse decided to incorporate dan\u00e7a do boi<\/em> elements like squatting, foot-stomping and bow-and-arrow movements into belly dancing. The group performs to the sound of so-called toadas de boi<\/em>, or \u2018ox tunes.\u2019<\/p>\n

In her quest for belly-dancing-friendly regional rhythms, the Belly Dance Jungle founder also came upon Amazonas\u2019 Ra\u00edzes Caboclas<\/em> band and decided to have them play while they perform live.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe audience is very receptive of these dances. At first they get taken aback, but then they identify. We all have native blood in our veins,\u201d says Ma\u00edse. \u201cThrough dance, people reconnect with what they no longer realized: that they\u2019re children of the land. They really identify,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Ma\u00edse first learned about Arab dances as a student at Marques de Santa Cruz school, which holds an annual folk fest, Festival Folcl\u00f3rico Marquesiano,<\/em> to highlight the cultural diversity of Amazonas through dancing. That was where she came into contact with the dabke, which is widespread in Palestine \u2013 and Amazonas is home to a strong Palestinian community.<\/p>\n

Belly dancing came into her life when the local chapter of the Social Service of Commerce (SESC) invited her to teach it. Ma\u00edse set about learning the style and spent about eight years teaching it. Then she decided to open her own belly dance school, Casa de \u00cdsis<\/em>, which is still active in Manaus.<\/p>\n

The school has a branch in S\u00e3o Paulo, within the premises of samba school Unidos de Vila Maria, where Ma\u00edse\u2019s sister Cinthia Ribeiro teaches belly dancing to women.<\/p>\n

Every September, Casa de \u00cdsis<\/em> holds the Belly Dance Jungle festival.<\/p>\n

The Belly Dance Jungle group has been invited several times to go to Egypt and join the Ahlan wa Sahlan, one of the world\u2019s leading belly dance festivals, but they were never able to find sponsorship for the trip. They have performed in countries including Uruguay, Argentina, Paraguay and Peru.<\/p>\n

Contact information<\/strong><\/p>\n

Belly Dance Jungle\/Casa de \u00cdsis
\nFacebook:\u00a0https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/casadeisis\/
\nEmail: casadeisis@hotmail.com<\/p>\n

Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum<\/strong><\/p>\n

Press Release<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hailing from Manaus, Brazil, the Belly Dance Jungle company performs a fusion of the Arab and regional Amazonian folk dances.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1455,"featured_media":196906,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[89],"tags":[3617,3619,3612,3618,3616,2230,3610,35406,3615,3621,3620],"class_list":{"0":"post-196897","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-culture","8":"tag-ahlan-wa-sahlan","9":"tag-belly-dance","10":"tag-belly-dance-jungle","11":"tag-belly-dancing","12":"tag-casa-isis","13":"tag-dabke","14":"tag-danca-do-boi","15":"tag-danca-do-ventre-en","16":"tag-festival-folclorico-marquesiano","17":"tag-maisa-ribeiro","18":"tag-native-dance"},"wps_subtitle":"Hailing from Manaus, Brazil, the Belly Dance Jungle company performs a fusion of the Arab and regional Amazonian folk dances.","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196897","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1455"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=196897"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196897\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/196906"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=196897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=196897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=196897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}