Belly Dance classes and performance, Goddess workshops and events. Bellydance; Goddess retreat holiday, articles, divine feminine courses, bellydancer, Liverpool, Merseyside, Wirral and Nationwide,UK Professional
 
Sacred  Bellydance by Ishtar
 
Belly dance is so beautiful in so many ways. For me. it is an art form that is transcendent and spiritual. Belly dance is an ancient sacred art. It is a great method of personal healing, energy stimulation and connecting mind-body-spirit with god/goddess. I have done literally thousands of performances over the years (mostly cabaret) and taught literally thousands of people. I have realized that people are uplifted by belly dance because it connects them with their inner light. 
 
How people perceive nature, humanity, love, eroticism and spirit will influence the vocabulary and style of any dance form. I find the cultural and historic aspects of Middle Eastern dance deeply fascinating. Unlike in India where dance still has religious function, dances of the Middle East are no longer generally practiced consciously as a form of prayer or religious ritual. (Although this may happen on an unconscious level.) I have been performing and teaching various aspects of ‘belly dance’ for fifteen years. I have also researched other forms. I am very interested in dance that is spiritual and/or ritualistic. Our modern world separates reality into component parts and it is hard for us to grasp the holistic nature of ancient peoples. In the ancient world, prayer was an active, trance-inducing combination of chanting, music and dance. For most western people dance is not an obvious way to connect to the spiritual.
 
Belly dance is a birth dance a dance of seduction and a dance of celebration of all life. In some cultures people will even use dance as a way to grieve at funerals. Belly dance is a natural way to move. It is the primal dance, a dance to feel good and to ‘check in’ with the body and release blocked emotional energy.
 
The roman second century poet Lucian sees dance as the beginning of creation ‘with dance the creation of the universe dance‘ came into being, which signifies the union of the elements’. The whole of existence is woven into the cycle of becoming, stretching from birth to death. Dance is about surrender a giving up of oneself to the divine power. With this intention dance is an act of sacrifice. When we emulate the creator we are in touch with that energy, dance is an attempt to metamorphose into the deity to become the adored, a goddess or god.
 
Dance is a way to physically emulate the creation process.
 Trancex
Kapra in the ‘Tao of physics’ shows ancient images of the dancing God Shiva, showing patterns coming off his body identical to the pathways of subatomic particles. This shows how the makers of these images connected dance with the most fundamental aspect of the creation of the material world. Indeed many creation myths involve the universe being ’danced’ into creation. Sacred dance is a physical prayer powerful in the sense that it involves dramatic changes of consciousness. If one has a framework of spirituality and the moves contain sacred intent then people can transcend the limitations of the body, ironically by use of the body.
 
Belly dance works on the ‘kudalini’ energy. Belly dance movements feed both the physical and subtle bodies. Gracefully and sensually belly dance can express Divine inner beauty and truth. In sacred belly dance, movement and prayer become one, and your body learns through inner experience to create movement and to heal its emotional and spiritual wounds. Unlike most traditional western dance, Belly dance focuses on movements of the pelvis and abdomen, stimulating the serpent power that resides in the sacrum and strengthening the area generally. Instead of sensual dance being a healthy and natural expression of pro-creation, we have been told for centuries that certain movements are acceptable, and certain movements are prohibited. Movements of the pelvis are often regarded with particular distain. These movements have been eliminated from most traditionally western dance forms.
 
 
Belly dance can be considered a sacred dance as it has historical connections to the sacred dances of India, ancient Goddess worship and the birth process. It celebrates the Goddess in all women and the human capacity to bring forth life through the physical body. It attempts to describe the natural cycles of nature that form the backdrop to our human experience.  Practiced as a sacred dance, belly dance helps us invoke and express our sense of union with our creator. As in other sacred dances of the world, focus on the inner deity as a key to universal connection. The physical form of the individual is the garment that dresses the spirit . Sacred   dance is a unification of the spirit, a point where the physical and ethereal coalesce. We can feel out into the universal web. We can heal and understand what we are and what we .can become.
 
 Belly dancing may be artistically choreographed and technically impressive, or it may be improvised and free. - Spontaneous movement that is also considered, a poem that is raw and unedited. Belly dance is ideally a disciplined interplay of restraint and abandonment. An expression of the pattern of waves and particles in the subatomic world .that form creation, from the soup of infinite passivity. Improvised dance Trusts divine inspiration to flow through the body and express the power of the moment.
 
 
Unlike in India where dance still has religious function dances of the Middle East are no longer generally practiced consciously as a form of prayer or religious ritual. (Although this may happen on an unconscious level.)
. Our modern world separates reality into component parts and it is hard for us to grasp the holistic nature of ancient peoples. In the ancient world, prayer was an active, trance-inducing combination of chanting, music and dance. The danced line into the labyrinth was a sacred path into the inner realm of the goddess. The labyrinth also represents descent into the unconscious structure of the mind, in search of wisdom and enlightenment. The Hindu mandalas are used for concentration in Yogic meditations, are often labyrinthine in design.
 
Some movements in belly dance move sexual energy through the body and have the potential to stimulate ecstatic states. Modern people are generally afraid of ecstatic states. These types of consciousness are not generally encouraged in western society.
Sexuality often upsets people yet without that force they would not exist. Many refuse to see art and sexuality as being connected. (Picasso said he could not separate the two) Sacred dance of all descriptions attempts too discover in an abstract fashion the deep mysteries and process of life. Belly dance used movements which are poetic expressions of flirtation orgasm birth and even the mystery of death.
 Flare
 
Most people my not recognize the divine origin of belly dance or indeed themselves However our prejudices should never provoke us discourage any one from dance because some thing they are are stimulating negative feelings though jealousy, racism, conditioned ideas of morality, or just the desire to own and control other people is a sin to stop or inhibit any individual from expressing their light through dance. Like yoga Belly dance is about personal freedom through practiced technique for me dance is a prayer, my body an altar the universe my temple.
 
 Image result for donate