Have you ever seen a belly-dancing performance before?
Although most of us have heard of this kind of dance, few of us have actually experienced it—and few of us know what it actually represents. Though it goes without saying, belly-dancing has all kinds of stigmas and stereotypes surrounding it. In reality, though, belly-dancing is an expressive art form that dates all the way back to 18th century Egypt. What many people fail to understand is that proper belly-dancing requires a lot of complex movement and coordination.
Fortunately, there are still practitioners of this art around the world that are keeping the dance alive.
One of those performers is Nataly Hay, an Israeli belly-dancer.
Hay has her own Facebook page to promote her dancing as well as her own website to showcase her talents. Still, the story today is about one of performances in particular which captured the attention of the world. The video in question shows Hay performing in front of a small group of people in a dance studio.
Still, her performance was powerful enough to go massively viral around the internet.
As it begins, Hay comes out in traditional clothing and slowly raises her hands above her head.
A few moments in, she does many fluid hand and hip movements to ease into the performance. After that, she stretches her legs out and takes a few more steps around the room. Next up, she’s able to undulate her body front to back rather than from side to side. As the song picks up momentum, she changes the movement to her head.
Shortly after that, things begin to pick up speed.
Although what she’s doing might not appear particularly flashy or complicated, all of the moves require plenty of strength and precision to pull off.
As she bounces her hips to the drum beat, she turns around to shake her hips to the most percussive part of the song while the top half of her body stays entirely still.
The performance continues for a few more minutes and includes a variety of complex and controlled moves. At the end of it all, Hay takes a bow and the crowd applauds her performance.
So far, the video of this performance has amassed more than 42 million views on YouTube!
Although this video is Hay’s most well-known, she also has an entire YouTube channel dedicated to showcasing her dancing and choreography skills.
While she’s also mastered hip-hop dance, salsa and many other art forms, she may be best known for her skill at belly-dancing. As another example of that, consider another performance of hers onstage where she showcases more of her skills. While the other video focused primarily on her hip movements, this one also includes plenty of hand and arm moves in conjunction with the rest of her body.
While we may not be used to seeing these kinds of dances, it’s clearly an art that requires plenty of skill and strength to master.
While all dances have a seductive element to them, Hay shows that belly-dancing is much more than it may appear at first.
While the moves seem minimal or not very flashy, they’re also entrancing because the dance needs so much muscle control and fluidity to pull them all off successfully.
As you can see from these performances, Hay has this mastered! If you enjoyed these videos, definitely check out her YouTube channel for more of her performances and learn more about this old art form.
Congratulations to Nataly on all of her dancing success! Check out the full performance below:
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