Dance of the venter and tarantella: the inner source of energy and beauty

When I was looking for ways of exercise to enhance my singing capacity by strengthening the diaphragm, Google suggested the dance of the venter. So, I started by reading this book of Flavia De Martino “the most ancient of the dances and its healing power”. This powerful and ancient dance, that can be considered the “mother of all the dances”, has been practiced for centuries from the habitants of the middle East and Mesopotamia. It was a propitiatory dance to ask the spirits for an abundant harvest, but also for preparing the women to the labor. In antiquity the venter was considered the container of new life, fertility, limbo, passion, coupling, love… all the environments where life is recreated, so, by definition, in contact with the divine. Moreover, though its challenging and difficult movements, it recreates an opening toward the divine, because the magic of the feminine energy brings within itself curative powers. Contrarily to the common belief, this dance was born not to entertain or satisfy men, but as way of amusement, communication and storytelling for women. Being able to express themselves with dance was something holy that expressed in positive way the feminine eros and created a holy “bridge” between the women and the divinity. The women that were belly dancing were thus finding a subtle energy to open a passage upwards. Perhaps, in association with the holy venter of the mother earth, it was danced by a single individual, whose expression of feminine and story leads to spontaneous and natural movements. It is so sad that in modern days we had to renounce to that part of femininity, in order to embrace a more “structured” and “socially accepted” behavior. What would be in the future if all women of the earth will suddenly become slave of a sexist and chauvinist society as it is now? The number of women who still have prejudice about belly dance and consider it a “dirty” kind of dance no different than striptease, is still pretty high. Thankfully if we look back it was not always the case. On the contrary, in ancient Egypt the priestesses were dancing to enter in a state of total tuning with the cosmic energy, amplifying their powers, their intuitions and the perceptions, thus finally entering in a state of trance. They were depicted with raised arms, (similar to apulian tarantati, see next post) who entered in a state of trance by dancing frantically among other women. In both types of dances (apulian tarantella and venter) the goal is to enter in contact with our deepest “sixth sense”.

Dance of the venter originated in very ancient times in the Middle East: Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Turkey and all Arabic countries. It survived and migrated from Egypt to north Africa toward Spain and from the Balkans to Anatolia and central Europe, maybe through communities of Gipsies (whose name reminds us of Egyptians). It is performed mainly by women and for women. It is an expression of: femininity, sensuality, vitality, freedom, indeed a woman can freely show fat or no fat. It tonifies shoulders, arms, breast, hips, thighs and mainly abdomen, and also increases flexibility, it improves agility and posture and strengthen pelvic floor, it prevents pelvic organ prolapse, during childbirth supports and guides the presenting fetal part, and helps maintain continence (both urinary and fecal).

Through this dance women gain consciousness of hidden muscles that they did not know to have. Finally, it burst our mood, self-esteem, and excavate our deepest emotions. Interestingly, in antiquity, the feminine genitals were considered magic and mysterious, full of energy and beneficial powers, compared to flowers, fruits or natural phenomena. See for example the Greek honey bread that still is reproduced in Sicily with the name of “Mafalda”. If you tried or want to try the dance of the venter you have to keep in mind that the basic posture is: first of all knees slightly flexed, next venter tucked in and shoulders relaxed. This position allows a smooth flow of energy from the ground, to the legs, to the lower back and to the arms. Or vice versa. The springing of the knees belongs to tribal and ritual dances of Africa and Native America: it is linked to mental and physical relaxation, it calms the nerves, reduces depression and combats the evil spirits. For the Arabs dance is a way of communication more powerful than language, is linked to pleasure and considering a dancing body similar to a divinity, is in perfect harmony with the cosmic energy. If both types of dances survived until our days, despites the society that consistently tried to ban them as “unworthy”, is probably thanks to the lower class people like farmers or gipsies.

For me belly dance, and folk dance in general, is a way to feel and therefore look beautiful. The smiles, the freedom of the hair, not to talk about the arms and my obsession with the feet, makes you feel amazing, without any cosmetic or any aid from modern props. Is just you and your body, that reveals itself profoundly hidden treasures. Everyone feels emotionally connected with their soul, after a dance, either tarantella or venter dance, and it gives the same energy of any drugs, good or bad, that modern society offers. Pizzica (aka ancient apulian tarantella), for example, should not be a dance of thinking about the steps and techniques, is better as spontaneous dance, where before I start dancing I close my eyes and I like to imagine myself coming out of one of these situations: sick in bed, infirm for days, constrained in a prison`s cell, or even in my mother`s womb. Pizzica is a dance of rebirth, this is what you want to dance after a disease or after birth, if you physically could. If you envision yourself in the shoes of the tarantate, you will feel connected to whatever problem they might have, and ultimately to whatever problems are afflicting you at that time. Without that deep connection, and that desire of break the chains, you will simply dance an ordinary dance with the pure meaning of entertaining. Pizzica is the most antique dance that we have in Italy and to dance it with the proper spirit we have to feel like each step is like a drumbeat sung by our foot on mother`s earth ground (heartbeat is the main sound a baby feels in the womb no?).

So, I want to believe that the drumbeat of the tambourine resembles the synchronized mother-baby heartbeat, which is the sound we hear from the time we descend from heaven to our mother`s womb. Her heartbeat passes to the placenta`s vessels like a drumbeat. For 8 months continuously we hear only that sound, if you calculate is about 27-28 millions beats. Then when we come to see the light of the world, we experience life in a whole new way. But this does not mean that we were not alive before. The darkness inside the mother`s womb is not the same darkness of hell, is darkness filled with a sound, a sound that we “see” in our early life with all our senses except for sight. We think we are blind, but we are more aware of everything else around us: of the Spirit, the Love, the Life, BECAUSE we are blind: the light of the world blinds us even more.

You can imagine why a musician or a dancer performing, a person meditating or praying, sometimes must close their eyes: to see better, to see better what is not visible, to see what is inside their soul, to see with inner eyes, to shut out the visible world. The first thing you feel if you close your eyes right now, I guarantee you, is your own heartbeat. Life begins at the moment where our heartbeat is not connected anymore with our mother`s one; but we can find that beat if we embrace a connection with our mother earth, our spiritual mother living in the earth, that little part of our self hidden in our soul, and the pizzica beat, or any other beat, does nothing more than wake up that inner beat that we all humans have.

Foundations for a healthy life to me are belly dance and pizzica. Our energy inside the body moves like water and never stops. It goes back and forth between the several organs. We need to act immediately (as soon as we wake up) on caring for each single cell in our body, just like the sleeping did for us during the night. We do not want to be thrown immediately in the daily routine without a 15-30` break between the oneiric world and the real world. The energy that flows from our lungs to the rest of the body is mainly concentrated and used by the brain and by the digestive tract. Thus, is important to remind ourselves of the connection between positive energy and good food habit. Tell me what you think about tis post and my healthy food habits chart, and thank you for reading!