What is the Egyptian dance anyway?

Let me explain the real cultural and historical background behind this dance. Egyptian dance original name BALADI, is the Egyptian folk dance of the general name, she is in the Middle East and North Africa is a social traditional dance. Call it social dance because in the Middle East it is not performed by professional dancers, but by ordinary people of all ages to have fun and festivities every day and dance. You don't only see women dancing but also men, and a lot of children too, because they don't learn it from a dance school, they learn it from their family and friends, and they learn it by imitating the adults. That's how everyone learned it, so it wasn't just a woman's thing. Over time, Egyptian dance was slowly recognized by audiences as "old-fashioned", and in the early 1900s, Egyptian dancers gave it a new name, RAKS SHARQI, meaning "Oriental Dance", the dance was still the same, but with a "mysterious and fashionable" twist. The dance remained the same, but because of a "mysterious and fashionable" name, the audience's attention to Egyptian dance was revived. You may be a little confused, since it is a dance for men and women of all ages, why do we see on stage 99.999% of professional dancers are women? The reason, in fact, is that this is what the male traveler wants to see. When so many European tourists first came to the Middle East in the mid-20th century, most of them were somewhat adventurous males who were curious to see what Middle Eastern countries and Middle Eastern women were really like. They imagined that all Arab women were women who stayed in their boudoirs, so they just wanted to have wonderful Arab women surrounding them. More and more tourists came to Egypt, Turkey and Lebanon, and the locals felt that there was money to be made from these tourists, so they opened up nightly entertainment places just for them, and the reason why there were only women dancing in that place was because only the male customers came. At that time in Europe, European men only wanted to see young and beautiful women, they even in Europe do not like to see men dancing ballet, and how far will come to the Middle East to see men dancing? Male tourists from abroad did not come to Egypt to see Arab culture and art, they only wanted to see beautiful young Arab women. In the 1930s, Hollywood movies gradually appeared in the "Egyptian Oriental Dance" image, Hollywood is used to like to use beautiful women in fancy clothes and jewelry dazzling atmosphere to attract the audience, the American movie "Egyptian dancers" do not like the Egyptians as robes, but dressed in sexy and beautiful revealing their abdomens. The "Egyptian dancers" in American movies did not wear robes like the Egyptians, but wore sexy and beautiful dresses that exposed their abdomens, which instantly fascinated the audience with the "Oriental Dance". So the beginning of the 1930s, Egypt by the influence of Hollywood movies also began to change the dancer's costume, the traditional costume is from the head cover to the feet of the robe, and slowly turned into a Hollywood kind of dreamlike sexy dress. So the evolution of the name and the costumes of "Egyptian dance" is due to market and commercial considerations, tourism is gradually industrialized, people began to want to make this dance professional, into women's work. That's why today we only see women specializing in this dance. Men used to perform the dance in public as a profession long, long ago, but that was a long time ago. So for the real "Middle Eastern Dance" I don't want to call her by the term "Bellydance" which has been overused all over the world, but I will use the culturally correct term, Raks Sharki in Arabic, or oriental dance, in Arabic, because my original intention and motivation for dancing is for true culture and art. "Bellydance" is a superficial and indecent name given to the dance by Western tourists who, due to their ignorance and prejudice against Egyptian dance, only see the dancer's fascinating abdominal movements. Simply I firmly believe that this dance is not the kind of dance where a woman shows part of her body to a man in a room full of men. This dance is an art, like ballet, modern dance, flamenco, African dance, Latin dance, and any other dance that has its own artistic appeal and has its own set "movement vocabulary" that requires long term training to dance professionally. Her intention is not for women to show off their bodies for men, but for real dances with technique and soul that should be respected and recognized like any other dance. Egyptian dance is not one of those superficial dances that you learn for a few days and just wiggle your ass and start teaching others, but it takes years of hard practice. I was in France when I first heard music about it and saw Egyptian dancers performing live, and after a few years I finally decided to dance it, so I started taking dance classes to start learning about its true culture. Unfortunately the image of Arabia, Muslims and the Middle East that we usually see in the media is very one-sided, including "Egyptian dance". In bars and nightclubs, a lot of girls are dressed in sexy costumes dancing **, they think that as long as the two-pointed body twisting desperately can be, but the original intention of my dance is for the real culture, not to run to the bars and nightclubs to dance that kind of vulgar to please people, that does not represent the real culture, a lot of dancing in bars and nightclubs only represents people want to make money with the display of the woman's body.