What to wear?!
For most practice sessions I recommend wearing close-fitting clothing such as yoga pants, stretch pants, exercise shorts, etc. combined with a cropped top, a leotard, a tight-fitting tank top, a sports bra, or a choli. While you will need to wear close-fitting clothing in order to permit yourself and your teacher to view body movements easily, you also need clothing that will not restrict your movement. Therefore, jeans and the like would not be the most ideal practice clothing.
A hip scarf is a great addition to practice and performance clothing! Not only does it look good and help you to get into the dancing “mood,” but it has practical purposes as well. A hip scarf is worn either tied at the side or tied in front. It should sit across your pelvis and be tied tight enough to create a straight line across the top portion of your rear. This arrangement creates a visual line from which you and your teacher will be able to judge the angle and degrees of your hip movements. The added pressure on your hip muscles can help you with muscle awareness and execution of moves.
It is a good idea to practice sometimes, especially at home, wearing a dance skirt. This is because movements will often look significantly different in a skirt than in exercise clothing. It also helps to improve your ability to dance without getting yourself tangled in flowing skirts.
Before performances, it is always a good idea to practice your dances several times while dressed in full costume. Last minute adjustments will be more evident and can save you the embarrassment of having a “wardrobe malfunction” at the wrong time. Also, some movements may simply feel different or take slight body adjustments with the added weight and awkwardness of costume and jewelry. For example, I find maneuvering a chiffon veil slightly more difficult while wearing a certain favorite hand piece.
Costuming styles
I always emphasize personal style in choosing what you wear to dance in. You can be as eccentric or as simple as you like, as ethnic or as modern you like. There are several different costuming styles in the United States that relate to the different styles of belly dance.
There are three “main” styles of belly dance in the
Egyptian Cabaret costuming in
American Cabaret style costuming is similar to the Egyptian Cabaret style but chooses a more “Hollywood-ized” costuming style. Dancers typically wear a bra top and skirt with a matching belt. Costumes are heavily beaded and fringed. This is a glamorous and showy style, but is more liberal than the Egyptian Cabaret style.
American Tribal style costuming is ethnically influenced. The costumes are an ethnic fusion of designs, patterns, tops, skirts, shawls, scarves, turbans, and jewelry from cultures whose dances share the movement vocabulary of belly dance combined with the dancer’s own ideas of what a tribal woman would wear. Body adornment such as temporary “facial tattoos,” bindis, henna, and “tribal markings” are more typical in this costuming style. This is a very imaginative and open-ended costume style.
When you are choosing your costume, think of what you want to present to your audience (even if that audience is just yourself). When you dance, you have the opportunity to become the person that you feel you truly are and shed the pretenses and stresses of day-to-day life. When you costume yourself, find the costume that will express who that inner person is and will help to tell the story, if there is one, that you want to tell with your dance.
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