We love Persian New Year (Norooz)! It is such an excellent holiday and one of the oldest new year celebrations to date. We’ve spoken about Persian New Year before but this time we want to focus on the dance and the ceremonies. Persian dancing is a beautiful art that is vast and varied. There are many different styles of Persian dance and they are done not only in Iran but throughout Afghanistan and neighbouring nations.
Bandari
Bandari is a very energetic dance that has roots in East Africa, the Maghreb, Persian Gulf, India and Southern Iran. It is said to be a dance done in the fishing villages and rural parts. What we have found is that the the clothing by those in those regions varies. It looks like a Kameez style top, Salwar or harem style pants with multiple veils worn in various fashion. The dance has a beautiful rhythm and incorporates the entire body with no emphasis on the hips but more so the hands and shoulders. In our travels we have noticed a lot of Bandari dances are done by men and women. It is isn’t a dance commonly seen sadly, but a really great example can be seen on Rania’s video, the Divas of Bellydance. Our resident Raissa says, “Bandari is by far my favourite dance. One really has to feel the culture and be apart of it for it to be performed well. It is a blessing to have been born in such a society. Teaching Bandari, I find works well on those who are truly dedicated to global music and art.” 
Next week we will talk about Classical Persian dance and provide some examples of it. We also encourage you to enjoy the Norooz party online. MissBellydance is offering 15% all orders of $100 or more and you can see the select items here that apart of this sale. We will go over their significance for this time of year as we countdown to Norooz 1391 (Persian New Year 2012) Use couponcode: NoroozDance to enjoy these savings. And we want you to tell us where you plan to spend Norooz this year and where you’ll jump the flames for Chaharshanbeh Soori!
