You may ask yourself, ‘what does Ukraine have to do with a dance rooted in Middle Eastern folklore?’ The explanation lies in a mixture of femininity, cult and curiosity towards foreign cultures following the end of the Soviet Union \u2013 which was notoriously cut off from the rest of the world.<\/p>\n
Tatiana Shaforostova – one of the precursors of the dance in Ukraine \u2013 laughs as she tells me how she started belly dancing. \u201cI came across a Turkish belly dance video in 1987, during the Soviet time. I was impressed: I could not understand how a woman could isolate her body parts like that. So I tried to figure out how to do it\u201d. When Ukraine gained independence and began opening to the outside world in the 1990s, people were keen on trying new, intriguing, and exotic art forms. And what\u2019s more intriguing and exotic than belly dancing for a European audience? \u201cThe final push came with the popularity of the Brazilian soap opera The Clone<\/em>, shown on Ukrainian television in 2005. The female lead character was a belly dancer. Young girls became fascinated with her moves, and they became determined to learn her art,\u201d explains Yulianna Voronina, an award-winning Ukrainian belly dancer.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n\n