Dance is rhythmic movements performed by the body, usually accompanied by music, and is typically an organized way of expressing emotions through visible rhythmic body movements.

The Arabic World Encyclopedia tells us that there are two types of dance: theatrical dance, and social dance. Theatrical dance is performed by professional dancers for the entertainment of an audience, and includes forms such as ballet, modern dance, folk dance, oriental dance, African dance, rain dance, and musical comedies. Social dance, on the other hand, is performed by individuals for personal enjoyment, and there are multiple forms of this type of dance, most of which are performed according to specific rhythmic steps, although a person can perform special movements of their own choice in other forms of this dance.

Many poets have written poems about dance, and visual artists have painted dance movements in their works. We will focus here on the most famous poet and the most famous painter who incorporated dance into their poetic and artistic creations.

Ahmed Shawqi (1868 - 1932), the prince of poets, was adept at describing nights of dance, merrymaking, and music, as we see in "The Shawqiyat", poems that depict his sometimes being under the influence of material desires, as researcher Mohammed Nema Allah Al-Nadawi points out. Shawqi was drawn to merrymaking and wine, describing the dance floor and dancing nights, and the cups of spirits passed around, from which he would drink and revel. For example, in describing a dancing night held by Khedive Abbas at the Abdeen Palace in Cairo, along with its wine and frivolity, he would join in with the others, indulging and reveling in it:

The dance floor is revisited ** Sometimes it is gathered up

The cups are filled with wine ** Yet they are steady

The necks play with them ** While he is careful, fearful

Sometimes they are ascents ** Sometimes they are flows

Here and there ** They meet and accompany

As twigs met ** Or trunks embraced

Heads inclined ** In the chests they hide

And the breasts standing ** The youth sitting by them

And the bosoms drooping ** And the cheeks flaming

And the waists thin ** Drawn by the fingers

The cuffs flowed with them ** They are stolen branches

In another poem, Shawqi describes the enchanting dancers:

Are those the stars of the night ** Or the gazelles of the tents

Approaching in a procession ** That darkness split its light

I swore by their lights ** A horn of intelligence met a star

Their destination is a leader ** To whom greatness went

Where the great ones of the people ** Some of the small servants

Stood for the gazelles ** So they slipped away from the front

Strutting among them ** Between lions and leopards

Exiting from a skirt ** Entering into bones

Soft, not tended ** Negligent, not gathered

Pearls scattered ** In the hearts they arranged

Prancing safely ** Like the pigeons of the sanctuary

Her flock gathers ** Where they meet they unite

Rushing on ** To different tunes

Between hand in hand ** Or foot in foot

Walking the catwalk ** Returning like the gentle breeze

Sending wherever she appeared ** Light of forehead and mouth

Hastening a slow step ** Enchanting in the drawing

Gathering from her tail ** Leaving it, not blamed

Fluttering in velvet ** It rested but did not finish

Following only the whim ** Approaching only the accusations

In the first poem, we see Shawqi describing a group of dancers, as if we are looking at them in Mahmoud Said's painting "In the Dance Hall." In the second poem, Shawqi describes a single dancer who walks like a "qata" (a beautiful Arabian bird) and returns like a gentle breeze, as if we are watching "The Dancer" in more than one painting by Mahmoud Said.

In his poem about Damascus and its suburb "Dummar," Shawqi likens the trees of Al-Hawr to celestial women and dancers. The trees are full of branches and leaves from the bottom while barren at the top, resembling a dancer whose neck is exposed and legs are covered. Shawqi says:

"The trees in Dummar or around its hills, Are like celestial women, branches covering their legs but not their necks."

He continues to depict the dynamics between a man and a woman dancing, "The legs are covered, the neck is bare."

When we look at the paintings of the pioneering artist Mahmoud Said (1897 – 1964), we find more than one painting focusing on dance and dance halls. He painted "In the Dance Hall" in 1934, where dancers embrace each other, each pair engrossed in their dance as if fulfilling Shawqi’s description.

At the forefront of the painting, four individuals are visible. On the right half, a young man places his hand in the middle of the woman he's dancing with, embracing her. The woman gives us her back in a provocative feminine pose. Their faces are distanced on the left half of the painting, while their bodies seem merged as one from the chest down. Then, the right leg of the dancer is distanced from the man's body, giving an impression of movement in the painting despite their stillness.

Besides that, there are two paintings of a dancer, the first drawn in 1936 and the second in 1949, which was owned by Princess Faiqa (King Farouk's sister). In addition to the painting "Dance of Zar" 1939 and "Dhikr Dance" 1939.

In the novel "The Color of Love," where I talked about "Daughters of the Sea" drawn by Mahmoud Said, I spoke through the painter, saying: "In their beauty lies a Pharaonic treasure residing in their eyes, bodies, and somewhat thick, warm, intoxicating lips as if they are two cups of wine. I am on my way to discover this treasure. She thinks I am seeking pleasure, not knowing that I am seeking discovery, knowledge, and exploration, and that her body is my way to this discovery through physical performance. I don't see her body as ever still; it's always moving despite its apparent calmness and tranquility. I believe that the darkness of the body shows its movement more than its whiteness. She naturally doesn't realize this, nor does she understand the physics of the female body. The performance tends to be scenic or theatrical, blending symbolic abstract movements with daily movements derived from folk heritage, and to some extent, modern dance or ballet.

When she twisted as a dancer sometimes, the dances of Egyptian women for gods in front of the Karnak Temple were embodied before me. I saw in the lights shining on her body the sun that falls on the ancient Egyptian temples. I would read some of the Pharaonic hymns that I know, and she would notice my lip movements, thinking I am somewhat disturbed, so she tries to calm me with more intoxicating kisses." Besides their sweetness and the painting "In the Dance Hall," Mahmoud Said painted the dance of the dervishes in 1929, after attending and witnessing one of the ceremonies of the Mevlevi order in their lodge at the Saladin Citadel. They astonished him with their unique dance, which involves meanings and interpretations that they are familiar with to increase enthusiasm and immersion for them and their followers as they stagger and spin around themselves restlessly or mercilessly with their long turbans and strange clothes that distinguish their method from other Sufi methods.

That night, the artist could not sleep, and the spectra of the dancers occupied and sharpened his sight and conscience. The next day, he returned to Alexandria, directly to his studio, he did not go to his villa in Gianaclis, he wanted to unload his impressionist charge about that dervish dance in concise haste with dense spontaneous color touches.

The artist said, "When I was on the train heading from Cairo to Alexandria, I was wondering to myself, what are they doing? And why? And how will I draw all these emotions, and how will I handle the shapes and bodies in their rotation upwards and downwards, and what about the movement of the body and hands and faces and legs and shoulders, and what are the appropriate colors for those states, do I choose the same colors of the clothes and robes they wear, or do I choose spiritual and symbolic colors?

I said to myself: The important thing is to start, and everything will come later. In fact, I was very hesitant, I was afraid, and I, who had previously painted hundreds of works and passed through dozens of art schools in Egypt and France and others, and studied free studies at the Julian Academy in Paris during my studies of law and judiciary, and I visited many global museums and public and personal exhibitions. But before "the dervishes," I felt different sensations seeping into my consciousness and conscience. There are symbolic implications that I must express that did not exist in any painting I have seen in all different eras of art. And there is no painting close to this subject in the paintings of the great Louvre Museum, nor any other European museum. And this in itself throws a great responsibility on my shoulders as I embark on painting "the dervishes."

I tried .. and finished the painting, but it did not gain all my satisfaction, as there is still in the soul a remainder of ambition and recklessness and passion towards "the dervishes." I feel like someone who carves the clouds and has not finished yet, which made me postpone returning to it until I return once again to a new ceremony or another round of their ceremonies and circles at the citadel. I was also wondering: why the citadel and not Al-Azhar? Is it because the scholars of Al-Azhar do not recognize the Dervishes and Sufism? I also wondered: why the citadel and not the mosque of Imam Hussein? And I tried not to search for an answer, and not to insist on the question."

It seems that some of the artist's friends loved that painting despite not reaching its goals and insisted on the artist to buy it or give it to him: "My friend, Judge Mahmoud Abdel Wahab, insisted on requesting the painting, in which he sees many meanings and symbolic indications, and in his opinion, the meanings of this painting coincide with the prevailing cultural currents that fluctuate with conflict and changes, and that there is an incitement to the vigilance of society from the coma of surrender to the unknown and superstition. And that the negativity that governs the behavior of the Dervishes provokes the organized mind that we are on as judges; we are not convinced except by logic, motive, evidence, and the facts that result from it.

Mahmoud Abdel Wahab did not understand the spiritual meaning of the painting, and despite that, he liked it and wanted to pay for it, even though he knew that I do not sell my paintings to my friends."

And if the painter-artist Mahmoud Said was interested in drawing the dance hall, and its people, as the prince of poets, Ahmed Shawqi, drew them, or described them with his letters and poetic images, metaphors, and magnificent colors and musical rhythms in two poems, then he - i.e., Said - got closer - after that - to drawing paintings that convey to us spiritual and religious atmospheres, like "Quran Reader 1960" and before it "Tombs of Bacchus" 1927, as Shawqi - after that - turned to praising the Prophet and celebrating the Prophet's birthday in his poems, and his homonyms like "The Birth of Guidance" and "The Path of the Poem" and "Ask My Heart" and "To the Arafat of God", and his poem "The Arab States and the Greats of Islam", and "The Pilgrims Buzz" and others, we see him ascetic and devoted, drawing closer to God with his prayers and many glorifications, and asking for forgiveness and repentance, humbling himself, after he immersed in describing wine (The grains have embraced its cup / So it is silver, gold) and dancing and dancers in the Khedivial palaces during his youth, and that his divine poetry does not indicate his indulgence in debauchery, nor can it compete with his religious poetry in abundance, but he was more pleased with the title "Poet of Islam" than he was pleased with the title "Prince of Poets".