Tsiftetelli

Tsifteteli is the name for Greek style Bellydance. This name comes from the Turkish word Chifteteli, which originally meant "two strings".

Tsifteteli was mainly brought to Greece by the Asia Minor Greeks, who had to leave their hometowns because of a population exchange between Greece and Turkey. Greece was occupied by the Turks for about 400 years (from the early 15th century to the early 19th century) and was part of the Ottoman Empire.

In the 1920's Greece started a war against the Turks for independence and by the mid 19th century Greece became a free and an independent state. At that time there were many people of Turkish origin and Moslem faith living in Greece as well as many people of Greek origin and Greek Orthodox faith living in Turkey.

The first Greek colonies on the west coast of Asia Minor were founded about 1000 BC and spread to the Black Sea shore. So there were Greek cities and towns in those areas until 1922 of our time. In that year there was one last big war between Greece and Turkey which ended in catastrophe for both countries. But for the Greeks the catastrophe was bigger, because many Greek cities in Asia Minor were destroyed by the Turks. The Greeks of Smyrna (Izmir) were especially hit hard. At the end of that war Greece and Turkey agreed on exchanging their remaining populations, except 100,000 Greeks in Constantinople (Istanbul) and a similar amount of Turks in North-eastern Greece and on some Greek Islands.

Nevertheless Tsifteteli as we know it today, was brought to Greece by the people of Smyrna and at first it was part of the Rembetiko culture. It developed though through the last 80 years, it spread throughout Greece and became established as the most popular and most common Greek dance together with Zeimbekia. The Tsifteteli songs today are quite different from the original Rembetiko Tsifteteli songs. The lyrics are not as sad as the ones of the Rembetiko Tsifteteli. The original Tsifteteli lyrics are very sad, because they reflect the suffering of the people that created them. They mainly talk about poverty, immigration, lost love, desperation, etc. The original Tsifteteli is not a cheerful dance, as many people outside Greece consider it to be.