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She enters the room, a veil covering everything except her mysterious eyes. Mesmerized, the audience watches her glide across the room with grace and pure femininity. As they watch, she begins to shimmy and shake, performing the ancient art form of belly dance. 

As Belly Dance gains popularity throughout the United States, many people have different ideas and misconceptions about the nature of the oldest recorded form of dance. How do you separate fact from fantasy about this beautiful dance? This information will help you share your knowledge the next time the conversation turns to Belly Dance. 

Origins of the Dance - According to many experts, belly dance originates from ancient cultures in the Middle East, the eastern Mediterranean, the Balkans, India and the orient. Contrary to popular practice today, belly dance was not originally performed to entertain men. This beautiful art form was women dancing for women, at parties preparing women for marriage, child birth or during a fertility rite. Historically, men were not permitted to watch.

Belly dance arrived in the United States in 1893. Chicago was host to the World’s Fair that year and Sol Bloom hosted “Streets of Cairo,” a live exhibit. His dance troupe performed Middle Eastern dance and featured legendary “Little Egypt,” the first world renowned belly dancer. 

By Any Other Name, Belly Dance Is Still Belly Dance - Belly dance is known throughout the world by different names. Egyptians refer to the dance as raks sharki; Greeks call it cifti telli); Turks have named it rakkase and other cultures identify it as Oriental Dance. Regardless of the name, there are recognizable features throughout the different cultures. Shimmies in the hips and shoulders are two hallmarks of belly dance.

Broad Spectrum of Styles - There are a wide variety of styles practiced in belly dance circles today. Here is a sample:

• Modern Egyptian cabaret is elegant, refined and emphasizes muscular control. Movements from ballet are often incorporated.

• Turkish Style cabaret could be considered the opposite of Egyptian cabaret. This style of dance is more flamboyant and stress large, earthy movements. Many pelvic movements and leaps are quite common. Turkish style costumes are often very scanty as compared to Egyptian style costumes.

• American Tribal Dance is practiced where one woman dancer leads a group of women through a series of movements known by the other dancers and then the next woman leads the group. Improvisation is a characteristic of the dance.  

Common Misconceptions

• Fantasy: Belly dancers wear belly rings. Fact: Research suggests that rings worn in the navel is a fashion that originated in Hollywood. 

• Fantasy: Belly dance is traditionally a dance of seduction or strip tease. Fact: As mentioned above, the origins of belly dance are women dancing for women.  While women may perform the dance behind closed doors as a means of seducing their husbands, the dance is an expression of womanly femininity that is appropriate for family gatherings and public events.
• Fantasy: Belly dancing with snakes is a Middle Eastern tradition.  Fact: Research indicates that snake dancing can be traced back to India, where temple dancers danced with snakes as part of their worship. Now, some modern American dancers are using snakes as part of their dance routines.