What is belly dance? Or should the question be: what is belly dance to me? Most can agree that belly dance is an expressive feminine form. Belly dance builds fitness and helps mental wellbeing thrive. Moves are rooted in social gatherings, and most likely ancient fertility and healing rituals.
Belly dancing, in all its styles, is strongly rooted in the basin/pelvis. This area is between the belly button and quads. This holds true whether the dancer chooses a style that is serpentine, slow, fast, or vernacular regional dances. I switch between the 3 styles in class. There are lots of others out there! Strong isolations are layered over full use of the body. The heart-chest area and hands for expression, arms for framing, and the face for communicating with the audience.
From weddings, to the stage, to the silver screen
Belly dancing as we know it was developed in a Cairo casino 1930/40s by Badia Masbani, a nightclub owner. Badia was a dancer who wanted to put local wedding dancers onto the stage. These local dancers performed a form called Baladi (country/ folkloric in Arabic) in homes and restaurants – tight spaces. So to translate to stage, Badia borrowed stage performance aspects from other dances. Tricks such as carrying a candelabra or jug on the head were added. A popular prop – the stick (assaya in Arabic) – was borrowed from an Egyptian martial art performed by men. Badia also borrowed from international dance styles: Latin steps and ballet group choreographies. Baladi, mostly improvised torso and hip isolations, became a bigger show with spins, arm framing and props. Dancers like Tahia Carioca and Samia Gamal developed this style and rose to become movie stars in the Golden Era of Egyptian cinema.
Why the name belly dance?
One theory is that the word Baladi became mixed up with ‘belly’ when British folk in Egypt heard the name. In the mix-up, they changed ‘Baladi dance’ to ‘belly dance’. The more accepted history of the name comes from the World Fairs of the 19th Century. During these events, French colonisers named the dance ‘danse du ventre’ (dance of the belly in French). More about this story in a future blog!
In Arabic, this dance form called Raqs Sharqui (Eastern Dance, simply). In Greek and Turkish, then name is Ciftetelli/ Tsifteteli (named after a double stringed violin). Most parts of the Silk Route would just say ‘it’s how we dance’. Various regions have preference for rhythms, steps and speed, and ‘belly dance’ continuously borrows from these styles. Just like in the Golden Era, dancers continue to borrow and fuse from styles beyond the region. Popular fusions are currently in Indian classical, flamenco and modern hip hop, more on fusion in a future blog.
My Father remembers, from his childhood, an exceptional local Kabyle dancer. She was a healer who performed at weddings and funerals in 1950’s Algeria. She had facial tattoos with piercing eyes, she was very tall and sinewy, and no one looked away. She was not the soft feminine dancers of Egyptian cinema. Her presence, like all women who know beauty on their own terms, was captivating. I wish we had images of these dancers. I would like to see them instead of the Orientalist fantasy paintings and photos (more in a future blog). This would help us see what these dances looked like.
Why do we keep coming back to belly dance?
Why do we as women come to this dance? Most will agree it’s for the social aspect and the sisterhood space. I also believe it’s to embody the feeling that we are beautiful as we are right now. The beauty lies in the integrity of the movement. It comes to life in finding steps that suit our wildly different soul experiences and physical shapes. Fine clothing, shiny jewels and striking makeup just enhance this beauty, they never compete with it. We never ‘need’ these to dance.
Epsom bellydance 
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