Belly dance

In common with most folk dances, there is no universal naming scheme for belly dance movements. Many dancers and dance schools have developed their own naming schemes, but none of these is universally recognized. The following attempt at categorization reflects the most common naming conventions:[7]

• Percussive: Staccato movements, most commonly of the hips, used to punctuate the music or accent a beat. Lifts or drops of the hips, chest or rib cage, shoulder accents, hip rocks, hits, and twists.
• Fluid: Flowing, sinuous movements in which the body is in continuous motion, used to interpret melodic lines and lyrical sections in the music, or modulated to express complex instrumental improvisations. These movements require a great deal of abdominal muscle control. Typical movements include horizontal and vertical figures of 8 or infinity loops with the hips, horizontal or tilting hip circles, and undulations of the hips and abdomen. These basic shapes may be varied, combined, and embellished to create an infinite variety of complex, textured movements.
• Shimmies, shivers and vibrations: Small, fast, continuous movements of the hips or ribcage, which create an impression of texture and depth of movement. Shimmies are commonly layered over other movements, and are often used to interpret rolls on the tablah or riq or fast strumming of the oud or qanun (instrument). There are many types of shimmy, varying in size and method of generation. Some common shimmies include relaxed, up and down hip shimmies, straight-legged knee-driven shimmies, fast, tiny hip vibrations, twisting hip shimmies, bouncing 'earthquake' shimmies, and relaxed shoulder or rib cage shimmies.

In addition to these torso movements, dancers in many styles will use level changes, traveling steps, turns, and spins. The arms are used to frame and accentuate movements of the hips, for dramatic gestures, and to create beautiful lines and shapes with the body. Other movements may be used as occasional accents, such as low kicks and arabesques, backbends, and head tosses.

Mural painting of a meeting between Shah Tahmasp and the Mughal emperor Humayun found in Iran

Belly dancing is believed to have had a long history in the Middle East.[3] Several Greek and Roman sources including Juvenal and Martial describe dancers from Asia Minor and Spain using undulating movements, playing castanets, and sinking to the floor with "quivering thighs", descriptions that are certainly suggestive of the movements that are today associated with belly dance.[8] Later, particularly in the 18th and 19th centuries, European travellers in the Middle East such as Edward Lane and Flaubert wrote extensively of the dancers they saw there, including the Awalim and Ghawazi of Egypt.

In his book, Andrew Hammond notes that practitioners of the art form agree that belly dance is lodged especially in Egyptian culture, he states: "the Greek historian Herodotus related the remarkable ability of Egyptians to create for themselves spontaneous fun, singing, clapping, and dancing in boats on the Nile during numerous religious festivals. It's from somewhere in this great, ancient tradition of gaiety that the belly dance emerged."[2]

In the Ottoman Empire, belly dance was performed by women and later, by boys, in the Sultan's palace.[9]

Belly dance in Egypt has two distinct social contexts: as a folk or social dance.

As a social dance, belly dance (also called Raqs Baladi or Raqs Shaabi in this context) is performed at celebrations and social gatherings by ordinary people (male and female, young and old), in their ordinary clothes.[10] In more conservative or traditional societies, these events may be gender segregated, with separate parties where men and women dance separately.[11]

Historically, professional dance performers were the Awalim (primarily musicians and poets), Ghawazi. The Maazin sisters may have been the last authentic performers of Ghawazi dance in Egypt, with Khayreyya Maazin still teaching and performing as of 2020.[12][13] Belly dancing is part of both Egyptian, and Arabic culturel.[14] Throughout the Middle East and the Arab diaspora, belly dancing is closely associated with Arabic music that is modern classical (known as "al-jadid").[15]

Layla Taj, Egyptian belly dancer (American born), performing in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt

In 1871, Shafiqa al-Qibtia was the most famous bellydancer in all of Egypt's theatres and casinos, she was admired by the nation and widely celebrated.[16] The modern Egyptian belly dance style and the modern belly dance costumes of the 19th century were featured by the Awalim.[17] For example, many of the dancers in Badia's Casinos went on to appear in Egyptian films and had a great influence on the development of the Egyptian style and became famous, like Samia Gamal and Taheyya Kariokka, both of whom helped attract eyes to the Egyptian style worldwide.[18]

Traditional belly dancer on a Cairo Nile River cruise

Professional belly dance in Cairo has not been exclusive to native Egyptians, although the country prohibited foreign-born dancers from obtaining licenses for solo work for much of 2004 out of concern that potentially inauthentic performances would dilute its culture. (Other genres of performing arts were not affected.) The ban was lifted in September 2004, but a culture of exclusivity and selectivity remained. The few non-native Egyptians permitted to perform in an authentic way invigorated the dance circuit and helped spread global awareness of the art form.[19] American-born Layla Taj is one example of a non-native Egyptian belly dancer who has performed extensively in Cairo and the Sinai resorts.[20]

Egyptian belly dance is noted for its controlled, precise movements.[21]

Although belly dance is traditionally seen as a feminine art, the number of male belly dancers has increased in recent years.[22]

Egyptian belly dance is referred to in Turkey as Oryantal Dans, or simply 'Oryantal'. Many professional dancers and musicians in Turkey continue to be of Romani heritage, and the Roma people of Turkey have had a strong influence on the Turkish style.[23] In Turkey the style of belly dance is lively and playful, with a greater outward projection of energy than the more contained and artistic Egyptian style. In Turkey dancers are known for their energetic, athletic (even gymnastic) style, and their adept use of finger cymbals, also known as zils, which are commonly used in Egyptian style and movies. Connoisseurs of Turkish style often say a dancer who cannot play the zils is not an accomplished dancer. Floorwork, which has been banned in Egypt since the mid-20th century, is still a part of Turkish belly dance.

Another distinguishing element of Turkish style is the use of a ⁹
₈ rhythm, divided as 2+2+2+3, often referred to as the Karsilama rhythm. Karşilama, in Turkish dance, is not a rhythm but a folk dance performed in a line, whereas a ⁹
₈ (dokuz sekiz) rhythm defines the count of the rhythm and is used in both karşilama and Roman havasi.

Lebanese style belly dance is somewhere between the Egyptian and Turkish styles. Lebanese dance takes from the classic oriental dance, but still incorporates a feisty, modern edge. There are large steps, backward leans to the torso, twisting hip rotations, large and busy arms and many shimmies. The types of techniques that are used in Lebanese style dance are quick layered shimmies and subtle internal movements. Lebanese dancers sometimes include kicks, splits, deep back bends, and Turkish drops.[24]

Belly dance today is a dance used by various artists among which are Rihanna, Beyoncé, Fergie, however the greatest representative of this dance is the Colombian singer Shakira,[25] who led this dance to position it as her trademark, with her songs Whenever Wherever and Ojos así, however thanks to the song Hips Don't Lie, her hip dance skills became known worldwide. Also, thanks to Whenever Wherever in 2001, the belly dance fever began popularizing it in a large part of Latin America and later taking it to the United States.

Over time in her presentations Shakira added this dance mixing it with Latin dances, like Salsa[26] and Afro-Colombian, and she also she expressed that she began to dance these movements since she was little thanks to her Lebanese grandmother. Nowadays the belly dance is a characteristic dance of this singer which presented a variant with a rope entangling it in her body and dancing to the rhythm of Whenever Wherever. Shakira is the only artist in the music industry who has used belly dance on several occasions in her artistic career.[27] She inspired Beyoncé to explore this type of dance in her Beautiful Liar collaboration where she also acted as choreographer. At the Super Bowl LIV Halftime Show event she returned to the belly dance with Rope during the transition from Ojos así thus to Whenever Wherever.[28] Today this dance is considered a symbol in Shakira's career and undoubtedly a distinctive dance of her as she's also mixing it with Latin style. She is the second artist to have a distinctive dance in the music industry alongside Michael Jackson and the moonwalk.

Although there were dancers of this type at the 1876 Centennial in Philadelphia, it was not until the 1893 Chicago World's Fair that it gained national attention. The term "belly dancing" is often credited to Sol Bloom, the Fair's entertainment director, but he referred to the dance as danse du ventre, the name used by the French in Algeria. In his memoirs, Bloom states, "when the public learned that the literal translation was "belly dance", they delightedly concluded that it must be salacious and immoral ... I had a gold mine." Authentic dancers from several Middle Eastern and North African countries performed at the Fair, including Syria, Turkey and Algeria—but it was the dancers in the Egyptian Theater of The Street in the Cairo exhibit who gained the most notoriety. The fact that the dancers were uncorseted and gyrated their hips was shocking to Victorian sensibilities. There were no soloists, but it is claimed that a dancer nicknamed Little Egypt stole the show. Some claim the dancer was Farida Mazar Spyropoulos, but this fact is disputed.[30]

The popularity of these dancers subsequently spawned dozens of imitators, many of whom claimed to be from the original troupe. Victorian society continued to be affronted by the dance, and dancers were sometimes arrested and fined.[31] The dance was nicknamed the "hoochie coochie", or the shimmy and shake. A short film, "Fatima's Dance", was widely distributed in the Nickelodeon theaters. It drew criticism for its "immodest" dancing, and was eventually censored. Belly dance drew men in droves to burlesque theaters, and to carnival and circus lots.

Thomas Edison made several films of dancers in the 1890s. These included a Turkish dance, and Crissie Sheridan in 1897,[32] and Princess Rajah from 1904,[33] which features a dancer playing zills, doing "floor work", and balancing a chair in her teeth.

American tribal fusion dancer Rachel Brice

Ruth St. Denis also used Middle Eastern-inspired dance in D. W. Griffith's silent film Intolerance, her goal being to lift dance to a respectable art form at a time when dancers were considered to be women of loose morals. Hollywood began producing films such as The Sheik, Cleopatra, and Salomé, to capitalize on Western fantasies of the orient.

When immigrants from Arab states began to arrive in New York in the 1930s, dancers started to perform in nightclubs and restaurants. In the late 1960s and early 1970s many dancers began teaching. Middle Eastern or Eastern bands took dancers with them on tour, which helped spark interest in the dance.

Although using Turkish and Egyptian movements and music, American Cabaret ("AmCab") belly dancing has developed its own distinctive style, using props and encouraging audience interaction.

In 1987, a distinctively American style of group improvisational dance, American Tribal Style Belly Dance, (ATS), was created, representing a major departure from the dance's cultural origins. A unique and wholly modern style, it makes use of steps from existing cultural dance styles, including those from India, the Middle East, and Africa.[34] Many forms of "Tribal Fusion" belly dance have also developed, appropriating elements from many other dance and music styles including flamenco, ballet, burlesque, hula hoop and even hip hop. "Gothic Belly Dance" is a style which incorporates elements from Goth subculture.

Spaniard Dalilah (Adelaida Angulo) in front of the Great Sphinx of Giza, 1957.

In Spain and the Iberian Peninsula, the idea of exotic dancing existed through out the Islamic era and some times included slavery. When the Arab Umayyads conquered Spain, they sent Basque singers and dancers to Damascus and Egypt for training in the Middle Eastern style. These dancers came to be known as Al-Andalusian dancers. It is theorised that the fusion of the Al-Andalus style with the dances of the Spanish Gypsies led to the creation of flamenco.

The first wave of interest in belly dancing in Australia was during the late 1970s to 1980s with the influx of migrants and refugees escaping troubles in the Middle East, including Lebanese Jamal Zraika. These immigrants created a social scene including numerous Lebanese and Turkish restaurants, providing employment for belly dancers. Rozeta Ahalyea is widely regarded as the "mother" of Australian belly dance,[35] training early dance pioneers such as Amera Eid and Terezka Drnzik. Belly dance has now spread across the country, with belly dance communities in every capital city and many regional centres.

Estelle Asmodelle was probably the first transgender belly dancer in Australia. She travelled extensively throughout Asia and Japan working as a Belly Dancer during the 1980s through to the late 1990s. She also starred in the Australian-produced and distributed film [36] The Enchanted Dance[37] which sold internationally as well.

Belly dance has been in evidence in the UK since the early 1960s. During the 1970s and 1980s, there was a thriving Arabic club scene in London, with live Arabic music and belly dancing a regular feature,[38] but the last of these closed in the early 1990s.[39] Several prominent members of the British belly dance community began their dance careers working in these clubs.

Today, there are fewer traditional venues for Arabic dance in the UK; however, there is a large amateur belly dance community. Several international belly dance festivals are now held in Britain such as The International Bellydance Congress, The London Belly Dance Festival and Majma Dance Festival.[40][41][42] In addition, there are a growing number of competitions, which have increased in popularity in recent years.

The UK belly dance scene leans strongly towards the Egyptian/Arabic style, with little Turkish influence. American Tribal Style and Tribal Fusion belly dance are also popular.

In Egypt dancers wear the bedlah. Alternatively; some also wear a traditional striped dress, usually black with vertical gold stripes or red with vertical white stripes, with mesh-filled cutouts and many glittering ornaments, along with a sparkling waist-scarf. Egypt has laws in place, that require respecting religious and worship places, and disallowing any nudity near sacred places.[44] Even though regarding what dancers can and cannot wear, and according to Act No. 430 of the law on the censorship of literary works, dancers must cover their upper bodies (mainly the breasts area),[45] and typically a sheer skin-colored mesh fabric covering the stomach is recommended; many dancers ignore these rules, as they are rarely enforced and performing with much revealing outfits are common mainly in the capital and north coast cities.

As there is no prohibition on showing the abdomen in Lebanon, the bedlah style is more common. The skirts tend to be more sheer than Egyptian outfits, showing more of the dancer's body. The veil is more widely used than in Egypt. High heels are commonly worn. Lebanese dancers have more freedom than Egyptian style dancers in the type of costume they choose to wear.

In Turkey costumes are usually in the bedlah style. Distinctive features of many Turkish costumes include a V-shaped or triangular belt which may be shaped or contoured around the top edge, and a great deal of embellishment and beaded fringing on both the bra and the belt. Skirts are often fuller than their Egyptian counterparts, and are likely to be made of chiffon or velvet rather than lycra.

In the 1980s and '90s a very revealing costume style developed with skirts designed to display both legs up to the hip, and plunging bras or even pasties. Such styles still exist in some venues but there are also many belly dancers who wear more moderate costumes. Even so, many belly dance costumes reflect the playful, flirty style of belly dance.