The Origins of Belly Dancing
by Shahinda Abdalla
(Image Source: Kathleen W. Fraser’s book published in 2014 titled “Before They Were Belly Dancers: European Accounts of Female Entertainers in Egypt, 1760-1870)
Described by some as the oldest dance in the world, belly dancing is said to date back at least to the time of Alexander the Great (356-323 B.C.) Some say its roots lie in fertility rituals of ancient Egypt and Greece. Others say it was brought from India to the Middle East by Romans (Gypsies) who also developed flamenco from it in Morocco and Spain. Examples of dances similar to belly dancing can be seen in ancient Egyptian tomb paintings, Greek sculptures and 17,000 year-old rock engravings found in caves of Addaura, near Palermo in Sicily. One of the difficult things with writing a history of belly dance is that much of the written records of its observation only begin to appear in the 18th and 19th centuries by European travelers in Egypt. Though the dance is said to have roots all the way East stretching as far as India and as far West as Morocco, it only began to be referred to as “danse du ventre” by French travelers in the 1800s which translates to “dance of the stomach”. Prior to this, belly dancing was referred to as raqs sharqi (oriental dance) or raqs baladi (folk dance). In fact, it remains to be known by those two terms in Arabic. The terms “belly dance” and “belly dancers” were Western inventions that were popularized as accounts of the observations of this special dance travelled from Egypt to audiences in Europe as well as the United States in the 19th century. Kathleen Fraser in her 2014 book Before They Were Belly Dancers: European Accounts of Female Entertainers in Egypt, 1760-1870 importantly notes that,
“The most extraordinary tie of politics to pictorial records of dancers, though, lies in the Napoleonic invasion of Egypt in 1798. Not only did Napoleon bring troops, he also brought a body of French scholars to study and record both ancient and contemporary Egypt. Known as the Savants, these dedicated men managed to carry out their work under war conditions, and eventually published the monumental multi-volume Description de l’Egypt (France, Commission des Sciences et Arts de l’Egypte 1809-28). This document serves as a virtual encyclopedia of the antiquities, contemporary life, and natural history of the country.”
There are many theorists that claim the dance in its origin was not intended to be seductive or erotic in any way. In fact, it is believed that belly dancing began as a ritual fertility dance to help prepare women’s bodies for childbirth. Originally the dance was not performed for men, it was performed in front of other women. In traditional Muslim societies this practice of performing the dance only in front of other women remained as women would gather to perform a type of belly dance after their evening meal, a dance they called “raqs sharqi” (oriental/middle eastern dance). This dance mainly involved undulating the belly and moving the hips and torso. After feeding their husbands and sons, the women would gather in a separate location to dance. This traditional after dinner dance was seen as a way for mothers of eligible bachelors to meet young women of the community and find suitable wives for their sons. As belly dancing is known to strengthen the muscles needed for childbirth, the mothers would use the dance as a way to see which young women displayed their readiness for marriage and bearing children. So before the dance became one of seduction, it was seen as an expression and a celebration of womanhood, of the creative capacity of the female body, and of the miraculous event that is birth. Not only does belly dancing help open up the woman’s body for birth but is a way of performing self-hypnosis to help with pain and enhance the experience of childbirth.
In 1893, belly dancing was introduced to American audiences at the Chicago World’s Fair by promoter Sol Bloom. Some even credit Bloom with coining the term “belly dance”, as he used the English version of the French “danse du ventre”. The dance was an immediate hit and soon spread to other major metropolitan areas in the US. The dance was seen as somewhat controversial and was not received well by the Victorian women of the late 1800s that dressed head to toe in corsets and layered gowns and who were repulsed by more than just the revealing dance attire.
When it comes to modern belly dance, Badia Masabani was a pioneer of the art form in 1920s Cairo. She became known as the ‘godmother’ of oriental dance. In 1926, Masabani opened her famous Casino Badia on Emad el-Din Street in the heart of Downtown Cairo, where she pioneered theatrical dance tools such as group choreography, movement-extending props, the deliberate use of space on stage, and many other modern elements of the dance. During the 1930s, Masabani introduced many rising stars to Egyptian audiences including singers and composers like Mohamed Abdel Wahab as well as some of Egypt’s most iconic dancers such as Taheya Karioka, Samia Gamal, Naima Akef, and Beba Ezzedine.
The Egyptian Taheya Karioka is regarded by many as the best belly dancer of all time. She enchanted the Nazis, Allies, and Arabs during and after World War II. Samia Gamal was considered the Middle East’s greatest dancer in the 1950s and 60s. She was also an actress. Many Egyptian films from the 1940s and 50s often had a belly dancer at the center of their story. In the 1990s, Fifi Abdou, Dina and Lucy were considered the crème de la crème of belly dancers.
Today, belly dancing has extended far beyond the casino, theatre stages and wedding venues. With performers like Shakira and Beyoncé popularizing the art form and introducing the world to evermore variations of belly dancing that include Latino and African elements. One of the most primal dances that exist, belly dancing seems to be as old as our ability to move and looks like it is certainly here to stay and grow with us well into the far and foreseeable future as our tastes and cultures expand and merge creating new variations of this beautiful dance that continues to induce a sense of awe and wonder at the miracle that is the female body.