Belly dance is a dance that has its origins in Egypt. It features movements of the hips and torso. It has evolved to take many different forms depending on the country and region, both in costume and dance style; with the Egyptian styles and costumes being the most recognized worldwide due to Egyptian cinema. The Egyptian style with its traditional Egyptian rhymes is popular worldwide with many schools around the globe now practicing it.
The first known use of the term "belly dance" in English is in reference to the Middle Eastern dancers who performed at the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1893.Belly dance is primarily a torso-driven dance, with an emphasis on articulations of the hips. Unlike many Western dance forms, the focus of the dance is on isolations of the torso muscles, rather than on movements of the limbs through space. Although some of these isolations appear similar to the isolations used in jazz ballet, they are sometimes driven differently and have a different feeling or emphasis.
Belly dancing is believed to have had a long history in the Middle East. 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. 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 Ghawazee of Egypt.
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. 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.
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.
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.
Belly dancers are thought to have come to Spain from Lebanon in the time of the Phoenicians. When the Arab family of the Umayyad came to Spain, they sent Basque singers and dancers to Damascus and Egypt for training in the Middle Eastern style.
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.
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.
