Belly dance

The history of belly dance is truly fascinating. In this section you will notice that the history of belly dance is limited to belly dance history and culture in the US, because Hilde's style is mainly influenced by the US belly dance scene. If you wish to learn more about the backgound of this dance, please have a look at our links page for some useful websites.

There are many names and many styles for the dance form best known as belly dance. Some call it Arabic dance, others Middle Eastern dance, Oriental dance, Raqs Sharki, Egyptian dance,... Over the years, the dance has changed from a folk dance into a dance on the stage for entertainment into a breathtaking art form.

In belly dance, the dancer tries to illustrate the music with the body. The dance is charactered by its isolated pelvic movements which mimic the rhythm of the music, and by its sensual snake movements of the arms and belly, which illustrate the melody. The dancer can also use a veil, finger-cymbals, a cane or a sword as props to bring variety to the performance.

Belly dance became popular in the US at the turn of the 19th Century, during the 1893 Chicago world fair, where different folk dances of the Middle East were introduced to the visitors in Sol Bloom's 'streets of Cairo'. Since then, there has been a real exchange of influence between both worlds. The trademark two piece beaded costume is actually a Hollywood invention, inspired by some of the Orientalist paintings of the 18th and 19th century rather than a traditional Middle Eastern dress. However, Egypt adopted the two piece costume and it is worn by many famous dancers such as Samia Gamal that featured in Egyptian movies in the early 20th century.

During the 1960's, the dance had become quite popular and all over the world people started taking classes to learn the art of belly dance. Back then, it was extremely hard to learn 'authentic' Middle Eastern dance, as there was little access to experienced dancers from that area, so people started to create their own movements. Jamila Salimpour (often seen as the grandmother of US belly dance) created her own format where she started naming the movements and inspired thousands of dancers and teachers with her Bal Anat dance company.

Since the 80's, American Tribal Style (created by Carolena Nericcio and inspired by Bal Anat) became a popular style of this dance, and has now exploded into various branches of fusion belly dance. The tribal fusion style has spread from San Francisco to the rest of the world by dancers such as Rachel Brice from the Belly Dance Superstars, the world's first touring belly dance company, and has created a real technical boom within this dance.