A BRIEF HISTORY

 There are many beliefs of how belly dancing started. Here is a brief description of just a few of the most      common.

 As  mentioned earlier,  dance historians believe that belly dancing began as a childbirth ritual. In             ancient times there were no hospitals or pain killers and women gave birth naturally. And what is more   natural then to ritualize the movements that strengthen and tone the pelvic and abdominal muscles and     to put them to music?

 Some people believe that these ritual movements formed part of a women’s “goddess” religion in the          ancient Middle Eastern world that was eventually replaced with the patriarchal religions we know            today.  Perhaps echoes of this primeval goddess religion live on in the art of belly dance today.

 The term “belly dancing” may have come from the Arabic word “beledi”, meaning “of the people”.              Beledi (sometimes spelled baladi) refers to the music, dance and costuming. It is not associated with the    “belly”; but does sound like it. 

 In 1893, an American promoter, Sol Bloom, brought a troupe of Algerian folk dancers to the Chicago        World’s Fair. That is where the term “belly dancer” was first coined to attract viewers to the exotic            dancing.