The origin of the name ‘belly dance’ comes from the French Danse du ventre,
which translates as “dance of the stomach”. The true history of belly dance is a greatly debated topic among belly dance enthusiasts, leading to many conflicting theories.
he origin of the name ‘belly dance’ comes from the French Danse du ventre, which translates as “dance of the stomach”. Sol Bloom is said to have been the first one to use the English term belly dance, for the dancers of the Chicago’s World Fair in 1893. Belly dance is also often referred to as “oriental dance” and also sometimes raks sharqi. This is Arabic for “Dance of the east”. The term Dance du Ventre, from which belly dance originates, had originally racist connotations so there is currently a debate going on about whether the term belly dance should still be used.
According to some, the dance form that today many call belly dance is extremely old and traces of it can be found up to 6,000 years ago, in some pagan societies who used to worship a feminine deity, to celebrate women’s fertility as something magic. However, there is little evidence that early pagan rituals are in any way connected to belly dance. This type of dance is supposed to be indeed good for preparing women’s body to give birth, but there does not seem to be proof of any link to ancient fertility rituals. In spite of this, there has been a tendency, in the last 40 years, to associate belly dance with spirituality and the power of the feminine. This may be due to the fact that the feminist movement, in the 1970s and 1980s in the USA, rediscovered belly dance as a form of dance that empowers women.