Origins of belly dancing

Belly dance is a kind of traditional dancing come of middle eastern, westerners call it raqs sharqi, it is sometimes also called Middle Eastern dance or Arabic dance in the West, or by theGreco-Turkish term çiftetelli (Greek: τσιφτετέλι).

Primitive rock engravings of fertility dances date back as far as 15,000 B.C. Women in positions resembling the belly dancing appear in Egyptian tomb paintings (5,000 B.C.) and in ancient Greek and Indian sculpture. Ritual dances of high priestesses of many ancient civilizations were probably some form of belly dance. The Belly dance can be traced back over 6000 or more. The early pagan communities often worshipped a matriarchal deity and extolled the magic and fascination of the ability of women to create life. The sharp hip movements, deliberate muscular contractions and spasms, as well as sinewy undulations, demonstrate strong connections to the body’s responses during labour and delivery. The dances spread from Mesopotamia to North Africa, Rome, Spain and India. It is thought gypsies travelled and spread belly dance. Different countries and cultures have used the belly dance for varying purposes. In Northern Africa, young women would dance for coins which they sewed to their costumes. Their costumes would became their dowry. However, belly dancing was considered a sacred dance and was performed in religious rites for many centuries. The dance symbolizes childbirth. There are many stories said that women performing the belly dance as an aid to other women in labor.

belly dancing skirt

With the development of society, belly dancing do as a kind of way to entertain people that appear at local places and will become a mainstream way of life. Originally coming from India, the gypsies first travelled west into Afghanistan and Persia. Then some of them migrated North to Turkey and then onto Europe. Others went South until they reached Egypt and other parts of Northern Africa.