Fact Or Fantasy?

by Shira

Just because it makes a good story, doesn't mean it's true. Just because you want it to be true, doesn't make it so.

In the search for answers to questions they are asked by audience members, students, and others, many belly dancers have made up stories to explain why certain props are used, why certain costume choices are made, or why certain moves are done. The person who originated a given story may have told her students, "I don't know. Perhaps it was because...." Over the years, that student may have passed it on to her students as a "fact" that she learned from her teacher, forgetting that it was presented to her as speculation. This article exposes some of the widely-believed myths and provides the truth behind each.

Although historical people in the Middle East didn't do a dance of the seven veils or wear belts made of camel tassels, there is no harm in modern-day dancers doing so. I'm not saying dancers who enjoy these modern-day Western additions to the dance should abandon them. However, I encourage you to learn the truth behind how these practices came into being, and pass that truth on to your students, friends, co-workers, and audience members. In that way, we can educate people about the true history of the dance and celebrate modern-day creativity at the same time.

Are there additional fantasies you think I should address on this page? Send me e-mail, and I'll add them!

Fantasy: Belly dancers wear a jewel in their navel.

Fact: The idea of wearing a jewel in the navel originated in Hollywood. Real dancers in the Middle East don't put jewels in their navels. For more on this subject, read the Dear Shira article about navel jewels on this web site.

Fantasy: Canes became a prop used in belly dancing as a miniature representation of the shepherd's crook used by women tending sheep in the fields.

Fact: This dance originated in southern Egypt, in the region known as the Said or Upper Egypt. Traditionally, Saidi men carried long sticks called tahtihbs with them which they used as weapons. This led to a martial art, and eventually a dance arose in which they feigned fighting with these sticks. Women then began dancing with canes as a way of playfully imitating this men's dance, and over time raks al assaya developed into a distinct women's dance.

Fantasy: The origin of balancing a sword on the dancer's head comes from the women who accompanied men into wars, and entertained them in their tents at night.

Fact: There is no widespread dance in the Middle East today involving balancing of a sword on the dancer's head. The primary historical evidence that has led modern-day dancers to treat the sword as a folkloric prop comes from a wonderful painting by the Orientalist artist named Jean-Léon Gérôme, dating to the 19th century. This painting has inspired many modern-day dancers in Europe, Australia, New Zealand and North America to balance swords on their heads. It's reasonable to believe that at least one dancer (the one who inspired Gérôme's painting) indeed did such a dance, and probably others in her community did too. However, it's not a commonplace part of a typical dancer's act today in Egypt, Turkey, Lebanon, or other parts of the Middle East, and dance researchers have not been able to find corroborating documents to suggest that it was ever common practice.

There is an Egyptian men's dance that involves holding the sword in the hand throughout the dance and executing martial moves with the sword. But at no time do the men balance the sword on their heads (or anywhere else) when performing this dance.

Fantasy: Belly dancing was widely used in the harems by women to get the Sultan's attention so he would choose them over the other women.

Fact: Oral tradition handed down through generations of women states that Oriental dance originated as a means of helping women prepare their abdominal muscles for labor. Even today, the use of these movements as a birth ritual persists in some communities within the Middle East and North Africa, in which women gather around a friend or family member who has gone into labor, and they perform the undulating movements as she prepares to give birth. For more information about this, see three articles by Morocco on her web site: Roots, Giving to Light, and Belly Dancing & Childbirth.

Fact: In the large harems, the women rarely even saw the Sultan. Decisions about which young women to introduce to him were often made by the Sultan's mother or first wife. So instead of winning the Sultan's attention through seductive dancing, the women of the harem were more likely to achieve their aims through gaining the confidence and support of his mother and/or first wife. Now, they probably did dance in the harem for each other's own entertainment to while away the long days. But it wasn't about competing for the Sultan's attention, because he wouldn't have been there to see.

Fact: Today, in the Middle East, women dance for other women--for their friends, neighbors, aunts, mothers, and cousins. They use it to amuse themselves during the day while the men are out earning a living, after the household chores for the day are done. They use it to celebrate happy family occasions such as weddings, and even today in some parts of the Middle East the men's celebrations are in a separate room from those of the women.

Fantasy: Belly dancing was traditionally used as a dance of seduction.

Fact: As noted above, in the Middle East, women dance for other women, and this has long been the tradition of their culture. Of course, it's likely that there were individuals who used this beautiful dance form to entice their husbands behind closed doors. However, that is not the tradition of the dance, and that is not how its place in society is viewed by the people who have actually grown up in Middle Eastern families. Women don't teach their daughters a "dance of seduction".

Fantasy: The Dance Of The Seven Veils is a traditional dance from the Middle East, based on a story about Ishtar leaving a veil behind at each of seven gates as she descended to the underworld.

Fact: The Biblical account of the young woman who danced for Herod does not identify her by name. It also does not say anything about what she did in her dance, only that her dance "moved" Herod. The notion that she did a "dance of the seven veils" was introduced in the 19th century, when the British playwright named Oscar Wilde wrote a play about the loves of Salomé. His story was then used as the basis for an opera named Salomé written by Richard Strauss. It was Strauss's opera that introduced Western society to the story of a young woman who peeled off one veil at a time until she was dancing naked before Herod. Later, Ruth St. Denis and Isadora Duncan incorporated "the Orient" into their own creative dance portrayals, and Hollywood picked up on the theme in some movies. A closer look at the "dance of the seven veils" appears elsewhere on this web site.

Fantasy: Belly dancing was brought by the Rroma (Gypsies) from India to the Middle East.

Fact: Africa had a long history of dances that used hip movements long before the Rroma (the name that many Gypsies prefer to use for their ethnic group) migrated west. Turkey had a long history of dances that used torso undulations long before the Rroma migrated west. Although it's likely the Rroma brought their own music and dance forms with them, a strong local dance tradition existed throughout the Middle East before their arrival. Also, as the Rroma settled in various places that were already populated by other people, they tended to embrace the local music and dance forms.

Fantasy: The Gypsies danced around their campfires under the stars and enjoyed the romance of the Gypsy trail.

Fact: Life was very hard for the Rroma. In the same era when Western Europe was outraged over the enslavement of Africans in the New World, their neighbors in Romania to the east were enslaving the Rroma. This ethnic group endured many hardships, and even today in Europe the homes of Rroma are burned down and their people are driven out of communities while the local authorities either help with the persecution or look the other way. If the Rroma camped out under the stars, it was often probably due to being driven out of their homes. There is no romance in such a hard life.

Fantasy: The name "belly dance" comes from mispronouncing "baladi dance", which is the dance of the Egyptian people.

Fact: The name "belly dance" was coined by the American event promoter Sol Bloom, when he was trying to stir up public interest in seeing the Streets Of Cairo exhibit at the Chicago world's fair in 1893. Bloom may have heard French people refer to le danse du ventre (which translates to "the dance of the stomach"), which was the name French colonialists applied to a specific abdominal control dance of the Ouled Nail. Then again, he might not have been familiar with that term, either. In his autobiography, Bloom claims responsibility for coining the term. In any event, the dance of the Ouled Nail that the French called le danse du ventre was a different sort of dance from what we think of today as "belly dancing". Sol Bloom is very unlikely to have known or cared what the dance was called in its native home--he just wanted to attract a large number of curiosity-seekers to his exhibit to ogle the exotic dancers, and the word "belly" certainly provoked attention in an era when most high-society women were laced up tightly in their corsets. Many modern-day dancers have observed the phonetic similarity between the words "baladi" and "belly", but this is only an interesting coincidence--there is no cause-and-effect relationship. For more on the history of how the term "belly dancing" entered the U.S. vocabulary, see the book Looking for Little Egypt, which is reviewed elsewhere on this web site.

Fantasy: The traditional garb for Middle Eastern dancers was either a coin bra/belt set or a choli teamed with a tassel belt.

Fact: The coin bra/belt set idea was born in the U.S. Many people attribute the invention of the coin bra to Bob Mackie, a costume designer for Hollywood movies, although there is some disagreement on that.

Fact: Cholis were traditionally worn by women in India, under the saris. The use of a choli as part of an Oriental dance costume is an American invention--they are not part of the clothing traditions of women in the Middle East or North Africa.

Fact: In the Middle East, tassels are used to decorate the halters of donkeys, camels, and other animals. The animals rarely wear tassels on a daily basis--generally, the tassels are placed on their halters just for special occasions. There is no documentation to support the idea that Arabic or Turkish humans wore belts composed of fluffy yarn tassels when dancing.

All of these costume accessories can look really great on dancers, and have been embraced by those dancers who have adopted the American "tribal" style. They make good theater, but it would not be correct to tell people they are accurate representations of what historical dancers in the Middle East actually wore.