Sacred Dance Day Sadhana ( Day 33 )

Origins of the Dance

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 many cultures is honored the goddess as the giver of all life, feminine deity and celebration of women’s fertility.

Before Islam and Christianity, when the Mother Goddess was worshipped, sex and childbearing were sacred. During this time, many societies were matriarchal, and belly dancing was performed by women for women.

In the feminist movement, in the 1970s and 1980s in the USA was rediscovered belly dance as a form of dance that empowers women. A sisterhood long forgotten began to awaken.

What we called today belly dance, comes from the roots the specific type of dances that comes from Turkey and Egypt.
Bellydancing is the last vestige of goddess worship in the Middle East and is in danger of becoming extinct. Bellydancing began as a ritual for childbirth preparation in the ancient Middle East.

In Arabic, the dance is called Raks Sharqi, meaning "Oriental Dance". Bellydancing was later translated from the French Danse du Ventre, or stomach dance, which was used to describe tribal dances from a group of matriarchal Berbers in Algeria called the Oulid Nail. Bellydancing is not the only dance done by women in the Middle East. There are regional folkloric dances that also emphasize hip and abdominal movements. By looking at the specific movements of belly dance, some say that there could have been an influence coming from India & Africa.  Indeed some movements, such as the head slides, are found both in Indian dance and in belly dance. Belly dancing is the most well-known as international dance.