I'm Wiccan. I keep my religious dance to myself, not in a public venu. I tell people the history of American Belly Dance and the Original Ethnic dance forms from what I've researched as historical fact.
A historical aspect: In the late 1800's and early 1900's many things were popular in Great Brit. and America and got a bit mixed in with each other: Ruth St. Denis, spirtitism, Orientalism, Alister Crowley & his Golden Dawn bunch, the works of James George Frazer & Robert Graves, Magick & Stage Magic, ancient Egypt, Theosophy, etc. Modern Wicca was influenced by many of these things.
At the Chicago World's Fair in 1893, the first "belly dancers" were popularized in America. I think because American Belly Dance is descended from Orientalism of this time, a bit of these other ideas got mixed in because they were popular culture.
Later things got mixed again. The works of Joseph Campbell had an influence on the Mother Goddess movement of the late 1960's and early 70's. Some of these people were also discovering belly dance at the same time. San Francisco spawned Renaissance Fairs and the SCA, Marrion Zimmer Bradley and her influential book "Mists of Avalon", Feminism, Bal Anat and what eventually became ATS, Hippies, and neo-paganism. A lot of folks were active in several of these counter-culture groups. I think it's an American phenomena to have the Godess Movement tied in with Belly Dance.
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