Kharmine

I decided to start a new thread on this for the interest of those of us who wonder about the term "belly dance" and when it came into general usage.

After going waaaaay back into as many books, newspaper and magazine articles, academic papers, essays, online archives, personal interviews etc, as I could find in the English language, I decided to share what I've found thus far. Mind you, I've looked for as much information as I can, pro and con, and this is all I can find, after checking, double-checking and getting as much verification as possible:

By the time of the Paris International Exposition of 1889, the term "danse du ventre" was in common usage in Europe, at least, and getting widespread attention because of the dancers from the French colonies and elsewhere who performed in the so-called "Algerian Village" (although they weren't all Algerian, some were definitely Ouled Nail, perhaps some were Egyptian ghawazee, others were described as Tunisian, Syrian, etc.)

There were many foreign visitors to this event, including U.S. citizens. The young entertainment manager Sol Bloom was so fascinated by the "Algerian Village" that he contracted to bring the troupe to the U.S. He used the term "danse du ventre" when he brought the group to the 1893 World's Fair and Columbian Exposition in Chicago, and the newspapers quickly picked it up.

(In his 1948 memoirs, Bloom took no credit for how "danse du ventre" came to be translated into English as "belly dance;" he just says that when that happened the public immediately assumed it was something risque and he had a gold mine. He himself continued to call it "danse du ventre.")

The New York Times, one of the biggest-circulation U.S. newspapers ever, finally put a lot of its oldest editions online. Using the term "danse du ventre" and looking in the years 1851-1980 one can find a number of articles about dancers from the "Algerian Village" performing the "danse du ventre" in New York City as a sort of mini-recreation of the most popular acts of the Chicago fair. This was to be such a special event that President Cleveland was supposed to attend, if he could.

Three of the "Egyptian" (sometimes they're reported as Algerian or Syrian, too) dancers were actually arrested and fined for indecency at one point. They appear to have been the real dancers from the fair; they had the same names and their manager was also the manager of the "Street in Cairo" at the fair, a Mr. Delacroix.

There is no mention of "belly dancing" although some headlines refer to "the Midway dance." (The Midway Plaisance at the fair was the venue where the foreign dancing took place.) Very importantly, I found a short, disapproving NY Times editorial which I think exemplifies the most widespread period attitude toward at least some of the dancing.

You can find the whole piece online in the archives, but I will quote what I think is really significant here:

...We are aware also of the peculiar arguments used by some professed students of anthropology to explain their interest in this particular dance. They say it is a fairly accurate rendering of a ceremonial dance common among tribes of low development as apart of a rather vague and confused worship of the principle of fertility. The literal translation of the title of the dance partly explains this view of the subject..."


The dance was officially (as in all the advertising) billed at the event as "Danse Du Ventre." If any publication in the U.S. of that time could have gotten away with using the literal English translation of "danse du ventre" it would have been the very powerful New York Times.

But it couldn't even bring itself to say "dance of the stomach" -- which is why I doubt "belly dance" would have been in print intended for the general public for one New York minute.

There's no getting around it -- "danse du ventre" was the usual term used for some time in the U.S. It literally translates from the French as "dance of the stomach," and it's no mystery to see how someone of that period might give it an even then-racier twist as "belly dance." But if "belly dance" was used first used then (and there's no evidence that Sol Bloom lied or was mistaken in his memoirs), we'll have to assume that it would have been strictly as an "underground" use.

There is all kinds of precedent for an underground slang term that wouldn't be used openly, in general society. Generally, it's of a sexual nature -- for instance, f***k is an even older slang word that Americans used covertly since colonial times.

In all my research, the first time I find "belly dance" used in print it's in 1942. Time Magazine also has many of its oldest articles in online archives. There is a story called "While Cairo Fiddled" about what it was like in that city during WWII. It refers to a "famed and sexy belly-dancer" (note the hyphen) called Hekmet Fahmy. In 1947, there is a story about an American woman tried for murder in Havana who performs as a belly dancer (no hyphen) with the stage name "Satira." By the 1950s, when Samia Gamal visits the States, one sees more references to "belly dancer" and "belly dancing."

But right up until the 1970s, the most popular term used in the United States that took over from "danse du ventre" that I've found is "cooch dancing." Sometimes when referring to the raunchier burlesque and carnival cavorting it's called "the hootchie cootchie" (various spelling).

And I think I know about the moment that term became popular. In 1897, one of the many women who billed herself as "Little Egypt" after the Chicago fair, Ashea Wabe, came to perform in New York City. She is described in Donna Carlton's "Looking for Little Egypt," and she probably was one of the original Algerian dancers who first performed at the Paris Exposition. She was contracted to perform both in costume and without (as in the "altogether") for a gent named Seely who was hosting a fairly posh stag dinner. A disgruntled competitor blew the whistle, and the event was raided by the cops.

The subsequent indecency trial was a big media sensation. "Little Egypt" appeared with an interpreter but had enough French and English to testify without a lot of help. I have an original old copy of the New York World paper that reported the trial, and she is asked what sort of performance she did. She calls it " a leetle Oriental dance, monsieur, nothing much. A leetle pose like the Egyptian slave girl, you know?" and "the couchee couchee."

Well -- the "couchee couchee" (which may be from the French "hochequeue" meaning "to shake tail") took off like a surprised bunny. Pretty soon, the term is being used everywhere from early burlesque to carnival raunch dancers tight up to the 1970s when Time Magazine refers to the popularity of belly dancers in New York City as "the cooch terpers."

By about 1973, as more women take it up, it starts using "belly dancer."

So -- anyway, that's the timeline from "danse du ventre" to "belly dance" in the U.S. as near as I can establish. The archives are available to anyone who wants to look these references up. I know they're limited sources, but the best I could come up with, so far. Someday, I'll try to scan the New York World article (it's big and fragile). And if anyone wants more of my references, I'll be happy to oblige, although I think I've mentioned them elsewhere.

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What if the hokey pokey is really what it's all about?

Aniseteph

Well done Kharmine, thanks for posting all that.

So, pre-1942 authenticated references to "belly dance" then...

Kharmine

Yer welcome! Yes, still on the trail of 'belly dance," but gettin' closer, at least.

I also found three references to when the term started appearing in the Middle East. "A Trade Like Any Other:Female Singers & Dancers in Egypt" by Dr. Karin van Nieuwkerk noted that it appeared in Cairo for the first time in the 1890s when British colonial rule started.

When I do research, I like to try to find at least two other sources for any claim that may be important. Finally found:

1) A web site with an interview with Dr. Mo Geddawi, a master teacher and performer of Egyptian dance (Dr. Mo Geddawi - Hathor Dance Troup), in which he also says the term arose during British colonial rule: Dr. Mo Geddawi,* A Bridge Between Cultures and Times

2) An article by a journalist named for Andrea Nadar for YourEgypt.com, again mentioning that the term appeared during British colonial rule: Topic of the Issue: The Egyptian Oriental Belly-Dance: Beauty Expressed in Movement ... youregypt.com

If I was doing truly academic research I wouldn't be able to rest on just mentioning the other two sources without getting some info on what they base their claim on. After all, they may have just heard this, or picked it up from the same iffy source. We'd have to know if we had pretty good reason to trust their claim. Plus, British colonial rule was a pretty long term -- we don't know at what point these folks think it actually appeared.

But I can mention them here to point out two examples of how at least some modern Egyptians seem to believe this claim, as well -- an example of when opinions are useful, even if not necessarily primary source material.

What I cannot find is any mention of 'belly dance" as an English term or American slang, any use of it in "polite society" in the Middle East before the 1950s, at least. Perhaps it was also considered too vulgar for common use there. Van Nieuwkerk has a huge bunch of references to other books and materials in her work, and I have to admit I haven't been through 'em all.

At any rate, the preferred terms in the Cairo cabarets for decades appears to have been first 'danse du ventre", then "danse orientale" in French, and "Oriental dance" or "dance of the East" in English -- both direct translations of the Arabic "raqs sharqi."

So far, I've found nothing in print anywhere that indicates at what point Egyptians and other ME folks dropped "Oriental dance" when speaking English in favor of what the Americans used more often starting in the 1950s, "belly dance." When speaking in Arabic, however, they still use "raqs sharqi."

All I can find is that "belly dance" is being used much more often these days by Egyptians and other ME folks when speaking English, and especially when speaking to Westerners -- but by no means all.

Some find it an insulting term from the colonialist era, not in the least an accurate translation of raqs al-sharqi, such as the great Tunisian dancer Leyla Haddad, who explains on her web site: Welcome to Leila Haddad's Homepage

Based on what I've found so far, I see no reason to regard "belly dance" as any kind of truly linguistic evolution from 'raqs sharqi," nor can I regard it as a generally acceptable term in the Middle East.

Now. I'm perfectly willing to admit there may be material out there that I am unaware of. In French, Arabic, whatever, even English. I would simply say to those who want to contest these findings, "Please, by all means, show us what you've got that is something more than opinion, unsubstantiated anywhere else."

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What if the hokey pokey is really what it's all about?

Aziyade

Cool! Thanks!!

Maria_Aya

Wow thank you very much.
Very intersting thread !!

Maria Aya

Shanazel

cathy

Hi Kharmine,

Thanks for posting your findings on danse du ventre to belly dance. What about the origins of "Raks Sharki" itself? I had previously thought that Badia Masabni or her contemporaries invented it to distinguish it from "Raks Ferengi" (sp?) meaning foreign dance, but I recently read that the term may have existed before then.

I have not checked this source myself but what I read is that the term is mentioned in Armen Ohanian's "The Dancer of Shamahka", published in French in 1923, written several years earlier by an Armenian dancer, who was very famous and popular in France during the era of Mata Hari and La Belle Otero. She’d previously danced all over the Caucasus, Central Asia, Near and Middle East. The foreword was written by Anatole France.

I read on tribe how some people don't like the term "Oriental dance" because "Oriental" seems old-fashioned, derogatory, and associated with Asians but of course it comes from a direct translation of "Raks Sharki" which is what the dance is called in Arabic.

I know, if it's hard to research the origins of an English term it's ten times harder to research the origins of an Arabic one (not knowing Arabic at least).

Thanks, Cathy

Kharmine

As usual, you do great questions, Cathy! Wish I could answer as well but haven't been able to pin down an exact origin, either. We've all heard of raqs baladi, which means "dance of the country" -- whether that name evolved to distinguish it from the cityified, theatrical raqs sharqi, or has been around an even longer time and "raqs sharqi" is a twist off of that, I dunno.

For me, the "holy grail" book on this topic would be Badia Masabni's memoirs. She was a tough, shrewd, ingenious operator in show biz so it's probably got to be taken with a grain of salt in many places. And from what I've read, by the time she fled Cairo to avoid huge back taxes and retired to a chicken farm in Lebanon, she was pretty bitter and out to strike back at people she felt betrayed her.

Still, it would be a great tale of a unique era and person and might help answer a lot of questions.

Her biography was written by Nazik Basila and published in Beirut in 1960. I haven't been able to find a copy and I suspect it's only available in Lebanese Arabic ("Mudhakkirat Badi‘a Masabni" ("Memoirs of Badi‘a Masabni"). Beirut: Dar Maktabat al-Hayat . I don't know if this publisher is still in business -- it apparently produced many scholarly works in the past, but there's nothing listed after the 1970s in a Google search.)

Anyway, some of it is quoted in a book called: "Mass Mediations: New Approaches to Popular Culture in the Middle East East & Beyond," edited by Walter Armbrust (University of California Press, 2000).

I haven't gotten through the whole book, but I can recommend this chapter: "Badi'a Masabni, Artist and Modernist: The Egyptian Print Media's Carnival of National Identity," by Roberta Dougherty. It's got some great few photos and a lot of interesting tidbits like this one:

Her stage hosted both Oriental and Western acts.She herself continued to perform, either dancing or singing the munulugat (monologues) for which she was famous. She claimed to have introduced new movements to the traditional rags Sharqi (Oriental dance, the characteristic female solo dance of Egypt) to make it more interesting to watch, "for the Egyptian danseuses used to dance only by shimmying the belly and buttocks."


That doesn't sound as if she's claiming to have invented the term herself so maybe it just evolved as the dance apparently did in those early cabarets, from dancers who came from a variety of countries and dance styles with some Western touches thrown in to appeal to the European clientele.

According to her memoirs, Madame Badia had trained in a dance troupe run by a Frenchwoman, in which Badia was the only ME member. Later, according to this chapter, she also introduced into her act things like singing in Tunisian dialect, so we can certainly say Madame Badia was into fusion, East and West, to some extent.

I've got a copy of the April 1922 Asia Magazine that Ms. Ohanian's story was first serialized, as translated by Rose Wilder Lane from the French publication. It's only the first part of her story, up until invaders drive her family from its home. Although she writes about different kinds of dancing that she witnessed, she doesn't give any of it any specific names.

I finally found the May issue with Part II on Ebay, but it hasn't arrived yet. I understand the serial was carried from April to August 1922, so it may be awhile before I can get to any parts that use significant terms. Especially as this magazine can be expensive on a lot of used book/magazine places. (I was outbid on the book on Ebay, too, darn it!)

The book is available -- cheap! --in German, French and Spanish on AbeBooks, however. Maybe someone on the forum who is fluent in one of those languages would be interested?
AbeBooks: Search Results - Armen Ohanian and Shamakha

For the rest of us, the book in English might be available in some college library or something -- guess we'll all just have to keep an eye out. Meanwhile, there's an article about the translation and Rose Wilder Lane on the Saudi Aramco World web site: Saudi Aramco World : The Little House on the – Desert

There are also two interesting things about Ohanian that I haven't followed up yet -- supposedly she was a lover of Natalie Barney, a famous lesbian of wealth and culture, and supposedly she also married a man who became ambassador to Mexico during the revolution. With a life like that you'd think there'd already be a biography out on her, but all I've found is a site that has a book that is not in English: MIPP - book description

Yeah, well, whadda we gonna do? English is a funky lingo, no doubt about it! "Sharqi" can also be translated as "East," but that doesn't seem to have taken off as well as "Orient" or "Oriental." I also understand that the Iraquis and Iranians call it "Arab dancing." Go figure.

You betcha. My one little Arabic class was certainly not up to the challenge! The teacher confirmed that "raqs sharqi" means "dance of the Orient (or East)," or "Oriental dance" and that 'belly dance" was a completely different slang term of Western origin -- and that's all he could say about it!

It would be nice if some of the folks on this here forum who either speak Arabic or live in countries where it is spoken could do some research -- surely somewhere, there's got to be some articles and books written about the history and word origin and such that is not just the same stuff we see in English.

__________________
What if the hokey pokey is really what it's all about?

Kharmine

Going back to my earlier post on the journey from "danse to ventre" to "belly dance" -- I wanted to mention that:

1) Although "couchee couchee" and variations of it took off as a slang term in the U.S. right after Ashea Wabe called it that in court, there was another term sometimes used, sometimes interchangeably: "Muscle dance."

For an example, see this site that lists Thomas Edison's short silent films: Wild Realm Reviews: Some Kinetoscope Dance Films

"Fatima's Couchee Couchee Dance" is also listed as "Fatima's Muscle Dance."

BTW, this is an article about that film which featured an authentic ME dancer: Venus - Fatima's Coochee-Coochee Dance

I've also seen "muscle dance" mentioned a few times in the early New York Times archives, but not nearly as often as "danse du ventre" or "Oriental dance." Well, it does seem to lack a certain something, doesn't it?

2) I previously mentioned that "belly dance" doesn't seem to have been commonly used in American print until about the early 1970s. There is one exception: Men's magazines.

Now, I haven't found any old Playboys to back this up, but I did come across a number of now-defunct competitors between 1961 and 1964 with names such as Rogue, Sir!, Gentleman, Mr. Annual (yeah, you get the idea, no girly men here!).

I've got a copy of each that uses the terms "belly dancer," "belly dance" and "belly dancing," with one exception that I found in a 1961 Rogue article -- it called it "ballet de belly." It also called it "one of Terpischore's oldest forms," which is gettin' pretty fancy schmancy, and the writer appeared to be serious!

Even more interesting to me -- these men's mags all treat the subject with a far more respectful tone that the mainstream mags of the day such as Time and Life (who generally use terms like "cooch dancer" and "torso tossing")! It's mind-boggling, considering this was before women's lib was even a well-known term!

Maybe it's because these mags knew that a certain salacious interest was already a given and didn't have to be either ignored or played down with condescension.

What I especially noticed is that the men's mags interviewers actually talked to the dancers themselves (as opposed to just about them), letting them expound on belly dance in an intelligent way.

By contrast, it's the mainstream mags that invariably take on an amused, let's-not-take-this-too-seriously, nudge-nudge attitude and usually cite all the same old myths about harems and and sultans and crap. This until belly dancing becomes so popular with average women by the early 1970s that there are real classes available every where for the first time -- then suddenly, the mainstream mags are more respectful!

So -- to all those of y'all who might have a stack of dad's old girlie mags somewhere, look 'em up! There might be some good belly dance stuff.

__________________
What if the hokey pokey is really what it's all about?

Aniseteph

I've been chasing some leads...

In 1899 WC Morrow in "Bohemian Paris of Today" (p 95) You can get the whole book here. Open Library: Details: Bohemian Paris of to-day;

The belly dance reference is just a footnote, and my reading of it is as a direct translation of danse du ventre rather than a term in its own right. It also says the dance was introduced to Paris by Turkish women from Egypt (don't know how authoritative this is, I don't think Mr Morrow is a dance scholar ).

But part of it is still relevant over 100 years on (and not just American and French women now of course!)

Isn't that great?

On the track of a 1931 reference, not a d-d-v translation, I'll be back...