Belly Dancing

The term "belly dancing" is generally attributable to Sol Bloom, entertainment director of the 1893 World's honest, the World Columbian Exposition in Chicago, although he systematically referred to the dance as "danse du ventre," of which "belly dance" is a literal translation.

In his memoirs, Bloom states only that "when the public learned...danse du ventre...I had a gold mine." Although there were dancers of this sort at the 1876 Centennial in city, it was not until the Chicago World's honest that it gained national attention.

There were authentic dancers from several geographical area and geographic area countries, including Syria, Turkey and Algeria, but it was the dancers within the Egyptian Theater of the road within the Cairo exhibit World Health Organization gained the foremost infamy. The fact that the dancers were uncorseted and gyrated their hips was surprising to Victorian sensibilities.

There were no soloists, but it is claimed that a dancer nicknamed very little Egypt scarf the show. Some claim the dancer was Farida Mazar Spyropoulos, but this reality is controversial.

The popularity of those dancers after spawned dozens of imitators, many of whom claimed to be from the original company. Victorian society continued to be insulted by this "shocking"[citation needed] dance, and dancers were sometimes inactive and penalized. The dance was nicknamed the "Hoochie coochie", or the shimmy and shake.

A short film, "Fatima's Dance", was widely distributed within the phonograph theaters. It drew criticism for its "immodest" diversion, and was eventually censored. Belly dance drew men in droves to burlesque theaters, and to carnival and circus lots. Thomas Edison created many films of dancers within the Eighteen Nineties. These included a Turkish dance, and Crissie Sheridan in 1897, and Princess blue blood from 1904, which options a dancer enjoying zills, doing "floor work", and balancing a chair in her teeth.