Joy of Belly Dance

Many people assume that Tribal belly dance is an authentic Middle Eastern belly dance style.  Not so!  Tribal is American and proud of it.    This article explains its origins.

There are now many “fusion” variants of the original American Tribal Style.  Recognising that ATS itself is a modern invention, tribal dancers are very open to and accepting of new evolutions of the style.

The dance we know as the belly dance originated, it is believed, in the Middle East in ancient times dating back to the dawn of civilization. And while it has changed from region to region over its lengthy history, it has perhaps never changed to the extent that is seen today in the American Tribal Style Belly Dance.

Tribal Dancer by Alaskan Dude

Unarguably American, as its name signifies, the American Tribal Style Belly Dance, we can call it ATS for short, while incorporating the moves and body motions of the traditional dance of the Middle East, takes the traditional dance techniques and incorporates them together with American inspired dance moves, becoming a fusion of Middle Eastern and American forms, but still unmistakably belly dance.

The American version is characterized by colorful and exotic costumes. Many dancers favor wide legged pants narrowing at the ankles, and tiered skirts, short blouses and decorated bras, turbans and tattooed faces. Adorned with decorative jewelry, often called ethnic jewelry, dancers often wear ankle rings similar to those often worn by gypsies. It is interesting to note that the nomadic gypsies, originating in Northern India, and migrating to Persia, Turkey, and other parts of the Middle East, have been associated with belly dance for centuries.

Compared to the thousand year old traditions and practices of Middle Eastern belly dance, the American Tribal Style of dance has evolved only over the last 50 years, generally credited to the creative efforts and guidance of Jamila Salimpour, followed later by Masha Archer, and finally by Carolena Nericcio, all resident at the time in the San Francisco area of California.

Jamila Salimpour, in the late 1960’s formed the dance troupe Bal Anat, and drawing on her past experience with the circus of Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey, Jamila assembled a variety show that was “half real and half hokum” as she described it. The show was accepted by her audience as the real thing, as belly dancing, and so, with its fusion of dance styles and American influences, the American Tribal Style of Belly Dance was born.

In the 1970’s, Masha Archer, a former student of Jamila, a trained artist and now a famous designer of jewelry, who was then director of her San Francisco Classic Dance Troupe, added to Jamila’s new belly dance style, a varied blend of folkloric and classic Egyptian dance together with whatever else captured her artistic and creative interest.

After the San Francisco Classic Dance Troupe was disbanded in the late 1980’s, Carolena Nericcio, who was a student of Masha Archer and a dancer with her troupe, established a small dance studio in San Francisco and began teaching belly dance, blending the methods of Salimpour and Archer with her own ideas and so the American Tribal Style continued its evolution, until Carolena eventually established the now famous dance troupe Fat Chance Belly Dance. The FCBD is now one of the largest and most popular of American dance troupes.

Rather than being a solo dance as it is in the traditional Middle East dance, the ATS, and the FCBD, is mainly a group dance, with the participants following a leader who establishes the patterns and movements, possibly improvising but doing so in a highly skilled fashion. In addition to the group performance, as the overall program proceeds, there are also featured solos and sometimes duets, trios, or quartets.

Highly popular and successful, Fat Chance Belly Dance has been described as “mesmerizing, with the group dancing in elegant unison creating a magical effect”.

A performance of American Style Tribal dance is a performance of women having fun, a joyful and exuberant dance experience.

Jim Robinson, the author of this article, has recently launched a blog, summarizing the history, culture, personalities, art and literature, of the Arabic Belly Dance, and invites your comments.

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