Belly Dancer

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BellyDancer

Khalil Gibran, The Wanderer

, The Wanderer

“The philosopher’s soul dwells within his head, the poet’s soul dwells within his heart, the singer’s soul dwells about his throat, but the soul of the dancer abides in all her body.”

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Typically, a woman who wears a midriff-revealing outfit and a lot of jewelry. She moves her hips and stomach in a way that can mesmerize onlookers. Occasionally, men belly dance too, but this is less common and may be Played for Laughs or Fan Disservice.

Often occurs in Middle Eastern settings. Serious performers of the sophisticated genuine article began to refer to it as “Middle Eastern Dance” in the 1980s. Strictly speaking, what Westerners think of as belly dancing is the Arabic raqs sharqi style. Some historians believe it was a way of exercising the muscles of the pelvis and abdominal area for women who were pregnant or had menstruation problems; or that it was part of a religious ceremony. Nowadays it’s more for entertainment purposes, although it can be utilized as a form of exercise too.

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Note that the revealing outfits are a more recent addition to the dance; female dancers of the original raqs sharqi style dressed more conservatively.

If a character dresses like a belly dancer, but is not actually one, she is a Bedlah Babe.

Please place only particularly notable real-life examples in the Real Life section.

Check out these shimmying examples:

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    Card Games 

• In the Yu-Gi-Oh! game, there’s an old Ritual Monster named Performance of Sword, who not only dresses like a belly dancer, but appears to be one. (The required Ritual Spell Card is called Commencement Dance, and also features a dancer dressed like this.)

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    Comic Books 

    Commercials 

• ServiceExperts: 3 Bellydancers entertain a young boy whose mother (who was expecting air conditioning) tries to cover his eyes. Even the boy’s father begins to dance with them.

    Doujinshi 

• A doujin called The Moon and the Dancer takes place in a desert country, where a Japanese business representative tries to start a business relationship between the oil shieks and his company. During his stay, he meets with a representative from the shieks, who begins to fall for him. Some time later, at a party celebrating the new business deal, the Japanese rep thought he would never see his new acquaintance ever again…until she shows up at the party as the belly dancer for the party’s entertainment, both greatly surprising him and leading the two into a romantic night together.

    Films — Animation 

    Literature 

• Merrill Joan Gerber’s YA novel Also Known as Sadzia the Belly Dancer.
• On the cover of Assignment – The Cairo Dancers by Edward S. Aarons.
• Shown on one of the covers◊ of Boy by James Hanley.
• Shown on the cover◊ of The Curse of a Thousand Kisses by Sax Rohmer.
• Golden Dragon Fantasy Gamebooks: One shows up at the local tavern in Curse of the Pharaohs

  and gives you something to shake off your new friend, somehow knowing he’s not to be trusted

  .

• One is on the cover◊ of The Eye of Karnak by John E. Muller.
• Shown on the cover◊ of The Far Out Ones by Dell Holand.
• Transito Soto, the Hooker with a Heart of Gold from The House of the Spirits, once dresses up as one as she speaks to Esteban about her and her friend’s brothel. It lets her show off a snake-shaped tattoo around her belly button.
• The main character of Go Figure by Jo Edwards explains her main complaint with Halloween due to her weight:

  …Finding regular clothes that make me look good is challenging enough; now imagine how tough it is to find a trendy plus-size costume. Making matters worse, all of the skinny skinny chicks take the opportunity to show off their hot bods in some rocking costume or other. Nothing shatters my self-esteem like standing around in a dowdy, floor-length witch’s robe while all the cute girls parade around as French maids, belly dancers, and leotard-clad devils.

• In the Discworld novel Jingo Nobby Nobbs is forced to dress up as one. He is not allowed to dance, though. It was subsequently implied

  note 

  about as subtly as it’s “implied” that Carrot is the rightful heir to the throne of Ankh-Morpork!

  that he enjoyed the experience more than he’d expected to and took up crossdressing afterwards.

• The Most Beautiful is a first-person memoir by Mayte Garcia, the first wife of the late pop star Prince; the memoir describes how she had successfully started her career as a belly dancer during her teen years and how her life changes after meeting and falling in love with Prince.
• The Shimmy and Steam series, written by Michelle Kopra, details the adventures of a group of belly dancers who travel to distant lands to dance for royalty while also serving as spies for Queen Victoria and the British Empire.
• Al – of the ’70s YA series by Constance C. Greene – likes to practice a bit of random belly dance moves while hanging out with her friends.

    Music 

    Pinballs 

• The title character from Bally‘s Mata Hari.

    Print Media 

• Each bellydancer is shown in the “Look and Find” book based on Disney’s Aladdin
• Where’s Waldo? in Hollywood features a couple bellydancers in “Fun in the Foreign Legion”.
• A number of women in the Humorama gag cartoons were this, often wearing Fanservice costumes of nothing more than bikinis, veils and jewelry. It helps that some talented artists like Dan DeCarlo drew these dancing ladies.

    Professional Wrestling 

• The Bella Twins dressed up as belly dancers for a Halloween photoshoot in 2009.
• GLOW had Little Egypt, who danced her way to the ring and even wrestled in the costume – thus merging this with Dance Battler.
• WWE’s developmental documentary series Breaking Ground shows a developmental Diva called Aliyah attempting a belly dancer type of gimmick, as she is of Arab descent. The gimmick never made it to TV but the outfit did, making her a Bedlah Babe briefly.
• Wrestlicious which is a Spiritual Successor to GLOW, had a character called Azziza who was also a belly dancer. She never wrestled however.

    Radio 

• Neddie Seagoon visits Arabia in one of the episodes of The Goon Show. At some point, he is treated to an exotic dance of the “seven army surplus blankets”, which strip off to reveal that the belly dancer in question is actually Eccles.

    Theater 

• Azuri, the villain of The Desert Song.
• Dralion: Oceane’s outfit and style of dance seem to draw on this trope.

    Theme Parks 

• Busch Gardens: In the Pantopia section of the Tampa Bay Park, the Dragon Fire Grill restaurant hosts the “Treasures of the Mirage” stage show, featuring belly dancers and Arabian musical performances.
• Disney Theme Parks:
  • The Tokyo DisneySea park from Tokyo Disney Resort had a dinner show attraction called A Table is Waiting, which showcased different food dishes from cultures around the world. One of the countries shown was India, where performers dressed as belly dancers would sing about spice and curry with the song “Spice Up Your Life”.
  • The 2017 version of the Fantasmic! nighttime show in Disneyland shows a new segment featuring Genie singing “Friend Like Me”, where he turns Ariel, Cinderella and Belle into belly dancers during the act. Eventually, however, the segment was considered to be a little adult for young audiences, forcing the show to use different characters/effects from “Friend Like Me”.
  • The Mickey’s Soundsational Parade in Disneyland features the “Aladdin’s Magical Cymbal Celebration” segment, with Aladdin and Genie leading a team of dancing harem girls, including a special “coin dancer” covered in shimmering gold.
  • The World Showcase area in Epcot features the Moroccan Pavilion, designed to appear like a real-life Moroccan street, where tourists can catch belly dancing shows either in the courtyard or inside the Restaurant Marrakesh. The Souk-Al-Magreb shop also offers books that can teach its reader how to belly dance.
• At the Dutch park Efteling, Fata Morgana is a dark ride with 140 animatronics in a 1001 Nights setting. It naturally includes belly dancers, in the sultan’s throne room more precisely.

    Video Games 

    Visual Novels 

• Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors: Lotus’s outfit is that of a belly dancer. She takes belly dancing as a hobby but got kidnapped before she had the chance to change; her day job is

  an incredible computer hacker

  .

• Solstice: Constance rocks the look◊ quite well.

    Webcomics 

    Web Original 

• Disbanded Japanese pop duo 294 (つくし, or Tsukushi, featuring members Kahori and Haruka) created a online video blog called 294tv, which greatly focused on their adventures while touring Japan outside of performances. In one of the episodes, Kahori and Haruka decided to go to an Indian restaurant in the Shijuku ward of Tokyo, where they took a lesson of belly dancing from two accomplished dancers who regularly perform at the establishment.
• Brain Dump: In Max’s scathing review of Rogue One, Max attempts to summon back Goofball for more product placement. Goofball decides to return, dressed up as Jeannie, and performs hip shakes while refusing Max’s request for more product placement.
• Bravest Warriors: Beth’s “30% sexier” costume is a version of this in “Butter Lettuce“. And thanks to Wankershim, the Beth hologram decides to perform a dance for Chris as a “reward” for his victory.
• Drunken Peasants: In Episode 157, the “Troll or Not a Troll” segment involves a rather big-breasted belly dancer balancing a scimitar on her head while discussing her conservative political views. Best part?

  She ends up being totally real.

• Luna of Cairo is a small short story told by a real-life belly dancer in modern-day Egypt, who goes into detail of the struggles she deals with as a dancer as well as the surprisingly intricate social hierarchy for Egyptian dancers.
• Athena from Oska Software’s “Dancing Girls”.
• The narrator of “Hips of Fools“, a story in The Wanderer’s Library, meets one on another planet’s moon.
• In Zero Punctuation‘s review of inFAMOUS, Yahtzee says it best in terms of his job as a video game critic:

  … But then I realize that if I’m trying this hard to find complaints then I may have forgotten what I’m in this gig for: to depict the majority of games as the bland garbage that they are to highlight the few glittering belly dancers that rise above it, and inFAMOUS is good. In fact, it’s great. Huge, creative and fun. It’s rare that I find a game for which I’m willing to suffer haemolacria.

    Real Life