It’s a popular activity the world over, but a local author is rewriting the history of belly dancing.

The term is loosely used to refer to dances from or inspired by middle eastern dancing, but no one in those countries refers to it that way.

It’s a controversial term, according to author and historian Ainsley Hawthorn, and considered demeaning by some dancers. She was able to track the term back to 1864 where it was coined to deride a fantastical painting that had scandalized Paris at the time (above) by Jean-Leon Gerome called ‘Dance of the Almeh’ depicting a scantily-dressed dancer.

Hawthorn is now submitting changes about the term to the Oxford English Dictionary. She says the update is important because of the way the words we choose affect the world.

She says ‘belly dance’ reinforces stereotypes about people from the Middle East as exotic or uncivilized, rather than engaging with the actual dance and culture from which it comes.

Listen to Hawthorn speak with VOCM’s Paddy Daly here: