Belly Dancing

The practice of Belly Dancing, now something of a worldwide, multiethnic entertainment, was first popularized in the Middle East and northern Africa. Belly Dancing music is intimately connected to the region's other musical forms, and shares some of its instruments -- including varieties of tabla drum, tambourines, and the ney (a flute). Its high, keening vocals, melodies and harmonies have origins tracing back to ancient Persia. Its strict rhythms led the dancers to form slow, sensual undulations to quick, propulsive hip-thrusts.