page_title: Belly dance
section_title: In Spain
hierarchical_section_title: Belly dance / Outside the Middle East / In Spain
caption_attribution_description: Español: Dalilah, bailarina legendaria de la época dorada del baile en Oriente Medio, bailando delante de las pirámides, en El Cairo.
context_page_description: Belly dance, also referred to as Arabic dance is an expressionist type of dance that originated in Egypt and that emphasizes complex movements of the torso. It has evolved to take many different forms depending on the country and region, both in costume and dance style; with Egyptian style and its famous traditional rhymes being the most common worldwide having many schools around the globe practicing it.
context_section_description: Belly dancers are thought to have come to Spain from Lebanon in the time of the Phoenicians (11th Century BC to 5th Century BC). When Arab family of the Umayyad came to Spain, they sent Basque singers and dancers to Damascus and Egypt for training in the Middle Eastern style. These dancers came to be known as Al-Andalus dancers. It is theorised that the fusion of the Al-Andalus style with the dances of the Gypsies led to the creation of flamenco.
caption: Spaniard Dalilah, 1957
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