Belly dancing, bodily transformation and empowerment in a historical context. Review of 2010 paper & relevance to today's dancers.

Towards my aim of reviewing scientific and published literature on belly dance, I am reviewing an older piece written by fellow Aussie, Virginia Keft-Kennedy and published online in the journal ‘Women’s Studies’ in 2010.  

Keft-Kennedy’s paper offers a fascinating reminder that belly dance has never been just “a dance”—it has always been a conversation about women’s bodies. In its earliest encounters with the West, belly dance was viewed through a deeply judgmental lens. Nineteenth-century audiences often described the moving female body as excessive, uncontrolled, even “grotesque,” particularly because of its focus on the abdomen and pelvis. According to Mikhail Bakhtin’s analysis as quoted in this piece, “the upper body is the classical body; it is predominantly secure and intellectual and maintains its integrity. The lower bodily stratum, on the other hand, is the site of the grotesque body, which has orifices, genitals, and protuberances”. 

Personally, I find this hilarious; hilarious and a bit sad that this was a widely held perspective in his era. A sign of the repression of the observer rather than a serious analysis of the human form. The upper, logical part of the body is the safe, sensible masculine and the lower is the dangerously unpredictable, seductive feminine.  What we can recognise here, with modern eyes, is a cultural discomfort with bodies that move freely—especially female bodies that are not tightly controlled, restrained, or hidden. In many ways, the criticism of belly dance tells us far more about historical body ideals than it does about the dance itself.

What makes this especially relevant to body image today is the way belly dance disrupts those long-standing expectations. At a time when Western ideals demanded tight, corseted, and controlled bodies, the belly dancer’s body did the opposite—it moved, expanded, vibrated, and drew attention to areas that were supposed to remain still or concealed. As Keft-Kennedy explains, this kind of movement was perceived as threatening because it challenged ideas of “appropriate” femininity . For modern dancers, this is a powerful reframe: the very qualities that might make someone feel self-conscious—softness, movement, visibility—are actually central to what makes this dance form so transformative.

This history is still rippling through todays’s society. New students regularly experience a momentary sense of panic at their sight of their bodies vibrating for the first time. They freeze at breaching a relatively subconscious sense of what is considered appropriate and feminine in our modern culture. It takes reassurance that this is indeed what we are going for in the dance, they are doing it right! We are not here to strive for 6 pack abs and 0% body fat; we are here to enjoy our bodies, as they are, in this moment. Most women will jiggle, at least a little bit, when they do these movements and that is ok.

“Belly dance can be seen as a potent weapon for feminist politics and a potentially transgressive practice for women”. - Virginia Keft-Kennedy

The paper also highlights an important tension that still exists today. Belly dance has long been associated with empowerment, but that empowerment is not simple or straightforward. Historically, Western women adopted belly dance partly as a way to explore freedom, sensuality, and agency, often through the lens of “otherness” or exoticism . This creates a layered picture: belly dance can be both liberating and complicated, offering women a space to reclaim their bodies while also sitting within a broader cultural history that isn’t always comfortable. For teachers and dancers, this is less about avoiding the dance and more about engaging with it thoughtfully and respectfully.

Perhaps the most useful takeaway for modern dancers is this: belly dance is powerful not just because of how it looks, but because of how it allows the body to behave. It invites movement in places that have historically been restricted, celebrates bodies that don’t conform to narrow ideals, and creates space for women to be visible, expressive, and unapologetically embodied. As Keft-Kennedy suggests, it is the moving body itself—the “wiggling,” shifting, expressive body—that becomes a site of transformation . In a culture that still encourages women to hold in, smooth over, and minimise themselves, that is no small thing.

Please consider reading the original works in it’s entirety, if you have access. 

Keft-Kennedy, V. (2005). “How does she do that?” Belly dancing and the horror of a flexible woman. Women’s Studies, 34(3–4), 279–300. [https://doi.org/10.1080/00497870590964183](https://doi.org/10.1080/00497870590964183