Belly Dancing
Belly Dancing, with its gyrations, undulations, and bared midriffs, was shocking, engaging, both praised and harshly criticized. Historian Steve Nelson (1986) quotes a bystander of the time who said, “No ordinary Western woman looked on these performances with anything but horror.”
Despite the harshest of critics, the dancer using the stage name Little Egypt was wildly popular with her rhythmic shimmies and exotic, sparkling costumes. Little Egypt wasn’t the only belly dancer at the Fair, other dancers at the Egypt pavilion and Algerian pavilions performed the dance to delighted crowds. It was, Nelson says, a way to experience foreign culture in a safe, curated environment, “tamed” for public consumption.
