danse du ventre

belly dance

The phrase danse du ventre is first attested in 1864 as a nickname apparently given by the French press to the Orientalist painting La danse de l'almée (The Dance of the Almeh) by Jean-Léon Gérôme. The term enters the English language by 1883, "The Russian gypsy dance has little of the provocatively voluptuous character of the Granada Ole, but there must be some connection in the history of dancing between the danse du Ventre of the Almee and the fluttering spasms of the Moscow Tzigane", and oth