What to Wear for Belly Dance Class, From Day One to the Stage

A hip scarf turns invisible movements into sound and motion. A scarf with coins or beads jingles or swings on every hip drop, so you learn to feel a movement by chasing the sound. A common first scarf is a coin scarf on a chiffon base: light and loud enough to give feedback.

Tie it off-center. Hold the scarf behind you, bring both ends to one hip rather than the front, and knot it there so the knot does not dig in when you undulate. If a standard scarf will not wrap and knot securely around your hips, look for an extended or plus length, because a scarf that slides distracts you all class.

“Belly dance” covers several living styles. It is a Middle Eastern and North African tradition with a long history in the region and strong ties to Egypt; its staged form is called raqs sharqi (“Eastern dance”) and its social, folk relative raqs baladi, per Wikipedia’s overview of belly dance. Class wear stays similar across styles, but teachers often nudge students toward the look of the style they teach.

FCBD Style was created in San Francisco in 1987 by Carolena Nericcio as American Tribal Style; the founding organization has since renamed it FCBD Style, and many teachers now say “FCBD” or “fusion” rather than “tribal.”

Zills (finger cymbals, also called sagat) usually arrive a few months in. A standard set is four cymbals, two per hand, held by elastic over the thumb and middle finger, and commonly made of brass, with two slots for the elastic on many sets for greater control (Wikipedia: Zill). Bring them only when your teacher starts teaching them.

Fit the elastic so you can close your fingers comfortably: too loose and the cymbals buzz, too tight and the elastic pinches.

A veil comes later still. Commercial rectangular veils commonly run about 42 inches wide and 2.5 to 3 yards long, and the Baba Yaga Music costume pages note that many dancers find circular silk veils easier to use, that beginners often find standard sizes too big in both directions, and that nylon tricot (nylon chiffon) is a cheap practice alternative you can trim without hemming (Baba Yaga Music: veil construction). The veil’s role as a dance prop in its own right developed mainly among American cabaret dancers; in Egypt, Greece and Turkey it was used minimally, often as a costume drape, according to dance writer Alexandra King’s survey of prop history and origins.

You need a costume to perform belly dance, not to learn it. Three costume families cover most of the field, and they map onto the styles above.

The bedlah is the beaded bra, jeweled hip belt and skirt or harem pants most people picture; the word is Arabic for “suit” (Wikipedia: Belly dance). According to World Dance Heritage, Badia Masabni, who was of Levantine origin, opened her Cairo nightclub in 1926 in the fashion of European cabarets, bought set decorations and costumes from European music halls, and employed Western choreographers; the bra-and-skirt costume is documented in Egypt from her era. Accounts of what inspired the look differ, with some pointing to cabaret and others to Hollywood films, so treat it as a Cairo stage tradition shaped by Western influences (Wikipedia: Badia Masabni).

The baladi or Saidi dress is a full-length gown; Wikipedia notes full-length dresses are worn especially for the earthier baladi styles. Many dancers own one long before a bedlah.

FCBD and fusion costumes layer cholis, coin or shell bras, tasseled belts, pantaloons and full skirts.

Professional bedlahs are often made to measure or bought secondhand and altered, so budget for a tailor when the time comes. Dance the costume with its history in mind: these are living cultural forms, not exotic dress-up.

Props are optional and advanced. Knowing their origins helps you talk about your dance accurately.

The cane has the deepest roots. UNESCO inscribed tahtib, the stick game of Egypt’s Saeedy communities, on its Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2016, and the stage dance with a lighter cane hooked at one end, raqs al assaya, is part of raqs sharqi performances (Wikipedia: Tahtib). For the sword, King’s survey states there are “no known traditional sword dances performed by women in the Middle East” and calls prop dancing “almost exclusively an American Cabaret phenomenon” (Alexandra King); Wikipedia likewise describes American Cabaret belly dance as a style of its own that uses props (Wikipedia: Belly dance), and another reference on sword dancing notes that its history in the United States is debated. Dance with a sword freely, but do not present it to an audience as ancient Egyptian tradition.

Belly dance shares a lot with other expressive, costume-rich styles. Burlesque classes also ask for movement clothes first and costume much later, as what to wear to burlesque class explains, and flamenco uses a danced shawl the way belly dance uses a veil, covered in what flamenco dancers wear. Pole class looks similar from the door, with bare feet and fitted tops, but there bare skin is grip on the metal rather than something for the teacher to watch, which is why what to wear to pole class adds more skin as the moves advance. If your studio runs cold, a light layer you remove after the warm-up helps; the layering system is in dance warm-up clothes. And for why people stay with belly dance for years, see the benefits of belly dance.