The U.S. is often called the world’s belly dance capital but that may not mean as much as you would assume.
“There isn’t much of a belly dance culture in the States,” said the belly dance expert and a Toronto Sun columnist who goes by the name of RaveTurtle.
“The only places you’ll find belly dancers in the U.S. are clubs where there are no limits to how big you want to dance and those bars where I’ll never go.”
He added that Canada is still far ahead in terms of this kind of dancing.
“We have a lot of great local traditions for belly dancing.”
The most notable places for belly dancing are, unfortunately, all in southern Ontario and British Columbia.
“Belly-dance-wise, I’ll be honest with you, the only place you’ll find it (in Canada) is bars that are either near a highway or in downtown Toronto,” said the expert.
“I’ve danced in bars in Toronto that had over a thousand people in them every night and I’ll probably walk around and see people at the bar in Hamilton or a few other cities and be like, ‘I saw a good belly dancer!’
“They’ll probably know this place in Florida or Florida, it’ll be a local bar.”
While most southern Ontario belly dancers seem to focus their efforts on the South, many people still turn to B.C. for the fun.
“I know people going to B.C. for belly dancing,” RaveTurtle said. “I think everyone, on some level, dreams of being able to go do belly dance down there.
Tampa, Fla., is famous for its bar crawl and RaveTurtle said he’s been there on a few occasions including a trip on a private jet which took the dancer a total of almost six hours and he would never try that kind of thing in Canada.
“It’s definitely much more expensive to fly down than up,” he said.
What is your favourite belly dance?
You can see RaveTurtle’s belly dance list here.
To watch the latest on the latest in body-building, sports bar crawl culture, visit BarCraft Toronto at the National War Memorial, or head to BarCraft Toronto for live music all day.
jwood@thespec.com
905-526-2420 | @WoodieWood
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