Belly dance is one of the oldest forms of dance. The style of this ancient dance has evolved over the years, but at its core it remains the same. It is our understanding that all belly dance styles have a basis in Middle Eastern dance that come originally from the villages of North Africa and the Middle East. This dance spread all over the world, taking on a slightly different form in Egypt and other places in the Middle East in later years, now called "Cabaret“ or "Oriental“ style.

It then came to America in the 1890s for the first time appearing at the Chicago World’s Fair. From there the dance spread across the United States. Over the last century belly dance has taken on many new forms, all based in the original, classic Middle Eastern movements. In California in the 1960’s there was a belly dancer by the name of Jamila Salimpour who took these classic movements and gave them a name and a format; taking this dance to another level and changing it into a skilled art form, like any other such as ballet or piano. Jamila Salimpour taught most of the belly dancers active in the bay area today. Those dancers, in turn taught more dancers. One of them being Masha Archer, who then went on to teach Carolena Nericcio, who went on to create an entire new genre of belly dance called American Tribal Style(ATS). This style of belly dance fused many different ethnicities in its dance form and also brought in a unique aspect of belly dancing, where one dancer leads the set of other dancers in improvisational style dancing.

We believe that ATS became the gateway to creating Tribal Fusion Belly Dance and all sorts of other new and creative styles of belly dance. ATS used different costuming than traditional cabaret or folkloric styles, as well as different hair costuming and allowed dancers to express themselves with tattoos, piercing's and all sorts of jewelry and adornments. In fact, an abundance of adornment became the norm. And it also led to a fusing of different styles of music that were not necessarily Middle Eastern. From this evolved Tribal Fusion, with dancers, all pushing the envelope, and fusing the elements from different cultures as well as stylizing the dance in their own unique way. They moved away from the improv style of dance and moved toward choreography. Bringing a modern, new, creative element to an old ancient dance. But at its core there remains the basic movements of Middle Eastern belly dance, with a few other ethnic influences, modern fusion music and personal stylizations layered on top.