Hoda Shams El Din هدى شمس الدين (1955)

The dancer in this clip is Egyptian born Hoda Shams El Din (or sometimes spelt Shamseddine, in Arabic هدى شمس الدين). The scene is from the 1954 film ’An American from Tanta’ (أمريكانى من طنطا ) which starred Fardous Mohamed and Kariman along with Riad Hussein, Abdul Moneim Ibrahim, Wedad Hamdy and Shukry Sarhan. During the performance close-ups of the reactions of two women in the audience are shown. Kariman is the woman with the longer hair. If you’ve ever wondered what a bellydance costume would look like with a giant pretzel on the front of the belt, here’s your answer. Someone pointed out on TheCaroVan that its actually a snake motif and that Hoda’s wearing a matching snake on her arm. Yikes, I’m not sure what’s worse, a pretzel or a snake!