Little Egypt was the stage name for at least three popular belly dancers from the late s through the early s. With countless imitators, the name became synonymous with belly dancers.
Fahreda Mazar Spyropoulos, c. In the reopened saloon's lobby hangs a larger-than-life sized painting she donated entitled "Fatima". It bears six patched bullet holes; one can be seen above the belly button and a knife gash in the canvas below the knee. Raqs dancers performed for the first time in the United States at the Egyptian Theater on the fair's Midway.
The melody that accompanied her dance became famous as the Snake Charmer song. Spyropoulos, the wife of a Chicago restaurateur and businessman who was a native of Greece , was billed as Fatima, but because of her size, she had been called "Little Egypt" as a backstage nickname.
Her husband's name was Alexander Spyropoulos. His restaurant's name was The America and it was located at S. Halsted, in Chicago. They lived together at s Fairfield Ave. They married in They had no children. Spyropoulos gained wide attention, and popularized this form of dancing, which came to be referred to as the "Hoochee-Coochee", or the "shimmy and shake".
At that time the word "belly dance" had not yet entered the American vocabulary, as Spyropoulos was the first in the U. Some time after Spyropoulos went to Europe, she performed under the stage name "Little Egypt.
