Folk dance invokes images of Morris men and Maypole dances, barn dances and colorful wonderful national costumes. The type of folk dancing that we are aware of is the type that has been carefully catalogued and written about and therefore we are aware of today. Thus a strong image is presented of utter respectability and National pride. So we mustn't run away with the idea that what we read about in these findings represents a comprehensive picture of what really happened. But what we lose by way of biased accounting we gain a huge insight into a vast treasure trove of things, from each country there is such a wealth of ideas both in costumes, dance formations and customs. 

So provided that we keep this bias in mind we can gain a huge insight into the past regarding dance. 

Russian Dancers glide along - just the kind of thing for a country with icy surfaces and dancers with long heavy clothing. They would dance in small groups from each small community and then get together creating vast formations every now and then at larger events. 

The dances from Serbia and Croatia are very playful, lively and simple as a relief to the soul in these war torn countries. 

Dances from Greece ooze the flavour of the sunshine and a connection with other people in the village and this would go on for hours on end. 

Even though you had agriculture you still had to work with Nature and everything basically revolves around the seasons and the agricultural calendar. Legacies of the old goddesses and gods of Europe still come through the folk dancing via the belief that every hill, stream and mountain was inhabited by a spirit. 

Closest to belly dance may well be Morris Dance as the name is derived from the Morisco (moriskoz) a dance peculiar to the Moors and show thats that the dance did have a Moorish beginning. The Morisco was a Spanish name for a Moor or Morrish (Africa) or Spanish Muslim (Spain) 

The Morris dance (Tripudium Mauritanicum) was the most frequently mentioned of all the dances of the fifteenth century. In Renaissance writings it is almost always mentioned that a Mouresca, Morisque or Moresque (Arab Lambra), was danced and was said to be brought to England from Spain by John of Gaunt (1340-1389) during the reign of his father, Edward III (1312-1377) around 1360 A.D. In the beginning, the Morris dance was a pantomime of war, depicting the struggle of the Moors and Christianity and is one of the oldest English dances to date. 

--- Originally, it was done as a celebration type dance whose participants acted out the original battle (initially, hundreds of people would perform). It was generally performed on May Day, and introduced several characters, varying in numbers, designation, and dress, according to taste or local customs, many diverse features being added over time. The Dance originally only used a solitary musician which would play a flute, bagpipe, violin, or accordion and a Tabor. The dance eventually quieted down and became enormously popular around 1500-A.D. 

--- When the legendary Robin Hood (1160-1247) was the foremost figure of the dance in Elizabethan times (1533-1603), the birth of spring on May day would send the folk of England into the woods to collect flowers, boughs and blossoms and wait for the sun to rise, a symbol of the full opened year. They would return home in the sunlight, flower-laden, dancing and capering around an ox drawn cart which bore the May Pole thus the 

As a side note the Puritans saw the Morris dance as a heathen form and prohibited it from being done until Restoration marked a half hearted revival. 

Fernaćo Lopes, describing the character of King Pedro I., says of him that he was a great votary of the Morris dance. Dances such as the Baixa, Chacola, Mourisca, and Villćo were usual at all Court weddings in the sixteenth century. The Baixa is a distinctive kind which includes other dances. Religious festivals gave most opportunity for the dance as it is pretty much an exhibition (not-social) type dance

Here's a surprise: during the middle ages a form of dance found its way into the Church - quite different from the Church's later attitude of dance as a sin. In Seville the choirboys performed a dance before the altar on a number of occasions, and this kind of display remains a tradition to this day in many countries. In the Far East temple dances were also performed.

The peasants of the middle ages did rain dances, and the tumblers of the Middle Ages included dance pieces in their acts between tumbling sequences. 

Courtship dances, for example, allow the dancers to display their vigor and attractiveness and to engage in socially accepted physical contact between the sexes. On motif in particular, the fertility leap, in which the male dancer lifts the woman as high as he can, is common to many courtship dances.

The study of folk dance does offer a valuable and interesting insight and reflects clearly both the prejudices and the cultural norms present at the time. 

Many scholars suggest that dance was once an integral part of everyday life, and only when more complex social and economic structures began to emerge and a leisured class or caste came into existence did people begin to see dance as a source of what we may call "entertainment" as opposed to being much more a part of basic life. We are so used to viewing dance as an "entertainment" or an "interest/hobby" both in terms of participation and seeing performances and therefore hard to see it in any other way.