Bélé
A folk dance and music from Martinique, St. Lucia, Dominica, Haiti, Grenada, Guadeloupe, and Trinidad and Tobago. It may be the oldest Creole dance in the French West Indian islands, and it strongly reflects influences from African fertility dances. It is most often performed during full moon evenings or sometimes during funeral wakes. In Tobago, it is thought to have been performed by women of the planter class at social events in the planters’ great houses, and the dress and dance style was copied by the enslaved people who worked in or around these houses.