Belly dancing enjoys growing popularity

By Rebecca Everett

At the East Street Dance Center in Hadley, the intersection of old and new is obvious during a Monday evening belly dance class. The students in the class were not clad in the traditional skirts and belly-baring tops; they wore T-shirts and sweatpants under their jingling hip scarves.
Their scarves, which are covered in coins, tinkle as the women shimmy their hips in unison and 15 pairs of clapping finger cymbals ring out. The props, combined with the traditional Middle Eastern music playing from the stereo, competed with Madonna’s “Vogue,” which was booming from the dance class in the next studio.
Sahina, 25, did a final review of a challenging part of the dance before dismissing her 15 students. They vary in age from 16 to 62, and although it is a beginner class, some of them have more experience than others.
“This is our first time, and it was really great,” said Hannah Peaslee, 22, of Amherst, who took the class with her friend Denise Pollick, 21, of Hadley. “I love how much you need so much control and coordination, but then when you put it all together it looks so fluid.”
Like Peaslee and Pollick, people of all different ages, backgrounds and athletic abilities have been signing up for belly dance classes, joining belly dance troupes and falling in love with the historical dance. The new popularity can be attributed to a lot of things, said Sahina, whose full name is Sahina Sadai but prefers to use her first name only. She cites a growing interest in Middle Eastern culture and a longing for a workout that doesn’t involve going to a gym. And for many people, it is the sense of community and a shared experience that makes them devout members of the belly dance community.
‘All about connection’
Whitney Irwin, who goes by the name Attar when she teaches belly dance classes or performs with her troupe, said that the unity of belly dancers within classes, troupes and the larger community is a unique phenomenon.
“For me, it’s all about the connection. It’s not so much that the dance is spiritual as it is connecting you to each other,” she said.
Attar, 40, said that the recent popularity of the dance means that her three weekly classes sometimes have as many as 25 people, and her troupes — the Middle Eastern Arts Collaborative, Tiamet, Adham and Alnilam — are busy performing at events and parties.
“When I started in 1998, it wasn’t popular at all. I asked around a lot and found a woman who taught classes out of her basement,” she said. “I’d say it’s about 90 percent more popular now than when I started, and I think it’s partly because it’s more accepted in the mainstream. It’s not seen as exotic dancing anymore.”
Sahina agreed. “The dance has come to have its own place alongside more traditional dances like ballet and jazz,” she said. “It’s been integrated; Smith College and other schools have belly dance classes now.”
Sahina started belly dancing six years ago. “I just fell in love with the moves and the music, and how it just let me be creative in a way I never dreamed of,” she said. She began teaching in May 2010 when her teacher, Joanne Tebaldi, decided to retire and asked her to take over her classes. “I started with four students, now I have dozens and the classes sometimes sell out,” she said.
Attar said that the exotic and complex Middle Eastern music was what drew her into belly dancing more than years ago. After teaching for almost 10 years, and becoming a part of the vibrant and tight-knit belly dance community, Attar and her friend and fellow teacher, Kristie Speck, decided to start an informal, monthly belly dance event.
At the First Friday Belly Dance at Amherst Yoga Center, anyone can come, learn some choreography, watch troupes perform and even swap belly dance costumes and props. At the January session, teachers, choreographers, troupes and beginners attended the get-together.
“Tonight we danced to the classics,” Speck said after the final performance. “It was a little back-to-basics Egyptian cabaret.”
Speck, 38, of North Amherst, said that the night’s lesson involved some traveling steps, which allow the dancer to move gracefully around a space while dancing.
Speck, who has been belly dancing for 18 years, said the dance form consists of myriad movements, including isolations, where one body part is moved independently, circle and figure eight movements of the hips, as well as layers, vibrations, waves and traveling steps. “After you have the basics you can add traveling steps, layer more movements, add turns, spins and different arm positions to frame your body,” Speck said. “There’s so many things you can do with it, and all the moves mimic something done in nature.”
Sahina’s students learn a lot about belly dancing through the music used in class.
“One thing I stress in class is the musicality and the cultural relevance of the music,” she said. “You have to understand the music so that the dance is an interpretation of the music, not just a string of movements. When you put it all together — understand the culture and understand the music — then you can really understand the dance.”
She include a history lesson, too, she said, because dancers should understand the history and cultural relevance of the music.
These teachers said that while they believe that men, women and children originally performed the folk dance, there are many people who rejoice in the femininity of the dance. Attar said she has performed both for women who believe in the dance’s connection to childbirth, including “prenatal” performances and in the maternity ward after the birth.
Dance can be spiritual, social
Speck said that each belly dancer likely has a different idea about the spirituality of the dance. “I think anything that gets you out of yourself is spiritual,” she said. “It really encourages people to get out of their shell. I’ve known a lot of people who at first didn’t want to perform, and then they start to feel good and love to show it.”
She said that the communal, social aspect of the dance is also unique. “Not many other kinds of dance are focused on socializing, but belly dancing was originally a folk dance, and it’s meant to be social,” she said.
Like other kinds of dance or exercise, the dance can be a fun way to lose yourself and forget your stress, Speck said.
“I used to be a volunteer firefighter, and Whitney used to be a dispatcher, and we can both tell you that something about this dance is a great stress reliever,” she said.
Sahina said that many of her students see the dance as a fun way to do cardio exercise while gaining flexibility and strength. “I think people see it as an alternative to regimented exercise, especially if they’re the kind that get bored at the gym,” she said.
Her student of three years, Mary Heon, said that exercise was one of the main reasons she got involved. “I detest exercise in any way, shape or form, and yet I’ve been doing this for years,” she said after her class.
Attar said that she feels the dance is therapeutic, in addition to being a workout. “It’s healing,” she said. “I’m 40 and I’ve had five kids and I feel pretty good, considering.”
The accepting attitude of belly dancing is also inviting to many people, including men and women of all ages, shapes and sizes, notes Speck. In Sahina’s class, the oldest and youngest in the class are a mother-daughter pair. Laura Roberts, 62, and her daughter, Ellie Weiner, 16, started taking belly dance classes one year ago as something fun and healthy to do together.
Men are just as welcome in classes and troupes as women are.
“The whole sisterhood thing is kind of a myth,” Sahina said, naming a few famous male belly dancers. “It’s a misconception that the dance is only for women. It evolved from a social dance so everyone did it, men and women.”
Learning from each other
The social nature of belly dancing has created a tight-knit, friendly belly dancing community in the area, where teachers take each other’s classes and attend different troupes performances. “It’s really a strong-knit community, we’re really very supportive of each other,” Speck said. “There’s always competition, but for most people, they just want to support each other because it’s a labor of love — there’s not much profit in it.”
Teresa Comtois, a belly dance teacher who also choreographs for the troupe Dark Amber of Chicopee, comes to the First Friday Belly Dance to learn from and share with Speck, Attar, and other skilled participants. “I come up just for the energy,” Comtois said. “You can always learn from each other, no matter how good you get.”
Sahina said most in the community see the benefits learning from many different teachers. “We share a lot of students. I try to encourage students to try other teachers, styles and classes, and most of the longtime students do,” she said. “It’s important to experience different styles and get a good, well-rounded experience.”
Heon said she has taken classes with several different teachers, and every day that she takes a new class, goes to a performance or just practices at home is enjoyable. “I just love it all,” she said. “I love the women I meet, the costumes, the bling, everything.”
Rebecca Everett, a reporter for the Daily Hampshire Gazette, can be reached at reverett@gazettenet.com.