Belly Dancer

What is a belly dancer?

She's normally a woman of any age (though some men do belly dance) who engages in a dance form originating in the Middle East.

She is someone who brings beauty and mystery to the environment through the performance art of dance and sometimes story telling.

She is graceful, joyous, dark and light. She conveys and inspires emotions and thoughts that are calming and exciting, elegant and sensual.

A belly dancer sometimes takes on and performs with elements of fantasy. She could be seen as a figure from a fairy tale, a storybook or a myth. She could embody qualities that relate to powerful figures of our history such as the Goddesses of ancient and pagan religions as well as mythological, and supposed fantastical creatures.

As a belly dancer, I am the dance. All dancers become the dance. You cannot separate them for it is the body that makes visible, that gives sinew and muscle, bone and breath to birth the dance.

It is one of the purest, truest forms of being, of communicating, of expression.

A belly dancer has to be brilliant to gain stardom. So who are the superstars of belly dance?