Charlottesville Bellydance Class Schedule

• Beginner bellydance classes are held every Monday from 6:00 - 7:00 pm
  
• Spiritual bellydance classes are held every Monday from 7:10 - 8:10 pm
  
• Performance-oriented bellydance classes are held every Monday from 8:15 - 9:15 pm
  

Many experts say that belly dancing is the oldest form of dance, having roots in all ancient cultures from the orient to India to the mid-East. In many parts of the middle east it is part of women's cultural heritage (the "sacred women's dance") passed on from mother to daughter. In my practice and teaching of bellydance, I seek to elicit and honor the strength and beauty found in every woman. Bellydance is particularly well-suited to this because it was designed by women for women to strengthen the body and nourish the spirit.

Belly dancing is natural to a woman's bone and muscle structure with movements emanating from the torso rather than in the legs and feet. In bellydance, I use isolations at specific locations to increase internal body awareness and self-control while raising energy levels in a controlled and directable fashion. As a teacher, I gradually introduce my students to this practice, progressing from easy (=familiar) moves to difficult (unfamiliar) moves over a long period of study. I find that my students typically range from happy to ecstatic by the end of class even when they have arrived loaded with tensions or external concerns.

My classes emphasize the traditional bellydance vocabulary of isolation, geometry, location, enunciation, combination, and visualization. I encourage my students to freely express themselves and build their own personal style from these endlessly combinable elements of this traditional art form.

-Shakti

Other Bellydance Class Topics:

• Music used in Bellydance Classes
• Health Benefits of Bellydance
• Class Goals & Basic Posture
• Directions of Movement in Belldance
• Bellydance and the Chakras: Introduction
• Bellydance and the Chakras: Manifesto
• Tribal or Cabaret?
• Shakti's Quick-Start Guide to Henna
• Balancing Things on Your Head
• Energetic Arms

Selected Choreographies

• Class Music list
• Marco Polo (Loreena McKennitt)
• Bedouin Wedding by (Ibrahim Farrah): basic version / accelerated version
• Ask (Brian Keene & Omar Faruk Tekbilek)
• Arabesque I 
• Lirrili (Amina)
• Hey Ho (Lords of Acid)
• Enogoom Wil Amar (Natacha Atlas)
• Circling (Steve Flynn)
• Coordinated Improv Cues
• The Mummer's Dance (Loreena McKennitt)
• Egyptian Drummer (Hossam Ramzy, remixed by DJ Nightshade)