| 01 October 2009

Over the past few years from the attendance at the Tribal Fusion Festival it is obvious that BellyDance rates high in SLO County. Now available at Bali Isle in downtown SLO are BellyDance classes for beginners and more advanced.  For those that want to know a little more, or want to try it out for the first time, the doors are open on Tuesday and Wednesday to all.  Here’s little bit abou the classes from the teachers.
Amy Harway:
The class I’m teaching at Bali Isle on Tuesday nights is called Tribal 101~Bellydance Basics. It’s a drop-in class, so you don’t have to know the previous week’s sequence to learn the steps that are being presented that night. It’s based on the format developed by my teacher and mentor, Kajira Djoumahna, known as Black Sheep Bellydance style, a form of ATS, or American Tribal Style. American Tribal Style is recognizable by its lead-and-follow style, where head, hand and vocal cues are used to signal a change in step or direction, moving all the dancers together, like a school of fish. Learning American Tribal style is like learning a language. When you know ATS, you can dance ATS with other ATS groups anywhere you go, and dance in perfectly synchronized harmony, with no rehearsal. It’s like a magic trick!
Bellydance is a fun way to get fit, and is a gentle exercise that anyone can start at any age. That is not to say that it is not aerobic nor vigorous, it is! You can break a sweat bellydancing, but it can be done in such a way as to not hurt the knees, back or neck.
Amy Gray:
Tribal fusion is a movement that emerged in the 1990s, originally expanding on the American Tribal Style vocabulary, then going on to incorporate movements and rhythms from hip-hop and establishing its own costuming and musical identity. Now, as the scene has truly begun to flourish, Tribal Fusion dancers can be seen drawing on anything from modern dance to mime to flamenco to Fosse in their performances. My class covers a thorough breakdown of the basic tribal fusion vocabulary while drawing on principles and exercises from Anusara and Vinyasa yoga in order to help students build a better awareness of and relationship with their bodies. As the class progresses, learned movements will be combined into more complex combinations. Experienced and inexperienced dancers of all ages and backgrounds are welcome to join in and drop-ins are welcome. Each class is tailored to fit whoever is present for that night.
I have been studying dance for eighteen years and have a background that includes ballet, hip-hop, jazz and modern dance in addition to my studies in tribal fusion, ATS and yoga. I studied tribal fusion with Donna Mejia a renowned innovator and friend and former student of Rachel Brice. Locally, I also dedicate huge amounts of time to dancing with Ballet Theatre San Luis Obispo, located just upstairs of Bali Isle.