Feast for the Eyes | Hipnotic Exotic | Q & A with Zahira Zuhra | An Ancient Art
A Passion for the Dance | Bellying Up | Unveiled

Feast for the Eyes

By JOSEPH G. COTE, Telegraph Staff
Published: Monday, October 8, 2007

Caption for Photo on Right:
Bellydancers Carolina Dean, Melanie Sniderek, Alexandra Bleys, (corrected from misprint) and Nancy Frye show their technique to bystanders on East Pearl Street in Nashua as part of the FireFest street fair Sunday.
Photograph by Stanton M. Paddock

Complete listing, from left to right: Sabrina's student, Mike Davis (Benan) on hand drum, Les Booth (Aslahan) behind Carolina Dean, Melanie Sniderek (Zahra Al-Baida), Alexandra Bleys (Alexandra), Nancy Frye (Zahira)
Not pictured: Amanda Quick (Jaleela), Melissa Breton (Ayla), and Sabrina of Boston and fellow students

NASHUA – The celebration of the city's performing and visual arts that descended on East Pearl Street yesterday was bigger than ever.

"Ever" only amounts to last year, but the second annual FireFest is roughly twice the size of its inaugural year, according to creator and organizer Amethyst Wyldfyre. And next year, she hopes to run the whole thing using solar power.

Belly dancers, psychics, didgeridoo-ers and a 3,600-pound chunk of quartz in the back of a U-Haul van joined the more traditional painters, yarn makers and florists.

Visitors were able to wander down the street browsing through collections of jewelry and clothes, participating in kid-centric activities, trying out the 24-foot rock-climbing wall or checking out music and live theater performances on two stages.

Variety is the name of the game for this festival, Wyldfyre said.

"One of my intentions is to raise the visibility of Nashua as a destination city for the arts, and we want to have something for everyone," she said. "In one year, we've managed to turn it into a regional event."

During a brief, whirlwind tour of the festival, Wyldfyre led the way from the main stage near Spring Street where rock band Double Yellow was playing, to the rock wall from Dwight Damon Associates, to the Munay Ki crystal.

The gigantic hunk of quartz crystal was covered by a purple cloth in the back of a U-Haul van. Through a series of holistic ceremonies, the crystal – one of the largest on the East Coast, according to Wyldfyre – now "radiates unconditional love and total acceptance."

It fits in nicely with the goal of the festival.

"The intention is for this just to be a beautiful celebration in the heart of the city," Wyldfyre said.

Angie D'Anjou, the owner of Heart of Spirit Healing in Hudson, joined Wyldfyre organizing the festival this year, helping it double in size to 80 vendors and 25 performers.

"This is all types of arts," she said. "I think it's just a smorgasbord of everything you can have in Nashua. It's time for the residents to come out and play."

Several people wandering among the booths and stages didn't plan on coming to the festival but stumbled upon it by accident.

Nashua residents Dick Harmon and Cheryl Pikora were out for a run but decided to check out the gathering.

"It's kind of cool," Harmon said. "Nashua has a lot of these nice little artsy places. It's pretty excellent. I'm impressed."

"And it's stuff that keeps you in Nashua instead of going somewhere else to spend money," Pikora added.

Amherst resident Dorothy Lindom wanted to come to the festival after hearing about it last year.

"I think it's great. I really do," she said. "The mixture of cultures, that's really, really interesting."

© Copyright by The Telegraph (Nashua)

Hipnotic Exotic The skinny on bellydancing

By RACHEL R. BRIERE, Sun Staff
Steppin' Out
The Lowell Sun
12 January 2006


A blur of indigo swirled with shimmering gold descends from the second floor of the Athenian Corner. The whirlwind of color floats across the dimly lit dining room, trailed by the ringing of exotic bells. Patrons put down their wine glasses and cease to chew their stuffed grape leaves, mesmerized by the aura that just fluttered past them.

The awestruck diners are entranced with the hypnotic movements of Aslahan -- a software writer from Arlington by day and belly dancer by night.

"It's the most fun thing I have ever done," she gushed. "It's a challenge and I love the music."

It is hard to pinpoint its origin, but belly dancing is said to be one of the first forms of dance. One of the greatest misconceptions of the sensual dance is that it's intended to seduce and entertain men. In fact, women performed the dance among themselves at haslas, the Arabic word for a party that usually was accompanied by some type of fertility ritual.

This sometimes leads to false expectations, when the ladies perform a bellygram -- a paid performance popular at birthday parties -- or when someone asks what they do for a living.

"People assume that we're pole dancers, so to speak. You just have to grit your teeth and treat it as polite as you can," said Nancy Frye a performer, who also teaches classes at the YMCA in Nashua.

Originating in the ancient cultures of the Middle East, the dance style has also been called Oriental dance. Styles, music and movements vary between countries.

"Each culture has their own type of music," explained Zbeide, a former belly dancing performer and instructor for more than 30 years from Tewksbury, "whether it's Turkish, Arabic or Egyptian -- you really get into the tones, pace, tempo and patterns."

Frye, whose stage name is Zahira, performs with Aslahan on a regular basis. She favors the Arabic influence, which is "not quite so lively."

"It's smooth, mellow, fluid ... a soft dance," she said. "Aslahan is very Turkish, which is quite energetic. We contrast well together when we dance."

The core of the belly dance is the music. It is left up to the dancer to connect with each note played, synchronizing their movements with the flow. This may be the most difficult part -- mix in finger cymbals or zills, a veil and maybe a sword and you've got yourself quite the challenge. Maybe this is why it takes most dancers more than two years of practice to prepare for a public performance.

"The music is what actually makes you move. You watch dances on tape that are very choreographed." says Zahira, "I prefer free styles, like the gentlemen at the Athenian do. I'll break into a movement because of what Freddie just did on the violin."

Coordination and finding the rhythm are key to any dance. But belly dancing is actually a full-body workout for all ages.

"It's wonderful," says Zbeide. "It gets rid of stress, makes you more flexible -- the arch enemy of old age, helps coordination, works every muscle, it's hypnotic and keeps all functions of body running smooth."

Zbeide leads a dance troupe that consists of a dozen women 14 to 50, who she says are all in "marvelous condition." She also has a 7-year-old student with muscular dystrophy, who has benefited greatly from the low impact workout. The child's father is of Syrian decent, and her mother wanted to introduce her to her heritage.

"I should be paying them because it's so gratifying to see this little girl so mesmerized and ecstatic with teeny-tiny finger cymbals in her hands," she said.

Zbeide also was looking to reconnect with her culture through the ethnic dance. Her family was from Lebanon, but after relocating to the United States most families "Americanized" themselves. She says that finding her inner culture was a wonderful experience.

"To me, it was always buried there, but I didn't know where," she said.

Her performance alias was the last name on her grandmother's side of the family and means basically "cream of the crop."

But reconnecting with one's lineage is not always the case. Zahira is an Army brat who was raised in Germany, and Aslahan is Canadian and Irish. Not exactly ethnically exotic. Zahira saw an advertisement in the local paper and felt it was her calling.

"I was a gung-ho student and must have driven the teacher nuts," she laughs. "It was just something that calls to you and you just can't help yourself. Kind of like a fresh chocolate chip cookie just out of the oven. It gets into your blood."

© Copyright by The Lowell Sun


Rachel R. Briere's e-mail address is rbriere@lowellsun.com.

Q & A with Zahira Zuhra

To the right: Zahira Photograph by Patty Caya

by Patty Caya
Hippo Press Nashua
The Week of January 27 - February 2, 2005
Published by Hippo Press Nashua

Q: What's with the name Zahira Zuhra?
Zahira is my first name that I chose myself. That means "brilliant, dazzling, shining." You don't want to have an offensive name when you present yourself. You want a non-sexual name, so I thought that was a pretty name. Zuhra is my last name and that was given to me by an instructor and that means "beautiful like a pearl".

Where/how did you learn to bellydance?
I learned here in Nashua. I started at the YWCA and after that, I learned through video and other instructors in the area.

What was your initial impulse to start bellydancing? What made you start?
'I Dream of Jeannie', I guess.

Do you have any gypsy in you?
I do. Not real gypsy, but I like gypsy dance. I like the attitude. With gypsy you can be a little more down to earth.

Are you supposed to have a flat belly or six pack abs for belly dancing?
No. You can be any size or shape.

Will you get a flat belly or six pack abs from belly dancing?
No. You'll get stronger underneath muscle tone. But if you have a padding of fat, it will stay there. You have to do other exercise to get rid of any other fat that you have on your body. It's nicer to see a dancer with some meat on their bones as opposed to somebody that has no meat.

Who hires you to do belly grams?
People giving birthday parties, surprise parties, retirement parties, wedding celebrations, promotions, restaurant promotions.

What do you do when you are hired to do a belly gram?
I usually do a 10, maybe 15-minute routine. So I'll come in with a fast dance, then maybe do a veil dance and maybe another slow piece or faster piece. It depends. Then a drum solo. Then if I feel like it, I'll have the person get up and dance or wrap a veil around them.

How much does it cost?
Usually $150 for 10-15 minutes.

Has anyone thought you were a stripper when they hired you to do a belly gram?
[pause] That's happened...but once I dance, they see that I'm not.

Do you do bachelor parties?
I've been asked. [pause] I won't do them. I have to have male and female in the audience.

What kind of continuing education is there for belly dancers? Do you take classes?
You have to. It's always evolving. It took me two years just to understand the basic "Figure 8" movement with the hips, before it all just locked in.

Who takes your belly dancing classes?
Anybody from someone who just wants to do a different type of exercise to someone who is seriously considering pursuing it. And there are different forms.

What made you decide to teach?
That I fell into. I was taking class in Manchester and a few of the students were having trouble with the walking patterns and I went over and showed them what they needed to be doing and it all kind of came from that. They started following me, then I started teaching for the instructor and eventually just came back into the Nashua area.

What are the different styles of belly dance?
Tribal, Gypsy, Cabaret...There are different styles of the dance...Turkish, Arabic and Egyptian.

Which style do you do?
It's a blend between Egyptian and Arabic, with a little bit of Turkish. I'm soft and flowy, not sharp and choppy.

Do people really enjoy it once they get over their initial fear of showing their bellies?
It took me 3 or 4 years before I wanted to show my belly. To look at yourself in the mirror is hard enough, then to look at yourself in the mirror with your belly exposed is just horrible. Then when I make you go stand in front of the mirror and push out your stomach - that's the worst possible thing you can do. When you get over that fear, that it's all hanging out for everybody to see, you just get comfortable.
When you see someone dancing, you don't see that she's skinny or that she's big, you just see the way she dances. It's empowering, It builds confidence.

Why do you bring a scarf to class?
It's a hip scarf. When you have something around your hips you can feel certain movements. Plus when you're wearing something like that, it makes you feel more dancer-ish.

What is the veil for?
The head veil is just a decoration. It sets you up to look a little moer Middle Eastern. The veil is just part of the dance.

What are some of the names of some of the moves?
Figure 8s, hip-ups, hip-downs, shimmies, chest pops...

Are there any cultures where men belly dance?
There are a lot of male belly dancers. There's a gentleman who dances at the Middle East in Cambridge, Mass. He is of Middle Eastern descent. He is fabulous.

Which is harder, Pilates or Belly Dancing?
I haven't tried Pilates.

If I take your class will my abs look like Britany's?
No. But they'll feel like that underneath.

© Copyright by Nashua Hippo Press

An Ancient Art -
In bellydancing, who knew there were dozens of ways to move your hips?

To the right: Zahira Zuhra, foreground, leads, from left, Alex MacKay, Lynne Guimond Findlay and Tricia Gordon through basic arm movements. Photograph by Andrew M. Virzi

by Mary Ellen Hettinger
Cabinet Staff
Thursday, August 12, 2004
Published by The Cabinet

AMHERST - There's something mysterious going on at the Amherst Jazzercise studio. A peek inside reveals dancers in colorful beaded and bejeweled costumes, moving sinuously to Middle Eastern music. Cascades of gold and silver coins on a rainbow of hip scarves jingle to unfamiliar rhythms. The occasional aroma of coffee roasting at the Roastery next door adds to the exotic ambiance.

Nancy Frye of Nashua, also known as Zahira Zuhra, teaches belly dance here from 7 to 8 p.m. on Monday evenings to as many as a dozen women of all ages and sizes who come to learn this ancient art.

"Nancy was getting a latte next door and noticed the studio space," said JC Simpson, the owner of Jazzercise on Route 101A at Amherst Plaza.

"It's a great dance form, the rhythms are fascinating, the costumes are fabulous," Simpson said. "It's really interesting to challenge the body in different ways."

Challenge the body it does.

Zahira leads the class through dozens of gyrations each week - moves like hip shimmies, twists, slides, ups and downs, vertical and horizontal figure eights - making one flow into the other seamlessly and sensuously.

It can be intimidating at first - who knew there were literally dozens of ways to move your hips? After each part of the body is taught to move in isolation, the different parts are combined. For beginners, it's a lot like the exercise of trying to pat your head and rub your tummy in circles at the same time.

But Zahira, who teaches all levels, explains and encourages everyone.

She was first exposed to bellydance as a 13-year-old at a school career day in Ansbach, Germany, where she grew up "as an Army brat".

"The woman taught a couple of steps, including one where you walk, do a hip twist and 'squish' your foot like you're putting out a cigarette. I was hooked. Also, 'I Dream of Jeannie' was big at the time."

Belly dancing is a style of folk dancing that originated centuries ago, and was originally called Oriental or Eastern dancing. Zahira said it was something women did for other women, in celebration of the female and fertility.

"It was when it was introduced to the Western world that it became viewed as exotic dancing, but this is a bastardization of the actual dance. Originally, women were all covered up, the coins on the hip scarves used to emphasize certain movements."

Hip scarves are to be worn over a long skirt or harem pants, not a bikini, according to Internet sites (439,000 references on Google) and videos dedicated to the art.

"There are many different styles of dance," Zahira explained. "What I teach is a blend of Arabic and Egyptian. There is also Turkish, which is too choppy and has too much hopping around for me. Some people are into exact styles. To me, the important thing is you dance and enjoy."

Zahira, her professional name, means brilliant, shining or dazzling, and a teacher gave her her second namee, Zuhra. "It's an honor to have an instructor name you," she said. Zuhra means beautiful and like a pearl, very appropriate for her fair skin and blonde hair.

Lynne Guimond Findlay, 42, of Merrimack has been taking lessons for about a year. She first took ballet at age 7 and thought she had "two left feet" but thought belly dance looked like fun.

"It's like playing dress-up," she said of the costumes. Though most students show up in workout wear and then buy their own hip scarf as they go along, Findlay has bought entire costumes in the tribal style, and hairpieces and headdresses to match.

To the right: Left: Lynne Guimond Findlay; Right: Zahira
Photograph by Andrew M. Virzi

When she's not twirling around in her camel tassel-trimmed scarf and skirt, she works in marketing and is a professional photographer.

"I'm getting addicted" to belly dance, she confessed, and is eagerly tackling advanced belly dance, which includes veil work with yards of sheer silk and tiny brass finger cymbals, called zills.

JC Simpson has taken several bellydance classes at her studio and said, "Nancy really respects the art form, is a patient teacher and explains things clearly."

Indeed, Zahira, who performs at venues like the Athenian Restaurant in Lowell, MA, is a watchdog of the form. Although she gives tips about interacting with your audience, she always warns against vulgar or inappropriately sexual moves.


To the right: A bellydancing class in Amherst. Few who take the class know at the beginning how many ways the hips can move. Photograph by Andrew M. Virzi

By day, she works as a bookkeeper for Skol Restaurant in Nashua, and also as a part-time hairdresser at Jay & Company in Nashua. She is 40 and has been married for 15 years to Vincent Knight, a machinist and musician, and they have a 14-year-old daughter.

Part of the fun in her class is the wide variety of music, from old folk tunes to popular Middle Eastern love ballads, Turkish disco hits to Elvis Presley.

"You can belly dance to anything," she said with contagious enthusiasm.

Newcomers are always welcome, and you pay as you go, $12 per class. (She does ask that you pre-register - see her Web Site at www.zahira-bellydancer.com or call 880-7522). She also teaches classes Saturday afternoons in Merrimack at Paper Moon Dance Center.

© Copyright by The Cabinet Press

A Passion for the Dance -
Mild-mannered bookkeeper Nancy Frye spends her off hours as Zahira, Bellydancer

by Bernard Vaughan
Nashua Hippo
Events, previews, reviews and more for April 15-21, 2004
Published by The Nashua Hippo Press


To the right: Nancy Frye leads a class at Paper Moon Dance Studio in Merrimack. The group practices to Middle Eastern-style music, from traditional to pop. Photograph by Bernard Vaughan

Anyone who thinks career day doesn't affect school kids should talk to Nancy Frye.

When the 39-year-old Nashua resident was in seventh grade in Frankfurt, Germany - where her father, who was in the U.S. Army, was stationed - a woman from the base visited her class and provided a brief lesson in belly-dancing. Frye was spellbound, and the event forged in her mind a life-long passion for one of oldest and most mysterious forms of dancing known to man.

"It's not a usual subject for career day," said Frye, a mellow, thoughtful talker with blue eyes and blond hair. "It was a lot of fun. It was my first official "step and squish' movement; you imagine that you're stepping down on a cigarette butt and you're just kind of grinding it out. It gets your hips going."

Her father and German mother moved to Nashua just after the New Year in 1980, when her father was transferred to Fort Devens in Ayer, MA. Bellydancing lingered in the back of Frye's mind and was encouraged with a blossoming fascination with Near and Middle Eastern culture.

Bellydancing, or "Beledi" dancing in Arabic, evolved over thousands of years from the Near and Middle East and North Africa. French travelers in the 19th century dubbed the strange dance "danse du ventre," or "dance of the belly,", a misnomer considering the entire body is used in bellydancing, with a special emphasis on hip and pelvic movements rather than belly isolations. Traditionally, the dance is more folkloric, with long dresses (the popular, scantily-clad "I Dream of Jeanie" rendition, Frye said, is a European and American bastardization), coin belts and head scarves, and was seen as an expression of celebration.

"I was always into Egyptian things," Frye said. "Any documentary on Egyptian artifacts or Pyramids; anything to do with Greek settings, that whole Romanesque period," captivated her.

It wasn't until after the birth of her and her husband Vincent's daughter, Bianca, in 1990, that Frye found the time and space to act upon her fascination. But bellydancing is about as common in Nashua as breakdancing probably is in Cairo, and finding an instructor was not easy.

"Here in New Hampshire it's very difficult to find anybody that does something like that," Frye said. "But eventually, I saw a snippet...about an instructor teaching (bellydancing) out of the YWCA.

Frye took lessons from the instructor for about half a year until the class ended due to lack of interest in the community.

"The class would be huge in size, and then it would start diminishing as people realized, 'Oh, this is not an easy thing,'" Frye said. "You don't just learn it in one stop, and then you're ready to go."

Another instructor came and went, and Frye relied on video instructions for a while before being led to Nancy Griffin, a bellydancer in Kingston, NH, and Michele Arista, a bellydancer in Manchester, in the late 90's. She took instructions from both dancers for months.

"She's just the typical person you find in the bellydance world," said Frye of Griffin. "She's very friendly, very open-armed, you know; she didn't know me from a hole in the wall, and she just took me on from a phone call."

Griffin insists she didn't teach so much as she coached the already-talented Frye.

"She's a love," said Griffin of Frye. At 52, Griffin, like Frye, enjoyed a life-long fascination with bellydancing; the exotic dance for her was a powerful pull-away from a strict Baptist upbringing that frowned upon dancing. "She's one of my favorite dancers to watch. A lot of the younger generation of dancers get to a certain level of proficiency for dancing in cabarets and clubs, then rest on their laurels. Not Nancy; she's always looking to improve, like all great dancers."

Before long Frye was teaching some of Arista's classes. "She (Arista) had a couple of students that were having problems in class, and I walked over and said,'This is what you want to do,'" Frye said. "And from that moment on I had a following, so to speak, so I started teaching."

Now Frye teaches bellydancing Monday nights at A Touch of Enchantment in Hudson, and Saturday afternoons at Paper Moon Dance Studio in Merrimack. At a recent class at the latter, the mirror-walled studio was filled with sunlight and about 14 students in jeans and warm-up pants; all wore coin hip scarves that jingled to the quick, repetitious hip and stomach undulations led by Frye.

Students range from early 20s to 50s, and while some were at a higher skill level than others, the atmosphere was relaxed and comfortable. Frye maintains a calm balance throughout her sessions, continuing to offer soft-spoken instructions while leading the class to hypnotic Middle-Eastern music; she routinely strides through the class to help students having difficulty with certain moves, as she did with Meredith Wagner of Nashua during a stomach exercise.

"I love her," Wagner, co-owner of Dana's Shoes in Nashua, said of Frye after the class. "It's just her personality. It's a lot of fun."

"I think she's really nice and she teaches really well," echoed Sara Stoffier of Amherst. "She helps you out if you're having trouble with a move."

Frye, whose stage name is "Zahira," Arabic for brilliant, shining and dazzling, also dances occasionally at the Athenian Corner in Lowell, MA and Tandoor Restaurant in Manchester. She will perform at the Worcester Bellydance Festival in June. A bookkeeper for Skol Restaurant and Lounge and a part-time hairdresser as well, Frye will always find time for bellydancing. For her, there is something about it that's difficult to explain - an intangible attraction not easily forgotten by a little girl from Germany.


To the right: Frye, known as Zahira the bellydancer, is a mild-mannered bookkeeper by day. Photograph by Bernard Vaughan

"There's an allure to the music," Frye said. "It's almost like listening to a really good rock song. You hear that music, and you just can not stop yourself from moving. You can not even think about not moving."

© Copyright by Nashua Hippo Press

Bellying Up

by Mary Ellen Hettinger
Merrimack Journal Staff
Friday, 26 September 2003

Merrimack Journal
Published by The Cabinet Press


To the right: Nancy Frye, (Zahira of NH) Photograph by Mary Ellen Hettinger

Every Saturday afternoon, the Paper Moon Dance Center on Daniel Webster Highway is transformed into a Middle Eastern oasis, as a dozen women in hip scarves move sinuously to the strains of exotic belly-dancing music - until someone screws up and giggles.

You might not expect to find a pretty, fair-skinned blonde teaching this ancient art form, but Zahira Zuhra, a.k.a. Nancy Frye, is a belly dancing professional just the same.

Hip shimmies, twists, slides, ups and downs, vertical and horizontal figure eights, bicycles, snake arms, genie arms, temple hands, rippling hands, gnarly fingers unfurling, lower and upper body undulations, pop ups, the camel - Zahira leads the class through dozens of gyrations each week to the music of traditional dances, with the occassional Elvis thrown in.

"You can belly dance to almost anything," Zahira said.

Coins and beads sparkle and jingle on hip scarves as the would-be dancers twist, turn and move up and down. The addition of sheer silk veils adds an air of mystery, and advanced students can try zils, tiny finger cymbals. But most of this class is working on the basics.

Lynne Findlay of Merrimack started the class a month ago. "I absolutely love it," she said. "It's like being a little girl again, playing dress up."

Alex Bleys-MacKay comes from Londonderry for classes and has studied with Zahira for a year and a half. "I love it so much, plus it's a good workout."

"She's a really good teacher, very down to earth," said student Lisa Henderson, 25, of Pepperell, Mass. "Her personality is very welcoming and the way she teaches, it's easy to implement her moves."

Zahira's introduction to the dance was unique. An "Army brat" who grew up in Ansbach, Germany, with a German mother and an American father, she saw her first belly dancer at a seventh grade career day.

"The woman taught us a couple of steps, one where you walk, do a hip twist and 'squish' your foot like you're putting out a cigarette. I was hooked. Also, 'I Dream of Jeannie' was big at the time."

"But I didn't start taking lessons until 1996, when I went to the Nashua YWCA and studied with Delilah," a former belly dance instructor there.

Zahira's style is "more Arabic with an Egyptian flavor," she explains. "The Turkish dancers hop around and move around the floor a bit more. The 'flat hip' work (where you keep your hips within a flat plane while moving them) is Arabic."

Belly dancing was a style of folk dancing centuries ago, originally called Oriental dancing. According to Zahira, it was something women would do for other women, in celebration. Some of the lower body moves are associated with the chakras for childbirth, very female.

"It was only when it was introduced to the Western world that it became viewed as exotic dancing, something to tease men, but this is a bastardization of the actual dance," she said. "Originally, women were all covered up, the coins on the scarves used to emphasize certain movements."

Zahira "felt like I had come home" upon seeing Nourhan Sharif of New York City, a world-famous dancer in the Egyptian style, at a workshop.

"When she walked in and began to dance, I thought, that's my style, this is my dance," she said. "She was just fabulous."

After studying with different teachers over the years and performing professionally since 2000, Zahira said, "One hundred percent of mastering dancing is visualizing the movements and seeing them in your head as you listen to the music."

In her classes, using many different types of music is part of the fun. From ancient folk tunes that put a little skip in your shimmy and a smile on your face, to contemporary music like Sting's "Dessert Rose," to the occassional Elvis Presley song, her enjoyment of the dance is contagious and shines through.

But this belly dancer has a double, even triple life, as a bookkeeper for Skol restaurant in Nashua by day, and as a hairdresser with a few private clients "to keep my skills up."

She also does bellygrams, performs at the Athenian restaurant in Lowell, Mass., and at fairs such as the Festival of the Lions in Grafton, Mass.

She's been married for 14 years to Vincent Knight, a machinist who also plays guitar, and they have a daughter, Bianca, 13.
They live in Nashua.

Women come to her class for many different reasons.

"Some try dancing as something different to lose weight, which you really don't, but you gain strength because it is exercise," she said. "Dancers come in all sizes, and when you see them, you see the dancing and their grace, not the size."

Saturday students range in age from teenagers through 50-somethings, all there for the fun of it.

Although there still aren't many venues locally, "It's nice to see interest in belly dancing picking up again," Zahira said, and confessed she "wouldn't mind walking away" from bookkeeping if she could teach and dance full-time.

"In the '50s and '60s it was very popular in nightclubs and famous dancers were treated like Hollywood stars," she said. "My dream would be for a local ethnic restaurant to become a venue for dancing and bring back the glamour."

To learn more about classes, visit Zahira's Web site at zahira-bellydancer.com, or call the Paper Moon Dance Center at 429-1100.

© Copyright by Merrimack Journal (The Cabinet Press)

Photographs by Renee Dekona
Featured on the cover of the Sunday Boston Herald and in the Lifestyle Section
Date of Print: 14 July 2002

Unveiled: Pop culture brings traditional belly dancing back to popularity

by Dana Bisbee
Sunday, July 14, 2002
Boston Herald

Your navel is a rounded bowl that never lacks mixed wine. "Your belly is a heap of wheat encircled with lilies."
- Song of Solomon 7:2.

Bellies are in - and the ancient art of belly dancing is benefiting from the exposure. From Britney Spears - the high priestess of the bare-belly look - to Yancy Butler, star of the TBS series "Witchblade," to noontime Newbury Street shoppers and midnight clubgoers, young women in short tops and hip-huggers are flashing their tummies. Colombian singer Shakira performs belly dance in videos and at concerts. And women are flocking to belly-dance classes around the Hub.

"In the Boston area, there are some 40 active belly-dance teachers," said Bellydance Music Association founder and musician Steven Kouyoumjian. "Everyone tells me that the number of young students is booming now."

"MTV is responsible," said Melinda Heywood, who teaches belly dance at Daughters of Rhea in Newton and, as Melina, dances regularly at Karoun, a Newtonville restaurant. "There's a lot more interest in the dance," she said, "and it's because of Shakira and Britney. College students come and say, 'Can you make me dance like that?' Later, they get beyond that and want to learn the art form."

Belly dance, sometimes called Oriental dance, comes to us from the Middle East and Mediterranean coast. An Egyptian form is called raks sharqi. There are Jordanian, Turkish, Greek and Lebanese styles, too. And then there's American Fusion, the melting pot for all belly-dance styles.

The styles differ in tempo, foot movements and the use of arms and hips. But all focus on dramatic, rhythmic, controlled movement of the stomach muscles. It all derives from ritual dances that are centuries older than the countries that claim them.

"It is a primal dance," Heywood said. "It's prehistoric and matriarchal. It's a rite of fertility. The undulations of the belly mimic the natural motions of childbirth."

"The belly is the site of fertility," said Deanna Likouri, Heywood's mother, who dances professionally as Rhea. "In Hinduism, the navel is one of the shakras, an energy center." Rhea said that the dance is passed down properly from mother to daughter. She taught Heywood, who now is teaching her daughter, Zoe Isadora, 2. To the right: Zoe & Melinda (Melina)






The three generations - Rhea, Melina and Zoe - danced together recently at the Bellydance Music Association party at Arlington's American Legion Hall. To the right: Deanna Likouri, (Rhea), grandaughter Zoe Isadora, & daughter Melinda Heywood (Melina)

Above: Rose Champagne

Organized in 1999 by Kouyoumjian and dancer-singer-musician Lisa Casselli, the association hosts events and workshops to promote the dance and the music. Most recent guest artists were Rose Champagne, who teaches in Holyoke, and Zahira, the performance name of New Hampshire-based dancer Nancy Frye, who first learned the moves as a child at the U.S. Army base in Ansbach, Germany. Frye said that the dance is liberating.




"When I'm belly dancing, I feel beautiful, happy and part of the music," she said. "My vain side screams, 'Look at me now!' and the selfless side says, 'Join me in my happiness and experience the beauty of the song.' " To the right: Nancy Frye, (Zahira of NH)

If the bare-belly trend has fueled a belly-dance boom, the ancient rite also is influencing fashion. Stores sell jeans with waistbands removed to get lower down the hips. They carry the spangly-dangly jewelry reminiscent of belly-dance costuming. "Belts or glitzy halter tops," Frye said, "hip wraps or belly chains, shoes that have glitz and beading - all that is an incorporation of the belly-dance world."

Even medicine is keeping pace with the belly trend. "There's a new procedure called umbilicoplasty," said plastic surgeon Ramsey Alsarraf of the Newbury Center, "for women who want their navels pierced or those who have had a bad piercing experience, to make it more attractive."

Couture designer Denise Hajjar, who started studying belly dance at age 10, predicts that bare bellies will be with us for a long time. "The young kids won't stop because they like it," she said. "It's a way of showing skin without exposing cleavage. And if they have a bellybutton ring or tattoo, they want to show it off." Belly-dance teachers are waiting for them. The dance is good exercise. It is a good vehicle for meditation. And it is an ages-old art that has been taught and practiced even when women are not so belly-concious.

"It'll never be boring," Melinda "Melina" Heywood said, "to watch someone undulating."

For more information, go to these belly-dance links:
www.zahira-bellydancer.com
http://hometown.aol.com/bellydancemusic/welcome.html
www.daughtersofrhea.com
http://community-2.webtv.net/Ghaziya/MiddleEasternBelly
www.helade.com/links.html

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