Belly dancing makes me feel beautiful.

In 2007, I took my first belly dance class in New York. It was different to the typical classes on offer back then, and it made me feel – well, beautiful. To me, American Cabaret and Egyptian Baladi were these lavish, elegant and intoxicating moving pieces of art, without the brashness of more modern dances or the rigidity in older forms. Different to my foundation in Eastern Asian dances – including Chinese and Filipino; and my tendency towards hip hop and toe-dipping into swing – when I belly danced, I felt feminine, confident and womanly. I never felt like I was “performing” – I was simply communicating what the music was making me feel.

After just a few lessons, I was hooked.

When I moved to London, I continued my studies in belly dancing, spreading my focus on modern fusion belly dance and later, into tribal fusion belly dancing. Experimentation in dancing with the different props kept me preoccupied, and I found that those years in drilling Chinese fan and ribbon movements quickly lent themselves to manoevering fan veils, silk veils – whilst those years I sniffed at balancing candles on my head for the Filipino Pandanggo dance helped me pick up sword and cane dances quicker. I moved into performing quickly and loved the thrill of learning new and varied choreographies and sharing it with audiences. My closet space was fast overflowing with brightly coloured costumes and every kind of prop available. My weekends were now dedicated to rehearsals.

I was beyond addicted.

And it was (still is) terrific. But, after nearly a decade of taking belly dance classes, I still didn’t feel like a “pro”. Perhaps I had skipped a few steps. Maybe I didn’t realise how quickly online technology helped grow the belly dance community – (remember, when I started, almost everyone knew each other!)

A part of me felt that I was going through the motions, memorizing a toolbox of choreography, but never quite getting deep enough into the meaning of the dance. It pains me to say how completely ignorant I was of the history of belly dance and its incredible legacy and future potential – until just a few years ago. And that it was only in retrospect I realised how I had actually taken lessons with the then-pioneers in tribal fusion in New York and the legacies of Egyptian and Turkish legends. So that’s why I’ve started Clever Belly Dance – as an (almost snarky) reminder to myself how very unclever I was as a student when I first started out. But not anymore.Key points about Clever Belly Dance:

1. I’d like to dedicate this site to giving a neutral, balanced overview of the belly dance scene in London, NY and various online courses; and as an online community to share neutral tips, reviews, events and networking opportunities for students – by students.

2. I aim to share the stories and legends that have been passed on and offer perspectives on its impact and legacy.

3. I completely respect and am already a member of awesome belly dance groups online – but most are led by teachers, so I’d like to keep this complementary to what great stuff is already out there.

4. I am lucky enough to have a good day job, which allows me to keep this purely editorial – that means I’ll receive no commission, no gifting and no exchanges for coverage.

5. This is my Labour of Love; and advertising (if any) will be kept to a minimum – available completely separate to content and based on relevance.

6. For transparency – in the future, I’d like to start offering holistically – and neutrally – curated dance days and workshops at some point.

7. Separately, (fingers crossed) I would also like to share some of my learnings in prop-work and Eastern Fusion through coaching workshops of my own – but, I have no plans to be a full-time belly dance teacher. Frankly, there are enough amazing ones out there! I can’t wait to share the editorially-collected thoughts about them.

8. The main point of this community is to share perspectives and to further educate and spread awareness – you can see from my story above that I do not claim to be an expert, so when I share things, it’s because I find them fascinating. Let’s keep this forum positive!

Thanks for reading and I look forward to (hopefully) being one of your trusted fellow belly dance enthusiast and proponent.

Happy dancing,

K