Dance has always been a passion in my life. I grew up dancing, enrolled in tap and ballet classes from the age of three. I rediscovered my love of dance as an adult after my daughter was born. I was looking for an exercise program to help me to get back into shape and a dance class was the obvious choice for me. I checked out the local YWCA and the first class I signed up for was Disco. Okay, stop laughing! It was 1979! That class was fun, but as we all know now, Disco didn’t last long and you needed a partner. My husband is definitely not a dancer, so I moved onto phase two. My next mission was to find a dance that does not require a partner. As luck would have it, the same Y was running belly dance classes. I decided to try that and was hooked. The music was wonderful and the drumming was amazing! Talk about percussion! This was perfect! Exactly what I had been looking for! I continued classes at the Y and eventually became one of the founding members of Sheba’s Caravan. Abira, the founder of the original Desert Dancers of Bangor, Maine, who has since become a close friend and my mentor, introduced me to the wonderful world of workshops. In the fall of 1983, I traveled with Abira and some of her troupe members to Boston to attend a workshop with Badawia. Kasim of Azziza Productions hosted workshops twice a year throughout the 1980s and brought in world-class instructors. Thank you Kasim! The workshops were an amazing journey of discovery. In Boston, I was privileged to attend workshops with master teachers such as Suhaila Salimpour, Amaya, Yousry Sharif, Dahlena and Cherri Miller, as well as the amazing Badawia, just to name a few. Through the 1980s I traveled to workshops twice a year. Although most of these workshops were in Boston, I also attended workshops in Toronto and Ottawa.

Sadly, in the early 1990s interest in the dance began to decline on the east coast. I missed it terribly and was delighted when it began to regain popularity in the late 1990s. Students were suddenly looking for classes again and it was a whole new world. The Internet had completely changed everything. Suddenly dancers were no longer isolated. Dancers, teachers and vendors were all on line, sharing information. I began to study again, attending as many workshops as possible including the Arabesque Academy Summer Dance Camp with Yasmina Ramzy in 2001 and Hadia’s Festival of the Nile and Teacher’s Retreat in 2003.

With the support and encouragement of my husband and friends I began teaching classes in 2001 at a local community center. I continued teaching there for several years and as demand for more classes grew, taught additional classes at the community college and at a fitness studio. In 2004 I began teaching classes at The Studio, where I now teach exclusively. I am also the Artistic Director of Desert Magick.