Personal account
From Brice's website:
"Rachel Brice fell in love with belly dance after she saw Hahbi'Ru in the early nineties. After she saw big, gorgeous, proud women with strong carriage and charisma adorned with spectacular antique tribal jewelry, facial tattoos, and rich textiles, it changed the way she saw beauty. She instantly started classes in American Cabaret.
In the early 2000s, she studied American Tribal Style® Belly Dance, African Haitian, Flamenco, Modern Dance, Kathak, and Odissi Classical. Simultaneously, she was in Jill Parker’s Ultra Gypsy, the first Tribal Fusion troupe. She was influenced by the forms she studied so these influenced her style. She danced with Mardi Love, an aesthetic influence.
2001, she was hired by mogul Miles Copeland, then toured for five years with his company Bellydance Superstars. These tours promoted the San Francisco belly-dance known as Tribal Fusion.
Today, Rachel studies belly dance with her teachers Carolena Nericcio, creator of American Tribal Style®, and yoga with Gary Kraftsow. She studies with her colleagues. She resides in Portland Oregon, and operates the studio Datura, and has a production company called Little Scarab with Sol Crawford. They sell a belly-dance program called the 8 Elements™ Approach to Belly Dance..."
The Red Elvises are an American cult band that performs funk rock, surf, rockabilly, reggae, folk rock, disco and traditional Russian styles of music. They were founded in California in the mid-1990s and are based in Los Angeles.
Carolena Nericcio started the Fat Chance Belly Dance troupe, formerly American Tribal. FCBD/ATS developed a unique style of belly dance known simply as the FCBD style, of which the primary defining characteristic is group improvisation. It is generally performed at community events such as festivals and parades, with dancers typically favoring a look provided by wide-legged pants gathered at the ankles, tops known as cholis and full skirts.
Amar Gamal is a Cuban bellydancer who grew up in Florida.
Bellydance Superstars is a professional American bellydance troupe formed in 2002 by producer and manager Miles Copeland. In its first six years of touring, it presented 700 shows in 22 countries. The troupe disbanded sometime in the mid-2000s after Copeland left to pursue other projects.
The Indigo Belly Dance Company is a tribal fusion style belly dance company that was based in San Francisco. It was founded by Rachel Brice in 2003. Its members include Brice, Mardi Love, and Zoe Jakes. Past members include Sharon Kihara, Ariellah Aflalo, Janice Solimeno, and Michelle Campbell. Many of these dancers currently teach and perform internationally, and have also appeared with Bellydance Superstars.
Amera Eid is an Australian bellydancer who practices Egyptian style Sharqi dancing. She founded the first Egyptian bellydance boutique in Australia.
Tribal Fusion Belly Dance is a modern Western form of belly dance that was created by fusing American Tribal Style belly dance and American Cabaret belly dance. Artists frequently incorporate elements from Popping, Hip Hop, 'Egyptian' or 'Cabaret' belly dance, as well as movement principles from traditional forms such as Flamenco, Kathak, Odissi, and other folkloric and classical dance styles.
Gothic belly dance, also named and separated in substyles as Gothic fusion belly dance, dark fusion belly dance and Gothic tribal fusion, is a recently founded dance art movement, distilled from the influences of Middle Eastern dance, tribal fusion, goth subculture and neopaganism. Originating in the United States in the 1990s, it has spread to be practiced by amateur and professional dancers around the world, and it is growing with the spread of tribal belly dance formats.
Improvisational Team Synchronization, Improv Team Sync, or ITS belly dance is a style of group dance improvisation, often associated with Tribal Fusion and belly dance. ITS is performed by a group of dancers consisting of one of more leaders and followers. The dance relies on a shared vocabulary of movements, each initiated by the leader using a distinct cue movement. After the cue, a short choreographed movement sequence, or combo, is performed by the group. The leader chooses the combo based on their interpretation of the music, which is often done spontaneously during the performance. The result is a dance that appears choreographed, but is in fact structured improvisation. This format of structured group improvisation was first developed by Carolena Nericcio-Bohlman, the founder of American Tribal Style.
Terezka Drnzik is one of the matriarch figures in the Australian bellydancing community, having started the first dedicated bellydance studio in Sydney in 1989. The school has produced many professional dancers including Jrisi Jusakos of Hathor Dance and Kaeshi Chai of Bellydance Superstars.
Beats Antique is a U.S.-based experimental world fusion and electronic music group. Formed in 2007 in conjunction with producer Miles Copeland, the group has become noted for their mix of different genres as well as their live shows, which mix samples and heavy percussives with Tribal Fusion dance and performance art.
Belly dance is a Middle Eastern dance that originated in Egypt, which features movements of the hips and torso. A Western-coined exonym, it is also referred to as Middle Eastern dance or Arabic dance. It has evolved to take many different forms depending on the country and region, both in costume and dance style; with the styles and costumes of Egypt being the most recognized worldwide due to Egyptian cinema. Belly dancing in its various forms and styles is popular across the globe where it is taught by a multitude of schools of dance.
Juana Ghani is a band based in Salt Lake City, Utah, that performs a mix of Eastern and Central European and Romani influenced original music and Old World traditional folk songs combined with modern melodic punk. Juana Ghani's Gypsy punk music, generally played in a minor key, is more melodic, harmonious and traditional than the usual "punk" genre, but the lyrics reflect punk, often dark and at times macabre.
Fusion dance is a type of contemporary social improvised partner dance that combines different dance styles to create a new aesthetic. It does not require conforming to any particular defined dance styles, but typically uses a lead-follow approach that emphasizes musicality.
Raks Geek is a bellydance, flow arts, and fire performance company based in Chicago, Illinois. They were the first professional group to successfully combine bellydance and firespinning with geek themes in a consistent manner. They are most known for a viral YouTube video featuring a Wookiee bellydancing to a Klingon band playing original music in Shyriiwook, which was listed on UK Channel 4 TV's "50 Funniest Moments of 2012." They are the most well-known example of fusing bellydance with geek themes and are considered one of the top dance companies in Chicago.
Dawn Xiana Moon is a Chinese American singer-songwriter and bellydancer based in Chicago, Illinois. She is the first musician to blend traditional Chinese music with Americana, pop, and jazz. Moon is also the founder and producer/director of Raks Geek, the first bellydance and fire company of its kind.
Neon is a contemporary belly dance and stiletto dance performer, instructor, and choreographer based in New York City. She is also the founder and owner of Stratostream Entertainment - World Dance New York, a US entertainment company publishing dance instruction, performance, and fitness home video products for women. As a dance instructor Neon has developed innovative visualisation-based methods for teaching dance and dance fitness in an accelerated-learning format.
World Dance New York is a US home entertainment company, releasing and distributing special interest titles on DVD, video on demand, streaming media, iPhone and iPad apps, and a brand of women's dance and fitness home video products. It was founded in 2001 as "Stratostream - World Dance New York". "Stratostream" designates the company in the business-to-business environment, the home video industry, while "World Dance New York" is the publicly-recognized brand and the name of the consumer-facing operation of the company.
Arab folk dances, also referred to as Oriental dance, Middle-Eastern dance and Eastern dance, are the traditional folk dances of the Arabs in Arab world. Arab dance has many different styles, including the three main types of folklore, classical, and contemporary. It is enjoyed and implemented throughout the Arab region, from North Africa to the Middle East.
Sarah Powers is a yoga teacher. She co-founded the Insight Yoga Institute and created Insight Yoga, a combination of yoga, transpersonal psychology and Buddhist and Taoist philosophy, described in her 2008 book of the same name. She was closely involved with the creation of Yin Yoga.
