Female

I have been involved in Middle Eastern Dance since 1974, and wound up paying for a good part of Grad School dancing to live music in clubs in Western NY. I danced with Nadia Ibrahims Middle Eastern Dance Ensemble in Buffalo for 3 years. When I moved to Richmond VA in 1980 I hooked up with Zara, and shortly thereafter we formed the Women of Selket Dance Company. I was president of that organization for about 10 yrs. I started teaching belly dance in the early 80's, took my first trip to Egypt in 83 and Morocco in 84, formed Scheherezade Imports in 1985, co produced the 3 Nadia Hamdi US tours in the 90s with Rocky, started taking groups to Egypt in the late 90s and my first group to Ahlan Wa Sahlan in 2002. I usually go to Egypt twice a year, once taking a group, once a year to work for Scheherezade Imports. Currently I teach 6 belly dance classes a week through Henrico County Park and Rec. where I have about 120 students, I teach privates and other group classes and seminars/workshops by contract and am on the teaching staff of the Concert Ballet of VA where I teach in the Summer Intensive Training program in the World Dance Exploration segment of the curriculum. I also coach their "Arabian" soloist in the Nutcracker.
I am most active on the Med-dance listserve, WAMEDA, vabellydancers, swvameda,cvameda yahoo groups and am a member of WAMEDA.
I occassionally serve as judge for Middle Eastern Dance Competitons but prefer teaching and coaching to judging.
My all time favorite Oriental Dancer is Soheir Zaki and my favorite contemporay dancers is the Egyptian dancer Lucy.
The women I congratulate for continuously and tierelessly promoting this dance to a global community, with their own vision and fortitude are Egypts Raqia Hassan and USs Morocco.
And in memorium for his tireless work, Ibrahim Farrar.

In my spare time:)))) I am the mom to a teenage ballerina who dances with the Concert Ballet of Virginia. I am on the governing board of the Ballet and am Chair of Promotions. I also maintain a connection with my original career---I maintain a small private out-patient adult mental health practice. I see clients one or 2 days a week and although I am on the adjunct faculty of the Virginia Commonwealth University Graduate School in Mental Health Nursing I am not teaching this semester.
I have been married since 1973 to the same guy:))) and in 1996 he left his engineering job to work full time for Scheherezade Imports. He is one in a million and I'd never trade him in:)))).
I love gardening, feeding the birds, travel, reading and finding great new ethnic restaurants.