Aisha
| Background | |
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Aisha began performing in the early 1960’s for the Arab Student group as part of the UCLA International Festival. Born in the US, of Egyptian/Italian heritage, she was among the first handful of belly dancers in America at that time. Enamored by the traditional folk music and wanting to know more about the cultures, she began a series of field studies in 1971 traveling throughout the Middle East and North Africa to record music and make films of dances that were fast disappearing. The results of her collection have been published by the ARAF (American Research Arabic Folklore) label for more than 30 years. Aisha performs and conducts workshops throughout the world and has earned numerous awards for her contributions to theMiddle East dance community. The Smithsonian and the Oxford English press have published her articles, and she has been a frequent contributor to many Middle Eastern Dance journals over the past 25 years. |
| Belly Dance Classes | |
| Aisha has been teaching in Southern California since the early 1960’s. Most of the pioneer’s and celebrities associated with this dance have been her students at some time. In her beginning class, she mainly teaches classic Egyptian belly dance. Her teaching style is directed toward demonstrating the character of the movements for students to imitate with less focus on the technical aspects of the steps themselves – although she talks the beginning students through the actions as they dance, thus keeping the momentum going and conditioning students to respond to their own musicality. She always allows the music to dictate the movements. With her method of teaching, she has no problems reaching students during workshops in other countries where music and movement are the only common language. |  |
| Contact and Class Information | Performances |
| The studio is in West Los Angeles. For more information go to http://www.aisha-ali.com/ or call 310 474-4867 for reservations. Links: CNN.com – Belly dancing: Swivel your way to fitness – Jun. 13, 2003 or www.cnn.com/2003/HEALTH/diet.fitness/06/13/bellydancing/index.html http://www.brightcove.tv/title.jsp?title=823484616 |
Today Aisha performs at concerts associated with workshops and symposiums as well as for wedding parties and other rite of passage celebrations. Her career as an oriental dance soloist working in nightclubs spanned more than three decades. During that period she also maintained The Aisha Ali Dance Company of twenty-five members including eight musicians, performing folk dances of the Middle East andNorth Africa at festivals, universities and major concert halls in Californiaand neighboring states. Her group held a six-month engagement inLondon at the original Omar Khyyam on Cannon Street, and she has performed as a soloist all over theMiddle East. She was responsible for the Middle Eastern groups in the “Opening Ceremony for the 1984 Olympics. Her main style is classic Egyptian Raqs Sharqi but she is also expert in Egyptian Ghawazee and Baladi style as well as Tunisian Raqs Shaabi, Algerian Ouled Naïl and Moroccan Shikhat. |
