What is the best belly dancing studio in the San Francisco Bay Area?

Question

Looking for a belly dancing studio in Walnut Creek, Lafayette, Martinez area, any opinion?

Answer 1

Suhaila Salimpour's school - seriously - start your technique journey on this solid foundation and while you climb into belly land, you could decide on your inspirations and later learn with them too. Strong isolation control learnt here will open so many more doors for you because you won't be stuck in one niche style.

ps. This school has a high well regarded standing in the belly world. From here you could learn of many other highly recommendable dancers in the Bay area.

p.s.s - Hope the studio is near the ideal locations you mentioned.

Lemme know who you end up training with - don't stop dancing! :)

Answer 2

Suhaila is very good and is well respected.  If her studio location and class times don't work for you, check some other possibilities.  You might want to start by checking with a gym or recreation center in your area. Sometimes they have dance classes, and those teachers may also do private lessons.

You can look on Shira's website.

http://www.shira.net/

http://www.shira.net/directory.htm

other websites where you can look for teachers

http://www.middleeasterndance.net/

http://www.middleeasterndance.net/Dancer...

http://www.bhuz.com/

http://zaghareet.freeservers.com/

http://www.bdancer.com/med-guide/

You can e-mail or call some of the dance instructors to find out what ages they teach in their classes, more about their background, their style of instruction, what they expect from students, and fees they charge for classes. If you don't find a

teacher listed for your area, you might want to contact one from the websites and find out if they may know of an instructor who may live closer to you. You might want to see if you can contact other students of theirs to get their opinions of the classes. A good teacher should encourage this.

I hope you find a teacher that you like. If one teacher's style doesn't suit your learning style, try another. I've known some dancers to take awhile finding a setting that worked for them.

Good luck!!