Belly Dancing Is an Exercise Alternative

When belly-dancing instructor Stephanie Kanan asked me to shimmy, the coin belt jingled around my waist as I attempted to shift my hips from side to side, while making subtle come-hither moves with my arms. Instead of appearing smooth and sexy like Kanan, I looked and sounded more like Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer, tromping through snowdrifts. Like most Palisadians, I know that 30 minutes of exercise at least four times a week is recommended for good health, but I get bored with my standard workout. So when Kanan, the co-owner of Oasis Palisades, a health spa in the Marquez neighborhood that offers acupuncture, herbal consultations and a variety of massage treatments, said she was offering belly dancing lessons, I signed up. The Palisades resident told me that she started dancing in 1985, while working as a medical assistant for Dr. Pearl McBroom, the first black female cardiologist in L.A. She saw an advertisement about learning to belly dance and decided to give it a try. ‘My hair was dyed and I had about a 16 piercings in my ears and one in my nose,’ Kanan recalled. ‘The teacher, Angela Buttery, opened the door, took a look at me and thought about it for a minute, before inviting me in.’ Belly dancing is considered to be a feminine, womanly dance and Buttery was initially taken aback by Kanan’s punk appearance. After taking lessons for a few months, Kanan started rehearsing as many as three times a week with Buttery’s troupe, A Thousand and One Nights Dance Company. She was invited to join, and subsequently performed at weddings and Middle-Eastern restaurants like Moun of Tunis (Hollywood) and Koutoubia (Westwood). Belly dancing, which has been traced to Egyptian tomb paintings as far back as 1300 B.C., finally surfaced in the United States during the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair, when the dancer Little Egypt made her debut. The dance made its way into silent films, and some credit Hollywood for adding the flowing veils, which hadn’t been documented before the 1900s but are now popular with dancers throughout the world. Kanan danced for more than 20 years before taking a break in 2005 from the troupe. For the next four years, she taught individuals and at girls’ night outs. ‘We’d have belly dancing classes and martinis,’ she said, laughing. After Oasis Palisades opened in 2007 (with co-owner Antonia Balfour), Kanan began realizing how much she missed belly dancing, and decided to offer more formal classes. The morning I showed up there were two other women in the class. One had been taking classes for several months with Kanan, the second student was experienced and had studied with several teachers. ‘Belly dancing is for women of all ages and all sizes,’ Kanan said, explaining how it places an emphasis on abdominal muscles, hip moves and chest moves and is characterized by smooth, flowing, complex and sensual movements of the torso, alternated with shaking and shimmying. I was given a coin scarf to wrap around my hips because that body part becomes like a percussion instrument, with the coins adding sound and glitz as the hips move. ‘Different body parts are isolated,’ Kanan explained as she showed how the upper body moves while the hips stay still. After we practiced arm motions, Kanan demonstrated different hip movements. A figure eight is just like it sounds, with hips moving in a slightly circular motion back and forth. Trying to do it smoothly without moving the upper body, I realized how hard it is to isolate just one part of the body. We next learned a simple shimmy, which meant that when we swayed side to side with our hips, the coins jiggled. That move wasn’t a problem, but when we were asked to walk forward continuing the shimmy, I realized I could walk and I could shimmy, but not do both at the same time. Kanan also showed us several upper-body and shoulder moves with the emphasis on smooth execution. After one particularly vigorous upper-body move on my part, Kanan explained that belly dancing is not meant to be ‘in your face,’ that subtlety is the intent. Putting all parts of the body through different but simultaneous movements reminded me of trying to pat my head and rub my stomach at the same the time. Kanan made it look effortless. All in all, the music, the camaraderie and the dance moves added up to maximum fun, while still working up a good sweat’and with a little more practice I’ll be able to shimmy and walk at the same time. Call: (310) 612-9741 or e-mail: info@oasispalisades.com.