Circle of Rhiannon

Belly Dancing:
Good Exercise, Good Friends
and a Good Time

(and a chance to play dress-up)

HAMILTON, Ohio — The Circle of Rhiannon Tribal Belly Dance & Drum Troupe practices a style of "tribal fusion" dancing that incorporates but goes beyond the Egyptian and Indian traditions, according to founder Jan Harmon.

"The tribal fusion, or 'American tribal style,' also adds in North African, Flamenco, Turkish, American jazz and Native American influences," she said.

In all of the cultures that practice belly dancing, the purpose is to "celebrate life and love and community," Harmon said.

This conglomeration of styles was first practiced in San Francisco in 1987 and focuses more on the group than the individual, Harmon said. Still, it is 99 percent improvisation as the leader gives slight visual or audible cue that set up the next movement.

Harmon began teaching belly dancing at the Fitton Center for Creative Arts two years ago and Hamilton resident Linda Martin found the course listing intriguing.

"I've always been interested in dance," she said. "With belly dancing, you don't have to have a guy and go out on the ballroom floor."

Jolene Heath's husband doesn't like to dance, so that made belly dancing a perfect release for her. Heath first began belly dancing in the 1980s and recently came back to it through Harmon's classes.

"It's good exercise and a way to express yourself in a way you can't do in your daily life," she said. "It's also a spiritual exercise if you want it to be that. You can be a little off-the-wall and still be accepted."

With the colorful, flowing costumes, belly dancing also gives the women a chance to "play dress-up," Harmon said.

"The costumes are a conglomeration of influences that represent the whole style of tribal dance," she said.

With "10-yard skirts" made with, literally, 10 yards of fabric, allows the dancers to create soft swirling images when they turn and spin, enhanced by a number of tassels and other fabrics.

The traditional Egyptian coin bra, work outside a "choli" open-back shirt, gives their dancing a musical quality, as does the Kuchi jewelry, made by women of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

"The costuming traditions come from India when the women wore their dowries so when they went out to dance me would know what they were buying into," Harmon said.

Many of the women also paint their faces and adorn them with jewels, frequently creating the Indian "bindi" to represent the third eye chakra.

"Although we started off as an exercise class, these girls expressed an interest in performing," Harmon said, so they have begun to introduce the rest of Butler County to their traditions. Their first performance was in April for Miami University's Silk Road Festival in Oxford.

The dancers recruited members of the Hamilton Zen Center's drum circle to provide music for some of their performances, premiering at a May, 2006 performance for the Music Cafe in Hamilton's Fitton Center for Creative Arts.

Also appearing at the Music Cafe on Tuesday will be the Madison High School Steel Band, Native American flutist Sunflower, the a capelling folk group the Singing Milkmaids, and Cincinnati singer/songwriter Liz Bowater.

Harmon said anyone wishing to learn belly dancing should contact the Fitton Center about her Tuesday night beginner classes. New sessions start in June. Harmon also teaches Sundays at the Miami University Recreational Center.

"It's not hard to learn," she said, "it just takes practice. The movements are simple exaggerations of normal body moves."

In addition to the exercise and fellowship, many women see belly dancing as a spiritual exercise, a form of moving meditation."

"Belly dancing gives the community of dancing back to women to dance in harmony for each other," Harmon said. "It helps us reclaim our self-esteem by learning to like the bodies we have and learn to move comfortably in them.

"It offers us shelter from the stress of contemporary life and gives an opportunity to build spiritual connections between men and women," she said.

"It is good exercise, good friends and a good time," Martin said.

Photos by Greg Lynch

Story by Richard O Jones

This story originally appeared in the JournalNews, Hamilton, Ohio, on May 24, 2004.