Belly Dance Life

Roxxanne Shelaby is a Southern California–based performer, teacher, and producer whose work is rooted in her Lebanese/Brazilian heritage and a lifelong immersion in Egyptian Style Oriental Dance. Raised in her family’s legendary nightclubs, Fez and Cascades, she grew up surrounded by live Middle Eastern music and dance, learning directly from iconic artists such as Feiruz Aram, Marie Silva, Sahra...

Fascinated by the arts since childhood, Nivetha Shree discovered Belly Dance at the age of 21 and has since trained with renowned teachers around the world. She holds certifications in DanceCraft – Key of Diamonds by Zoe Jakes and Krysalis – Invocation by Kami Liddle, and is an FCBD® Teacher, proudly leading the first officially recognized FCBD® Sister Studio in India. A Level 2 Yoga practitioner...

Snigdha Sachdev is a Delhi-based fusion belly dance artist and dedicated yoga enthusiast. A Biotechnology graduate with a master’s degree in Stem Cell Technology, she discovered her pull toward belly dance at a very young age. Her dance journey began with extensive training in Jazz, Ballet, Contemporary, and Kathak—foundations she later blended to deepen her belly dance technique and develop her...

Gracie Mandujano was born in Honduras, a land rooted in ancient Mayan traditions, and from an early age felt called to reconnect with life’s true purpose and the depth of her courageous spirit. Guided by yoga and dance, she returned to her physical body and divine power, dedicating herself to ancestral arts and becoming a healer and light worker. Her lineage eventually led her back to the ways of...

Esmeralda Colabone has dedicated herself to Arab dance and culture since 1999. From 2002 to 2014 she worked with Belly Dance Brazil and Lebanon’s famed La Maison de L’Artiste, becoming the agency’s youngest dancer at 19 and spending 12 years performing across the UAE, Qatar, Oman, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Syria, and Lebanon. She was the first Brazilian to tour the Maghreb and held one of...

Leli Neeraja is a dancer and teacher who has dedicated over a decade to guiding others toward inner balance through movement. Her work is a continuous exploration of fusion between East and West, blending the grace of Indian classical dance with the expressive freedom of contemporary forms. She spends several months each year in India, deepening her study of traditional disciplines that help her...

Suhaila Salimpour, of Sicilian-Greek and Kurdish-American heritage, is a second-generation belly dancer and a pioneering figure in the global dance community. A former house dancer at the legendary Byblos nightclub in Beverly Hills, she toured internationally for over a decade, performing across the Middle East, Europe, Asia, and North America. As the visionary creator of the first codified...

Badriyah is a professional oriental dancer based in Belgium, dedicated to Egyptian classical and folkloric styles, modern fusion, and the Golden Age of belly dance. With over a decade of teaching experience, she offers regular classes at Shoonya Dance Centre in Ghent and travels across Europe to teach and lecture. A former lead and troupe member of Jillina’s world-touring company Bellydance...

Melissa Gamal is an award-winning dancer, instructor, and event producer based in Toronto, Canada. As the director of the Ya Amar School of Dance, Melissa is dedicated to providing comprehensive training in Egyptian dance, blending refined technique with a strong awareness of history and cultural context. Her work has taken her across North America and to Egypt, where she continues her studies to...

Virginia Danielson (PhD, Ethnomusicology, University of Illinois, 1991) is an associate of the Harvard Music Department and a visiting scholar at New York University Abu Dhabi. She is the author of The Voice of Egypt: Umm Kulthum, Arabic Song and Egyptian Society in the 20th Century (University of Chicago Press, 1997), the first English-language biography of the Arab world’s most celebrated...