Is'Dihara is a Saudi Arabian name that means "flowering wisdom". 

Is'Dihara has been studying Middle Eastern dance since 1995 and is trained in Egyptian, Turkish and folkloric styles. Is'Dihara dances with cane, fan, zills, sword and veil. She is available for performances and teaches in Woodbridge, VA.

Venues in Northern Virginia where Is'Dihara performs include Casablanca restaurant in Alexandria, VA, and Pars restaurant in Fairfax, VA. She also dances professionally with the Kasbah Gems.

Dance Styles
Is'Dihara combines the grace and fire of cabaret styles with the stamina and strength of tribal styles. Her favorite "flavors" of belly dance are Folkloric, American Tribal, Fusion and Cabaret.  In each of these dance styles the core movements are the same but each type has different costuming requirements, execution guidelines and focus.  This gives each style a unique look and feel.

Cabaret
Cabaret belly dancing is the mid-riff bared, beaded fringe bra-n-belt (called bedlah) version that most people think of when they hear the phrase belly dance. This is the style of dancing I do for hire.
Click here for a larger image
Folkloric
I do this style of dancing in the Society for Creative Anachronism. SCA-style Middle Eastern dancing is mostly improvisational with traditional, multi-layered garments.  Over the years some overlap between this style and American Tribal Style has occurred. This is the most "covered up" flavor of belly dancing that I do.
American Tribal Style
Derived from traditions in which women danced together to entertain each other, this form of belly dance is danced as a group. It uses structured improvisational technique and blends costuming influences from India, Central Asia, the Middle East, North Africa and Spain.
Click her for a larger image
Click here for a larger image Fusion
This is the category where I place novelty belly dance and costuming with cross-cultural inspiration, such as "flamenco-flavored" dances, sci-fi and fantasy dances and gypsy fusion. One of these days when I make good on my threat to create camel-toed dance slippers or a watermelon costume, the blackmail photos will go here.
               
As Dina Lydia so wisely states in her book, The Costume Goddess Tells All - Flattering Costume for Bellydancers:  "Belly dance is all about magic: It is a dazzling, enrapturing swirl of sparkles, jingles and jewels that transports the audience out of their frame of reference and into the Moroccan casbah, sultan’s palace, Cairo cabaret, of popular imagination."  To that I would add that the tassels, turbans and tattoos make their own powerful magic!
               
           
  Fat Chance Belly Dance 
   WAMEDA  
Local dance organization: MD, DC, and VA
  Gypsy Caravan     Jaka's Page
  Ultra Gypsy  
Bambi's Rhythmic Rhapsody
  Bosphorus Market   Morocco and the Casbah Dance Experience
       
           
               

Click on the links below to see my 2003 fan performance of 'Dance of the Soothsayer' and my 2004 cane performance of 'Esma Yalli'.

Dial-Up
(1.6 MB)

Broadband (10.3 MB)
Broadband (12 MB)







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