{"id":4836,"date":"2010-05-03T08:00:40","date_gmt":"2010-05-03T13:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/?p=4836"},"modified":"2017-06-22T11:30:45","modified_gmt":"2017-06-22T16:30:45","slug":"belly-dancing-class-reintroduces-students-to-their-bodies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/tartan-news\/2010\/05\/03\/belly-dancing-class-reintroduces-students-to-their-bodies\/","title":{"rendered":"Belly dancing class reintroduces students to their bodies"},"content":{"rendered":"

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When Sinclair Community College dance instructor Denise Miller was 13 years old, she witnessed a National Geographic program that would forever impact her life. It was a documentary about an Egyptian belly dancer named Lucy.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt felt like I was watching something that was missing from my life,\u201d Miller said about the documentary.\u00a0 \u201cIt was like a missing piece of my puzzle.\u201d<\/p>\n

Miller said it was initially difficult to find someone that could teach her how to belly dance, but she found an instructor one year later. In between one of her four trips to Turkey to study the dance, Miller was asked by Pat Fox, who was chairperson of Sinclair\u2019s Dance Department at the time, to come teach belly dancing at the college. Miller accepted and has been teaching Middle Eastern Dance for the last eight years.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen students first start the class they don\u2019t really know what to think or expect, but after a couple days they become more comfortable,\u201d Miller said. \u201cI think the class helps a lot of (students) come out of their shell and I think that is very important for anybody.\u201d<\/p>\n

Miller said because belly dancing involves so many isolated movements, her beginners\u2019 class focuses on the basics, while her intermediate class learns how to layer the dance.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ve got to have cake before you can frost it,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Sinclair student C.J. Phelan has been taking belly dancing for two quarters and said the dance is a strong contrast to other styles she has experienced, such as modern jazz, ballet and ballroom.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn a lot of other dances you have to worry about posture, but in belly dancing your body stays relaxed,\u201d Phelan said. \u201c(In belly dancing) it\u2019s all natural movements that our body already knows. We just don\u2019t know that our body knows.\u201d<\/p>\n

Phelan\u2019s classmate, Stacy Green, said the class is a great workout, but she doesn\u2019t think belly-dancing movements like stomach rolls, figure eights and down hips would translate well to hip-hop music.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe movements are not club related,\u201d Green said. \u201cA lot of the moves are actually meant to help women build strength for birthing movements.\u201d<\/p>\n

Miller said anyone interested in taking Middle Eastern Dance could expect to have fun, get in shape and become more comfortable with his or her body.<\/p>\n

\u201c(Miller) is a very one on one type of teacher,\u201d Phelan said. \u201cYou don\u2019t feel intimidated when she\u2019s trying to help you. She\u2019s very good at what she does.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When Sinclair Community College dance instructor Denise Miller was 13 years old, she witnessed a National Geographic program that would forever impact her life. It was a documentary about an Egyptian belly dancer named Lucy. \u201cIt felt like I was watching something that was missing from my life,\u201d Miller said about the documentary.\u00a0 \u201cIt was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":90,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[1171,1172,1402,276],"class_list":["post-4836","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tartan-news","tag-belly-dancing","tag-denise-miller","tag-samuel-huist","tag-sinclair-community-college"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5s3vR-1g0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4836","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/90"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4836"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4836\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4858,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4836\/revisions\/4858"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4836"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4836"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4836"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}