My love of belly dancing came very naturally to me at a very young age and I have my own style of dance which does not fall into any particular category. Dressing up and making the costumes was always a very big part of it for me. My life has always revolved around originality and invention and I have never taken any notice of “you must do it like this or that or it isn’t right”. My view is that someone somewhere invented it in the first place and the others all copied. So I used to make up my taped music from Turkish. Armenian. Lebanese. Egyptian and Balkan belly dance music with no strict rules except to go out and dance and enjoy. Anything beautiful and tuneful to give an audience pleasing show gave me pleasure.
I never wanted or needed to be in a class of clones standing in a row and all doing the same old thing. I cannot claim to have ever been technically brilliant but at least I looked colourful, pleasing to the eye and always had a smile.When I used to teach private students it was always to bring out the best in whatever they were able to do and try to encourage them to be inventive and find their own style. I mainly worked in Greek restaurants around London with live musicians at weekends and would fit in a few shows an evenng flitting from place to place. I also sometimes worked at weddings and on occasion private family parties. My whole belly dance career spanned over about sixteen years or a little more.