composed an original song, “Amayagueña” a word play on
the former song. I had asked him if he could make the music
super dramatic…like a bullfight atmosphere… and he did
just that! To this day, I still get an adrenaline rush when I
hear “Amayagueña” amplified over big speakers. It really is
my signature song and my choreography to the same song
has been danced in over 20 countries around the world and
has even been used as a shimmy mob choreography!
I read a dance book once entitled, “How to Stay Young
Forever in Dance.” The final chapter lit a light bulb over my
head. The main way to stay young, according to this book,
was to videotape yourself and put it out there. Thus, to the
world, you never age! This was a true “Ahah!” moment. I
was young and ambitious and decided that making an
instructional video or two would be a very good thing. After
much discussion with dance colleague, Delilah of Seattle,
who kept encouraging me, I researched it and created my
first videos, which are still selling nicely today.
More recently, I have been dealing with the passing
of Bert and other icons in our dance family. I became
exasperated that there was so little acknowledgement of
the important impact American dancers have made on the
worldwide scene. All I could find were films on the iconic
dance Egyptian stars; but because of cultural restrictions
in their part of the world, they were not able to expand.
American dancers took over this “fad” and made it big
business and a worldwide art form and created workshops,
festivals, notation, music, videos, a huge costume market,
and more. Because Bert’s mother lived in Berlin, Germany,
12
The Belly Dance Chronicles
January 2016
he was the first to go overseas and start the international
workshops in Europe. He opened the doors for me and
others to teach our dance in other countries. I remember how
weird it was for us to learn that German women were belly
dancing! Later I realized this is probably how the Middle
Eastern world looked at Americans
dancing their dance years ago!
Australia and New Zealand
opened up next. I am quite sure I was
the first Australian seminar teacher
in the mid-80s to be brought over.
I give thanks to Belyssa of Perth
for this incredible opportunity.
Since then, Japan became a force
for dancers, then Korea, and more
recently China and Indonesia and
South America have joined the socalled “fad”. So, my exasperation
grew into a “just do it” mentality and
I decided to make an historicallystyled DVD based on our American
icons. “American Belly Dance
Legends” was born and I feel