~ EVENT REVIEW ~
Dance from the Heart
Mini-Convention
By Nizana
This first time annual event in Tampa, Florida, with a focus on Floridian instructors,
took place over the weekend of June 24-25th, 2016. Tampa is a vibrant city with
a big belly dance community, and this event took place mostly at Compton
Park, a lovely facility, with some overflow workshops at America’s Ballet Studio.
Theresa Martinez created this Mini-Convention with donations and some proceeds
going to local charity, Food Not Bombs. It really covered all the bases as far as
anything a dancer could need and was a lot of fun.
All instructors performed as well as several other dancers who took workshops,
including myself. Instructors included Lacey Sanchez, Jayne Arrington and
Dancecraft, Gina Marie Newman, Amani Maharet, Johanna Xenobia, Jennifer
Trieste and Master Drummer Michael Washington, with a wide variety of workshops
held on Friday night and all day Saturday! Choices ranged from drumming to yoga
and, of course, cabaret and tribal and tribal fusion classes, so lots to choose from.
Jennifer Trieste
I am more of an AmCab dancer, but I took a workshop on Mind and Body
Connection with Lacey Sanchez, as I’d heard such great things about her. I really
enjoyed her workshop a lot! Her class the night before was a lot more dancing
October 2016
The Belly Dance Chronicles
59