House of Inanna

Bios

Classes

House of Who?

Petra

I had a life-transforming "A-ha!" while dancing in the chorus, during practice at Noe Valley Ministry. I was "waiting" too much. I was waiting for the perfect time to start learning how to shimmy like "the big girls" in FCBD, and I was waiting for others in my life outside the dance studio, as well. Living in the waiting room, in fact. My inner voice, said, 'Stop waiting and DO it! Life is too short to wait for the perfect time to act!' When this happened, I started shimmying, and realized that I could do just about anything that I set my mind, body and spirit to accomplish. I love sharing the potential break-through experience of belly dance with others.

I’ve always loved to dance, even though I was immensely self-conscious as a kid. My mom enrolled me in ballet and modern dance when I was young, but I had a hard time sticking with it. I was short and rotund, and really embarrassed about that. So, I danced to music in my room, alone. As a teenager, I was a little less concerned about what others thought of me and did really expressive dance at dance clubs, as well as pogoing and slam-dancing across Germany, then DC and Richmond, VA, during my punkarina years.

In 1995, I had the good fortune to find myself in Carolena Nericcio’s American Tribal Style belly dance class, having been dragged there by a friend. She took three classes and decided that it was not right for her, but I was hooked! I loved the grace of the experienced dancers, their ability to move in sync like a flock of birds, and the exotic expressiveness of the music we danced to.

Between 1995-2000, I was in Carolena’s class between one and three times a week, and was part of her understudy troupe, Second Skin. When I got a new job outside of San Francisco, I had to leave the FatChance fold.

During the next few years, I studied with a number of Cabaret teachers, including Magana Baptiste, Azar, Mashuqa Maya Murjan, and others. I love exploring all different types of belly dance, but ATS is my first love – the improvisational capacity and moves are simply compelling for me. I missed it, and couldn’t stay away.

In 2003, at the request of a few friends and acquaintances, I began teaching mostly ATS style in a small studio. Since then, I’ve realized my passion and capacity for sharing ATS, as well as infusing it with other dance forms, and the occasional yoga asana, too.

Since 2004, I've also broadened my awareness of the Body-Mind through getting back into yoga, getting a accreditation with Yoga Alliance as a Registered Yoga Teacher through Yoga Educational Seminars. I enjoy bringing asana, awareness of the esoteric body, and meditation into dance classes... this can really enhance dancing techniques and performance capabilities. Additionally, I'm on a long-term track to complete a Masters in Somatic Psychology (a fancy way of saying "therapy with a focus on mind-body connections for healing").

It's such a joy for me to dance, and I hope it is for you, too!

As a troupe, House of Inanna loves to perform traditional ATS, as well as work comedy into our routines on occasion, and also enjoy performing with our dear friends and world-music performers Fontain's M.U.S.E. We welcome new students and collaborators, any time. Please contact us to talk!"

""She has an attitude to kill for. Petra looks like she just arrived from Egypt, and that dance is her everyday life routine!" - Alika

Hiya/Chaiya

I first saw belly dancing at a party in Honolulu. I expected to be disgusted, an insult to the feminist that I am. What I saw was beauty, strength, and a sensuality that was completely owned and gifted by the woman who danced. Years later, I moved to California and joined the SCA, the Society for Creative Anachronism, which tries - with varying levels of authenticity - to recreate the Middle Ages. There were belly dancers there, too, and soon I was taking classes from one of the teachers, Siobhan of Cloverdale. I began to understand the differences between Cabaret and Tribal, because I was always drawn so strongly towards Tribal.

I joined the "bellydancer invasion" at Burning Man, and eventually a group of about 30 dancers - many of whom did not know each other - ended up in front of "The Man". It was a dance celebration, not a performance. There was no stage, no particular audience (though we certainly attracted a crowd). Someone began leading, and we all followed - a scattered tribe come together as one. The lead changed; someone else gave a cue and the rest of us followed along. It was magical. I wasn't very experienced in tribal style at this time so I knew some of the moves, but not the cues (in my favorite picture of the group of us, I'm facing the wrong way!), but my heart sang with the joy of it - a collective of dancers, dancing as one. I came home with a rededication to the dance, and to tribal in particular.

I am happy to be a member of House of Inanna, having joined in 2005. Since 1998 I have been dancing with great joy in my living room, on the playa, and in the SCA. I can usually be found wearing purple, surfing Tribe.net and posting on Facebook.

I am also known as "The Cookie Lady" for gifting cookies from my head-balanced basket!

Marina

I’m proudly half-Lebanese. I grew up celebrating my culture through listening and dancing to Lebanese albums my mother bought (cabaret belly dance; I never learned debke), and making traditional foods on special occasions. My sister made the best bi’lawee (baklava)! I joined the SCA in high school, and my first costume was similar to what’s called Tribaret now. I did start to learn a bit of belly dance on my own, as well as from watching others, and danced through my college years, however finding out that I was deemed pretty and desirable shocked me out of public performance.

Thirty years and more pass: I'm no longer youthfully lithe, there's more of me than before, and I've had a child (who is now a young adult!). I was introduced to Petra and ATS through a mutual friend, a member of the troupe. I started lessons, and within two years of starting, I began performing again - very nervously at first!

I'm improving my techniques and skills, I'm more at ease in performance, and in July 2011, soloed again for the first time in way too many years. What the music tells me to do is not always quite tribal, nor tribal fusion, and I enjoy solo dancing as a way to express these inspirations.

I am really enjoying learning more advanced moves/steps and routines with the troupe, and I love that we incorporate several different styles in our dance, like spices in an otherwise ordinary dish. I really enjoy the "reverence, tradition, and mirth" that infuse our classes, moves and choreography, as well as the fellowship with my troupe sisters.

Chelle

At the end of a dark tunnel in her life, a tiny sequin shined from afar... Michelle sought out a belly dance class. She had tried the videos before, but the magic wasn't there; and frankly, she just wanted to get out of the house a bit. Michelle walked into an improvisational tribal fusion class taught by an amazingly talented dancer, Neshema, and walked out a dancer.

Michelle has been bringing together flow and grace through dance for 5 years, training under Neshema, Ashley Lopez, Petra Pino, and at Fat Chance Belly Dance Studios. She's fluent in ATS and knows a couple of tribal fusion ditties, too.

Fox

Fox would rather kill you with these swords than tell you about her background.

Cherie

Cherie recently moved to California from Boston and has a charming accent that she brought with her.

Rowan

Rowan started dancing in junior high when the mother of one of her friends got together and taught a troupe of girls. However, being a Navy child, she soon had to leave those friends. She didn't dance again until late high school when she took lessons from a Turkish bellydancer in the Washington DC area in the late 1960's. She was in the chorus of the play Carnival with the Arlington Community Theater where she played "The Bellydancer" and was was introduced with the lyric, "From out of the East you'll watch a jewel, who fled a harem in Istambul". Throughout the 1970's she danced in the SCA and with various teachers and groups in Florida. She got especially interested in bellydance as Goddess culture and childbirth conditioning. She especially enjoyed dancing with Julia Morgana of Tallahassee and Jacksonville. Julia later toured with composer and flute play, Kay Gardner.

In 1981 Rowan moved to California and started to dance, but tragedy struck and she suffered a back injury in 1984. Despite disability, she continued to take bellydance lessons to strengthen her muscles when she could. A local teacher named Dunia was instrumental in helping her find moves she could do and supporting her in this effort. Dunia later started the Desert Dance festival. During the 1980s and 1990s Rowan didn't dance out, but continued to dance for her own pleasure and spirituality.

Tribal dance teacher Petra Pino moved to the Peninsula and then South Bay and began giving classes here. Rowan enrolled and was encouraged to begin dancing out again with the troupe House of Innana since its inception in 2002.

Classes

House of Who?