*JOY*ful Shimmies Bellydance

Instructors

About Ameena

Ameena first started taking belly dance classes as a fun way to regain strength and flexibility after twelve years of living with a chronic illness which left her practically bedridden during the last 2-3 years of her illness. Her first instructor, Anna Nummelin, taught a combination ATS, tribal fusion, caberet, and choreography. After realizing how much she enjoyed dancing and how much it added to her life in so many areas, she also began taking classes with another area instructor, Rebecca Whitman. Rebecca taught a combination of caberet and tribal fusion. Taking these classes happily allowed her to dance twice a week.

She joined Anna's performing troupe, Peanut Butter & Gypsy, dancing and performing with the troupe for a year and a half. She was also co-director after Anna moved away, until leaving the troupe to focus completely on learning, teaching, and performing American Tribal Style (ATS) Belly Dance. Anna also pursued learning, performing, and teaching ATS after moving from the area, and Ameena has enjoyed the rare times they've had the privilage of dancing together in the same style; this is one of the unique qualities of ATS - learning the same improv vocabulary one can dance with any other ATS dancer from anywhere else around the world even if they have never danced together before.

Ameena has been teaching and performing ATS since 2006 and has attended Tribal: Pura Milwaukee.

As a result of her classes and the desire of several of her students to dance more often and to perform, she started the *JOY*ful Shimmies student troupe, Hip-Hip Hooray! in 2007. In 2009 she, along with two student troupe members Alexandra Lancette and Imigula, formed the independent performance troupe TMI Tribal.

Out of her own desire to dance more often and to connect with the larger belly dance community, Ameena also started hosting regular haflas (bellydance parties) and workshops with area instructors, as well as helping to organize the 2nd annual Northern Lights Belly Dance Festival.

Besides dancing, Ameena also pursues her interests in Middle Eastern drumming and percussion. Her student troupe includes live music provided by member drummers and musicians, as well as some of the other dancers in the troupe.

Ameena has performed at restaurants, festivals, Ren Faires, fundraisers, women's events, for graduations and retirements, and along with Peanut Butter & Gypsy, at Anna Nummelin's wedding reception.

Teaching workshops and specialty classes is her newest endeavor to share this dance with an even larger audience.

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About Alexandra

Alexandra often jokes that she's been headed toward bellydance for most of her life. A curvy girl who made up and performed dances in her mother's dining room (complete with costumes), Alex became enamored with Indian culture in late junior high and began to study various facets of it-- henna body art (also called mehndi), traditional Indian dress and, of course, dancing. Living in a small town meant that most of Alex's early dancing was self-taught via books, movies and the internet, and as such was an eclectic mix of cabaret, folkloric, modern and ballet. Her searching lead her to more formal sources of instruction, and she began classes with Sheri Behmert of Peanut Butter and Gypsy. There she met Ameena, and when she saw that Ameena was teaching classes in Chippewa Falls, Alex signed up. She's been taking classes with Ameena since early 2008, and performing with the student troupe since the summer of that same year. In 2009 she formed TMI Tribal alongside Ameena and Imigula (one member of Hip Hip Hooray!). She loves both improv and choreographed dance, but currently performs mainly within the *JOY*ful Shimmies ATS structure-- "Fat Chance Bellydance American Tribal Style- Plus More." Alex hopes to expand her ATS knowledge to someday include the entire BlackSheep BellyDance vocabulary.

While also working as a stay-at-home mom, Alex founded Una Luna Studio in late 2007 with a focus on fantasy costuming. Later, as her love of bellydance grew, she expanded her line to include dance pieces such as corset tassel belts, headpieces and cowrie hair falls. Her items are available in her Etsy shop http://unaluna.etsy.com, at Eclectica on Grand in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, and at various dance and craft events around the state. (Current *JOY*ful Shimmies students can also request to see her items after class.)

Alex began working as an independent bellydance instructor in the fall of 2009, and currently teaches the Level 1 Fundamentals courses for *JOY*ful Shimmies. She is also available to teach workshops: "Headscarves and Turbans: Wrapper's Delight," which focuses on a wide variety of headscarf and turban styles appropriate for dance or streetwear, and "Fake Hair for Real Dancers," which concentrates on the creation, styling and wearing of hair pieces for dance performances, with a special focus given to dancers with short hair. She can be contacted via email about either workshop: alex@joyfulshimmiesbellydance.com. You can also preview a bit of the headscarf workshop by checking out Alexandra's YouTube videos .

When dance, entrepreneurship and momhood isn't eating up her life, Alex likes to read fantasy and sci-fi novels, bake cupcakes, dye her hair exciting colors and collect both bird figurines and tattoos. She lives in Eau Claire with her husband and 2.5 kids.

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