Shira's Dance Curriculum Vitae

• Courses: Ongoing attendance at dance seminars over the years for continued professional development, including:
  • Numerous one-day seminars taught by assorted visiting instructors including Morocco, Delilah, Shareen el-Safy, and many others
  • Weeklong seminar taught by Nahema in Celadonia, Italy
  • Eight weeklong seminars, each featuring various instructors, through Rakkasah
  • Inanna retreat facilitated by Delilah
• Textbook Self-Study: Ongoing reading of prominent historical & ethnic texts, including A Trade Like Any Other, Looking For Little Egypt, and many others.
• Travel: Visits to Turkey and Egypt to study Middle Eastern dance arts and culture

PHOTO CREDIT: Photo by John Rickman, San Jose, California.

PHOTO CREDIT: Photo by John Rickman, San Jose, California.

Shira is originally from northeast Iowa. She spent the first 17 years of her life growing up on the farm where her mother was born just outside of Strawberry Point, home of the world's largest strawberry. The nearest city big enough to have a first-run movie theater was an hour's drive away. This Iowa farmer's daughter got her first experience with dance when her mother enrolled her in a tap dancing class at the ripe old age of 4. When she put on her first sequined tutu a year later for a recital, a future belly dancer was born!

Shira began her first belly dancing class as a college student in 1981, in Iowa City, Iowa. She had loved ethnic dance for several years before that, having studied both Scottish Highland dance and international folk dance. When she saw the belly dancing class advertised through the local adult education program, she decided to try it, and has found joy in Middle Eastern dance ever since. Dance has been her inspiration, her outlet for creative energy, her avenue to making friends in a new community after relocating, and her escape from her "day job" of working as a professional computer nerd.

Shira has a Bachelor of Arts degree in journalism and French, as well as a Master's degree in Business Administration. She has worked for over 15 years in the online services and Internet industry, helping corporations decide what content to put online and how to organize it for best effect. In August of 1997, she used what she knew about creating compelling online areas to launch her own dance-related web site, The Art Of Middle Eastern Dance, at http://www.shira.net. It has rapidly become one of the favorite dance-related Internet destinations for many belly dancers around the world.

As a soloist, Shira feels most at home with the Americanized flavor of belly dance that employs both traditional Turkish and Arabic music, because of her love for American-style veil work, sword balancing, and other New World innovations.

For three years, Shira was assistant director of two dance companies: Troupe Wasila and The Veiled Threats. The Veiled Threats placed first in the Wiggles Of The West competition's comedy category in July 1997 in Reno, Nevada. These two dance companies disbanded in 2001.

(Photo credit intentionally omitted.)