A Brief History

While this beautiful dance style is essentially modern American, it is drawn from many ancient origins: the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia, including Egypt, Persia, Morocco, India and Afghanistan. Its deliberate movements and heavy costuming are deeply influenced from these areas, though its styling is fundamentally post–modern Western. In contrast with Egyptian/Turkish bellydance movements, Tribal is very grounded and earthy.

From ATS (American Tribal Style) to Fusion, Tribal, though very structured, is essentially improvised. Dancers learn a shared vocabulary of moves, and take turns leading an essentially improvised dance with no obvious routine. This is particularly true of the American Tribal Style as conceived by Carolina Nericcio, the mother of American Tribal Style.

Tribal Fusion is, as it suggests, a fusion of traditional and modern bellydance styles, and many forms are developing. Sitara’s Urban Tribal is a constantly evolving blend of these dynamic styles.

The class starts with a warm up to prepare our bodies for the challenging moves. We will then go on to cover technique and styling, progressing on to cues and transitions and, later, group formations. Practise will involve plenty of repetition. We are occasionally honoured to have the help of a drummer to deliver powerfully rhythmic and hypnotic tunes be help enhance our journey into the desert. Come and enjoy!