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How To Find A Belly Dancing Class In Your Community

© Shira

You've decided you would like to learn how to belly dance. All you need is a teacher. But you've looked in the yellow pages, and found nothing listed for belly dance. Now what do you do?

Very, very few belly dance teachers actually advertise in the phone book. Before accepting an ad, most telephone companies require purchase of a monthly "business phone" service which costs substantially more than residential phone service. The ad itself is also very expensive. Most belly dancers find that it just costs too much, so they promote themselves through other methods.

You'll need to be creative in your search. Even though the telephone book isn't very helpful, there are other good ways to find belly dancing classes.

The Internet

The Internet is one good tool for finding various local resources in your computer. But forget about going to the Great Big Search Engines--those return so many worthless pages that you'll waste a lot of time combing through their results. There are several web sites that offer online directories of belly dancers, and they'll make your quest much easier.

http://www.shira.net/directory.htm Shira's web site lists over 450 belly dance teachers and performers worldwide.

http://zaghareet.freeservers.com/dancer.... Sponsored by Zaghareet magazine, this site lists about 200 belly dance professionals.

http://www.bdancer.com/med-guide/dir/med... The Middle Eastern Dance Resource Guide lists over 300 dance contacts, although it is no longer updated and some contact information is obsolete.

http://www.bdancer.com/contacts/ The Belly Dance Home Page has an older list of about 150 belly dancers. It's no longer updated and some contact information is obsolete.

http://www.bhuz.com Online teacher directory.

Another great way to find a teacher is to ask someone. There is a listserv (e-mail-based community) on the Web dedicated to Middle Eastern dance, with about 800 members worldwide. Once you've joined the list you can post a message to everyone asking for recommendations of teachers in your community. To join, just send an e-mail message to majordomo@world.std.com with the words subscribe med-dance in the body of the message. Within a day or so you should start receiving e-mail from the List. Now you can send your inquiry regarding teachers in your area to med-dance@world.std.com.

Another place to ask someone is a Yahoo group. There are lots of Yahoo groups related to belly dancing. The one with the highest number of members (and therefore the greatest likelihood of being able to help you find a teacher) is called Middle Eastern Dance. You'll find it at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/middleeast... .

Even if you don't find someone local to you on these web sites, you'll probably find someone who is within a 2-3 hour drive of you. If so, contact that person and ask whether she knows anyone who teaches in your particular community. Often the people who teach belly dance know their counterparts in nearby cities. It doesn't hurt to ask! While you're at it, ask whether this person has a mailing list and if so, ask to have your own name added to it. This will provide an excellent opportunity for you to learn about upcoming belly dance special events such as workshops, special shows, or festivals in your region.