XelaHayam
New member
Hello, I've been using your forums to answer my questions for years now, but I finally decided to just come out of my lurky-shadows and join/participate! My name is Alex, but if you want to can call my by my stage name Xela (alex spelt backwards... ooo how tricky am i? haha)
I'm 19, I've been dancing for 6 years and am currently troupe choreographer and instructor for the beginners & intermediate classes at my university. I got into bellydance through my mum actually
We're not middle eastern at all! haha; I'm actually Bahamian, Irish, and English... born and raised in the US, but somehow my family got deeply involved in Middle eastern culture, and well, here we are!
My mother teaches belly dance classes, has been dancing for as long as i can remember and is apart of a professional turkish dance troup. In highschool, and now when ever im home for breaks from university, we dance together as a mother daughter duet known locally as "The Belly Buddies" (haha! isnt that cute? my mum and i are besties... ever seen the Gilmore Girls, yeah thats us, except less coffee, more tea, coz my mums english)
My Dad's a pilot and used to fly the hajj (the pilgrimage to mecca) and at one point, we were going to move to dubai... but then we didn't. But anyway, we somehow ended up with many many things from the east and my mothers honestly done every style of dance under the sun anyway so of course sooner or later she would put two-and-two together and start bellydancing.
Growing up i was dragged around from festival to festival and workshop to workshop. I totally thought it was all normal until I went to middle school and kids would ask "so your moms an arab stripper?" "are you muslum?" and I was like NOOOO! It was so frustrating!! So i started taking classes myself and caught on very quickly because I had already been exposed to so many different styles and shows (i was very privalaged really) My first worskshop/festival that i participated in I got to dance ATS on stage with California's Frederiq!! So exciting! And now well... its become my life.
I'm trying to help my university troupe grow and develop... its all very exciting, coz most of them had never bellydanced before the college beginners class (some of them i taught! im so proud! lol) I also have a job dancing at a local hooka bar, which is nice (i worked at one over the summer, it was night-cluby and I'm totally gonna call them out, it's "off the hookah" don't go there, they are HORRIBLE - terrible management - mean mean mean people who work there & own the place; the manager would call me "fat" and "boring" all the freeking time.. "jokingly" of course, but he was so rude. i would honestly cry on my drive home from work every night. ridiculous- total d-bags)
Other than belly dancing I breed reptiles with my boyfriend of 3 years (we have over 100 reptiles; bearded dragons, leopard geckos, crested geckos, veiled chameleons, uromasyx, brazillian rainbow boas... i think that all of them..? lol) write, film, and study criminology
I'm 19, I've been dancing for 6 years and am currently troupe choreographer and instructor for the beginners & intermediate classes at my university. I got into bellydance through my mum actually
We're not middle eastern at all! haha; I'm actually Bahamian, Irish, and English... born and raised in the US, but somehow my family got deeply involved in Middle eastern culture, and well, here we are! My mother teaches belly dance classes, has been dancing for as long as i can remember and is apart of a professional turkish dance troup. In highschool, and now when ever im home for breaks from university, we dance together as a mother daughter duet known locally as "The Belly Buddies" (haha! isnt that cute? my mum and i are besties... ever seen the Gilmore Girls, yeah thats us, except less coffee, more tea, coz my mums english)
My Dad's a pilot and used to fly the hajj (the pilgrimage to mecca) and at one point, we were going to move to dubai... but then we didn't. But anyway, we somehow ended up with many many things from the east and my mothers honestly done every style of dance under the sun anyway so of course sooner or later she would put two-and-two together and start bellydancing.
Growing up i was dragged around from festival to festival and workshop to workshop. I totally thought it was all normal until I went to middle school and kids would ask "so your moms an arab stripper?" "are you muslum?" and I was like NOOOO! It was so frustrating!! So i started taking classes myself and caught on very quickly because I had already been exposed to so many different styles and shows (i was very privalaged really) My first worskshop/festival that i participated in I got to dance ATS on stage with California's Frederiq!! So exciting! And now well... its become my life.
I'm trying to help my university troupe grow and develop... its all very exciting, coz most of them had never bellydanced before the college beginners class (some of them i taught! im so proud! lol) I also have a job dancing at a local hooka bar, which is nice (i worked at one over the summer, it was night-cluby and I'm totally gonna call them out, it's "off the hookah" don't go there, they are HORRIBLE - terrible management - mean mean mean people who work there & own the place; the manager would call me "fat" and "boring" all the freeking time.. "jokingly" of course, but he was so rude. i would honestly cry on my drive home from work every night. ridiculous- total d-bags)
Other than belly dancing I breed reptiles with my boyfriend of 3 years (we have over 100 reptiles; bearded dragons, leopard geckos, crested geckos, veiled chameleons, uromasyx, brazillian rainbow boas... i think that all of them..? lol) write, film, and study criminology
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