Let's Get Acquainted!
I'm beyond appreciative to be able to say that I am a second-generation, internationally recognized performer and teacher of bellydance! I've travelled the world multiple times under the title "Superstar of Bellydance", connecting with thousands of students and audience members across the globe.
Through each stage of my development as a woman, bellydance has offered me gifts to enhance my femininity and light the way toward an empowered expression of my personality and sensuality.
Described as a "visionary" and in the "vanguard of bellydance", it is my mission to open up my world to empower you, as my student, with the tools to access the same bliss through bellydance that I'm so grateful to enjoy!
My bellydance world began with my mother, Jenaeni Rathor. As you join my trainings, she becomes your bellydance lineage too!
A pioneer of American Cabaret Style Bellydance, mama's career spanned 30 years of performing and teaching in New York and Los Angeles. Her headlining Cabaret Club engagements in New York included Ali Baba's and the Egyptian Gardens. In Los Angeles: The Seventh Veil, the Greek Village, and The Fez. In Central California: Charly's at The Beach.
Along with performing at countless parties, cultural events and the Renaissance Faire, she also owned and operated two Cabaret Clubs: Greektown and Chandrika. The latter of which included Bellydance, Indian Dance, and Flamenco and also featured a dance studio of same name.
Mama raised my brother and I in the artistic haven of Ojai, California where she taught classes, directed the troupe Yaleil and offered annual concerts at The Ojai Art Center. I grew up in this creative environment with her dedicated coaching.
When I was a teen, we moved to Hawaii and held an engagement bellydancing together at Hajibaba's Moroccan Restaurant.
"Mama Jenaeni" is considered one of the pivotal pioneers of American Cabaret Style Bellydance.
Though Mama has now crossed over, I feel a strong connection to her on a daily basis and most especially when I dance!
Clockwise from center: Alexandra King, Aleili, Antoinette Awayshak, Feiruz Aram, and "Mama Jenaeni"! Alexandra King and Aleili are my mother's proteges who also became my teachers. Antoinette was the first dancer my mother ever saw and Feiruz Aram was a contemporary - both of whom have also had great influence upon me!
My teachers are among the pioneers that made a cross cultural exchange thrive in the 1960’s - 1980’s Middle Eastern Night Club scene in the U.S.
They are some of the first to create theatre shows, multi-cultural festivals and unions. They developed their art forms to awe inspiring levels, took teaching to deep and expansive realms, forwarded feminism and sensual empowerment for their students, are the original bellydance fusion artists, created diverse and bonded communities, and were each wildly entertaining and inspiring on personal levels as well!
My strength, happiness, and success is built on the gifts of these muses sent from heaven and it is a privilege to spread their teachings as I carry on their work fused with my own.
Legendary Bellydancer, Feiruz Aram holding me as a baby in Chandrika School of Bellydance, co-owned by Jenaeni and Feiruz.
Slideshow of small me...
My first performance was at the age of four. I remember it so well! It's never too early or too late to hop on the magic carpet ride of bellydance!
I grew up to be a three-time Golden Belly Award winner, a recipient of a Best Cabaret Bellydancer of the Year Award from the International Academy of Middle Eastern Dance and became one of the original Bellydance Superstars. Quite the mix of glamour and behind the scene's grit!
I feel very honored to have also starred in three game-changing Bellydance documentaries: "American Bellydancer", "Behind the Shimmy", and "The Fez Documentary".
Along with winning the title of "Miss Teen Ojai" and modeling in Hawaii and Japan, my love affair with the camera continued with numerous television appearances as both a Bellydancer and an actress.
I'm a proud SAG-AFTRA member with credits including Days of Our Lives, Judging Amy, V.I.P, Jack and Jill, The Jim Jay and Ann Show, Live with Regis and Kelly, The John Mackenroe Show, Jimmy Kimmel Live, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, MTV Canada, and entertainment and news shows around the world.
It has also been a thrill to appear in music videos for Beck and Sons of Funk and even become my own version of a "Bond Girl" in the titles of 2000 Special Edition Release DVD of Octopussy!
Directing my own troupes has been a beautiful experience of sisterhood and allowed me to showcase what became award winning choreography.
As a BDSS member, I toured with the famous rock festival Lollapalooza and have been on my own independent teaching and performance tour of the world multiple times. During this era, I was able to perform in some of the world's most distinguished theaters including the Follies Bergere in Paris, France and the Victoria Theatre in Barcelona, Spain.
Performing with live musicians for almost a decade at the top Middle Eastern restaurants in Hollywood (including Al Amir and Byblos) allowed me to share my art with countless celebrities.
One of my favorite celebrity collaborations was with exercise leader Kathy Smith on her Bellydance and Fitness DVD, Flex Appeal. Being able to add this to my collection of 15 other top selling DVD's was a crowning moment.
While in Hollywood, I was also able to choreograph for the daytime drama, The Young and the Restless and enjoyed celebrity students in my classes.
All of this was so much fun, but also became an exhausting couple of decades! I'm grateful for the burn out, as it introduced me to the self-care industry and allowed me to expand my practice and offerings to include more of the mystical side of the art form that I had grown up with. I chose the online world as the best platform for this mission and pioneered online bellydance classes by video conferencing and membership based website.
Here on this site I offer hundreds of videos covering every style and aspect of Bellydance and I also conduct my group classes and performer and instructor certifications via Zoom!
My ethnic background is diverse. French, Irish, English, Welsh, Dutch, Scotch, and German on my mother's side and East Indian on my father's side, I am a fusion!
My Indian family, being of the Rajput caste (Rathors of India) were a Royal Family before the Princely States were abolished..
My father, Narendra Singh Rathor is second from the left in the photo above, next to his mother, my namesake. My father's father was the Prime Minister of Ratlam, Rajasthan and my father's uncle was the Maharaja.
My mother and father met at a Renaissance Fair where she was bellydancing and he was reading palms and playing the dumbek (Arabic Drum).
My combination of origins, mixed race parents, and growing up in the ethnically diverse artistic communities of Ojai and the art scene of Los Angeles, California, as well as my 20 year career touring the world - has connected me to creativity in all cultures.
Along with promoting dance fusion as one of many effective ways to bridge cultural gaps, I'm passionate about sensual empowerment. Linking bellydance-yoga-fusion to the awakening of Shakti Power and Kundalini Rising is one of my passion projects. An understanding of how the practices, when fused, are exquisitely effective at flowing Prana (life force energy) through the Chakras and Nadis of the auric and physical body can lead one to a deeper connection the Feminine Divine and ecstatic Samadhi. Enthralled with this realm of possibilities, I attained my 50HR Yin Yoga Certification and become an RYT® 200HR Registered Yoga Teacher and developed my "Sacred Sinuosity" Yoga-Bellydance Fusion Program.
To best describe the eclectic nature of my work, I sometimes refer to my style as "Cabaribalusion" as I love to combine Cabaret Bellydance with Tribal plus Fusion including Indian, African, Spanish, Gypsy, Burlesque, and Egyptian styles!
I'm thankful to have a reputation for energetic, sensual, emotionally expressive, improvised performances, for making empowering connections between the practices of yoga and bellydance, and for creating a supportive environment in which to share all of my "secrets' with you!
