The ancient Middle Eastern art form of bellydancing has been upgraded to the 21st century by local bellydancers Heidi Cannon and Leslie Sakata, who’ve managed to fuse comedy, athleticism and ballet into a successful routine that will be on display at The Bellydance Intensive and Festival in Las Vegas this week.
The four-day event, the biggest in North America, runs from Sept. 8 to 11th and aims to celebrate the art and beauty of bellydancing by featuring several performances, small dance competitions and workshops.
Although bellydancing originated in the Middle East, its popularity in North America has caused a dance evolution resulting in a tremendous diversity of styles and interpretations.
“We’re incorporating canes into our routine. There’s one part in the dance where I swing the canes at Leslie’s head and she ducks and then we go into a mini fight scene,” Cannon said. “It’s really cool. That’s the great thing about bellydancing, you can use props and fuse so many other styles into it.”
“We’re both very active and I think that makes us different from your average bellydancer. We don’t have big bellies,” Cannon joked.
“We like to spice things up a little so we’re bringing a lot more athleticism to our routines.”
Cannon fell into bellydancing after watching singer Shakira perform on television eight years ago. The former tomboy was intrigued by the different body movements and decided to take it up as a hobby and now performs with Sakata at parties and several restaurants around Maple Ridge.
Last week the girls performed at the fair at PNE as a test run leading up to the Las Vegas festival.
“The crowd loved it, they were shocked to see how different we are, but they cheered for us anyway. It was really great,” she said. “We love making people laugh and making them smile while we’re performing. It’s funny because we usually get those crowds were some people are really into it and other people are just in shock.”
Cannon hopes the trip to Las Vegas will provide the team with the exposure they crave to help them get in touch with important contacts in the bellydancing world.
“There are always connections to be made. We want to have a bellydancing DVD out soon, and there are people in Vegas who can help us with that,” Cannon said. “We want to get ourselves out there and show our fellow bellydancers what we can do.”
Although they’ll receive a warm reception in Las Vegas, the same can’t be said for performing in Maple Ridge. The girls say they’ve been receiving mixed reactions.
“A lot of places we ask to dance at say no because their clientele is really shy,” Cannon said. “It’s sad in that way. I hate when people think we’re strippers. That is not what we do!”
“We want to be recognized for having lighter performances that poke fun at ourselves rather than have a sexy, serious and sensual performance. Our goal is to show women and everyone out there that there’s another side of bellydancing besides the stereotypical one.”