House of Inanna

Bios

Classes

House of Who?

Petra

I had a life-transforming "A-ha!" while dancing in the chorus, during practice at Noe Valley Ministry. I was "waiting" too much. I was waiting for the perfect time to start learning how to shimmy like "the big girls" in FCBD, and I was waiting for others in my life outside the dance studio, as well. Living in the waiting room, in fact. My inner voice, said, 'Stop waiting and DO it! Life is too short to wait for the perfect time to act!' When this happened, I started shimmying, and realized that I could do just about anything that I set my mind, body and spirit to accomplish. I love sharing the potential break-through experience of belly dance with others.

I’ve always loved to dance, even though I was immensely self-conscious as a kid. My mom enrolled me in ballet and modern dance when I was young, but I had a hard time sticking with it. I was short and rotund, and really embarrassed about that. So, I danced to music in my room, alone. As a teenager, I was a little less concerned about what others thought of me and did really expressive dance at dance clubs, as well as pogoing and slam-dancing across Germany, then DC and Richmond, VA, during my punkarina years.

In 1995, I had the good fortune to find myself in Carolena Nericcio’s American Tribal Style belly dance class, having been dragged there by a friend. She took three classes and decided that it was not right for her, but I was hooked! I loved the grace of the experienced dancers, their ability to move in sync like a flock of birds, and the exotic expressiveness of the music we danced to.

Between 1995-2000, I was in Carolena’s class between one and three times a week, and was part of her understudy troupe, Second Skin. When I got a new job outside of San Francisco, I had to leave the FatChance fold.

During the next few years, I studied with a number of Cabaret teachers, including Magana Baptiste, Azar, Mashuqa Maya Murjan, and others. I love exploring all different types of belly dance, but ATS is my first love – the improvisational capacity and moves are simply compelling for me. I missed it, and couldn’t stay away.

In 2003, at the request of a few friends and acquaintances, I began teaching mostly ATS style in a small studio. Since then, I’ve realized my passion and capacity for sharing ATS, as well as infusing it with other dance forms, and the occasional yoga asana, too.

Since 2004, I've also broadened my awareness of the Body-Mind through getting back into yoga, getting a accreditation with Yoga Alliance as a Registered Yoga Teacher through Yoga Educational Seminars. I enjoy bringing asana, awareness of the esoteric body, and meditation into dance classes... this can really enhance dancing techniques and performance capabilities. Additionally, I'm on a long-term track to complete a Masters in Somatic Psychology (a fancy way of saying "therapy with a focus on mind-body connections for healing").

It's such a joy for me to dance, and I hope it is for you, too!

As a troupe, House of Inanna loves to perform traditional ATS, as well as work comedy into our routines on occasion, and also enjoy performing with our dear friends and world-music performers Fontain's M.U.S.E. We welcome new students and collaborators, any time. Please contact us to talk!"

""She has an attitude to kill for. Petra looks like she just arrived from Egypt, and that dance is her everyday life routine!" - Alika

Hiya/Chaiya

I first saw belly dancing at a party in Honolulu. I expected to be disgusted, an insult to the feminist that I am. What I saw was beauty, strength, and a sensuality that was completely owned and gifted by the woman who danced. Years later, I moved to California and joined the SCA, the Society for Creative Anachronism, which tries - with varying levels of authenticity - to recreate the Middle Ages. There were belly dancers there, too, and soon I was taking classes from one of the teachers, Siobhan of Cloverdale. I began to understand the differences between Cabaret and Tribal, because I was always drawn so strongly towards Tribal.

I joined the "bellydancer invasion" at Burning Man, and eventually a group of about 30 dancers - many of whom did not know each other - ended up in front of "The Man". It was a dance celebration, not a performance. There was no stage, no particular audience (though we certainly attracted a crowd). Someone began leading, and we all followed - a scattered tribe come together as one. The lead changed; someone else gave a cue and the rest of us followed along. It was magical. I wasn't very experienced in tribal style at this time so I knew some of the moves, but not the cues (in my favorite picture of the group of us, I'm facing the wrong way!), but my heart sang with the joy of it - a collective of dancers, dancing as one. I came home with a rededication to the dance, and to tribal in particular.

I am happy to be the newest member of House of Inanna, having joined in 2005. Since 1998 I have been dancing with great joy in my living room, on the playa, and in the SCA. I can usually be found wearing purple, surfing Tribe.net and posting on Facebook.

I am also known as "The Cookie Lady" for gifting cookies from my head-balanced basket!

Marina

I am the daughter of a Lebanese-American mother who never learned Arabic, was not Eastern Orthodox, but tried to give us Lebanese culture though music and food. There was not enough money to go to Arabic language events, as most of them were fundraisers, and we really needed that kind of money for the basics.

In my senior year of high school, I began to be active in the SCA, and my first costume was not all that dissimilar from tribaret garb. However, the Tudor era caught me and there I went, in persona. I did start to learn a bit of belly dance on my own, and from watching others, and danced thorugh my college years, until some audience reaction scared me. I didn't know how to deflect unwanted attention, because I got so little of it. I actually did think I was too ugly to attract much attention, and my brain was more likely to hook anyone. I weighed under 100 lbs at that time, without being anorexic: I am a short woman with a smallish frame. Finding out that I was deemed pretty and desirable scared me--what you can get away with when you're thought to be ugly is quite different from what you can do safely when you are deemed attractive.

Thirty years and more passes and I am a little over twice my college weight, and I've had a child. A friend of a friend is a tribal style teacher and I began my first lessons, actually performing within 2 years of starting. I'm still trying to strengthen my techniques and ability to choreograph in her dance vocabulary on the fly. Some of my reactions to the music are not exactly tribal, nor the usual tribal fusion. I guess I fit tribaret best, while wearing more tribal style attire. Still have to master the art of turban styling--as in, keeping it on my head, with the extensions underneath.

Rowan

Rowan started dancing in junior high when the mother of one of her friends got together and taught a troupe of girls. However, being a Navy child, she soon had to leave those friends. She didn't dance again until late high school when she took lessons from a Turkish bellydancer in the Washington DC area in the late 1960's. She was in the chorus of the play Carnival with the Arlington Community Theater where she played "The Bellydancer" and was was introduced with the lyric, "From out of the East you'll watch a jewel, who fled a harem in Istambul". Throughout the 1970's she danced in the SCA and with various teachers and groups in Florida. She got especially interested in bellydance as Goddess culture and childbirth conditioning. She especially enjoyed dancing with Julia Morgana of Tallahassee and Jacksonville. Julia later toured with composer and flute play, Kay Gardner.

In 1981 Rowan moved to California and started to dance, but tragedy struck and she suffered a back injury in 1984. Despite disability, she continued to take bellydance lessons to strengthen her muscles when she could. A local teacher named Dunia was instrumental in helping her find moves she could do and supporting her in this effort. Dunia later started the Desert Dance festival. During the 1980s and 1990s Rowan didn't dance out, but continued to dance for her own pleasure and spirituality.

Tribal dance teacher Petra Pino moved to the Peninsula and then South Bay and began giving classes here. Rowan enrolled and was encouraged to begin dancing out again with the troupe House of Innana since its inception in 2002.

Classes

House of Who?