Meet a group of women who are learning an old Middle Eastern tradition - the art of belly dancing.


MERINDAH RIVERS: My motivation was just to be able to.. to move... it was the movement that I wanted to start... I never expected it to blossom into more... you know.. making me feel so good about myself and gaining confidence in myself while I'm dancing as well.

KIRSTEN RAYNER: Well I'm just a Mum with a one year old, and I work in the Public service and have a fantastic belly dancing group... and I started belly dancing about 9 years ago. It was a time in my life I suppose when I'd grown away from my friends at school and, had started work and was in that space where you needed to find a new direction and I worked with two women that used to teach belly dancing and they suggested that I come along and try a class. I went to one and I was absolutely hooked, after one class.

MERINDAH RIVERS: Generally belly dancing/ Middle Eastern dance for women is about celebrating the woman, and her movements and what makes her feminine and because of that it's passed down from grandmothers to mothers, to children and it's about celebrating your femininity and getting to know... what it's all about, the sisterhood, really.

KIRSTEN RAYNER: But it's lovely, because you can play dress ups and you don't get to do that very often as an adult. You go into a different kind of space that you, put on a hairpiece, you wear makeup that you'd never normally wear, you put on costumes you know...I can always remember somebody telling me when you think you've got too much on your costume put one more thing on and you might be there.
So it's that exciting part, just getting ready and going out as a completely different person.

MERINDAH RIVERS: When I'm physically performing... when I'm dancing in my lounge room it's just a chance for me to relax...it's a real relaxing sensation... actually dancing... moving to the music and interpreting the music in my own way. When I'm out performing to public I just love it... it's almost a euphoria... it's like a happy drug.. it's great 'cause I find I've got so much more confidence.

KIRSTEN RAYNER: I find the interesting reactions are from Middle Eastern women, because in their culture they're not up on the stage dancing, it's something that they do for each other and they'll come up and tell us how much they appreciated it and they really enjoyed it. It's nice to be able to do that even though we're not part of their culture, that we can still enjoy aspects of it.