Spring Workshop in Kelowna 2025

Spring Workshop in Kelowna 2025

Workshop descriptions:

Saturday

Rahma – ‘Your LightYour Dance!’       Using the image of energy as light, we will explore ways that this can be used from the inside outward using exercises and techniques Rahma has developed for teaching her classes. Ending with a fun note, Drum solo choreography using body percussion!
Lynette – Ghawazee Sparkle and Turkish Curves  Explore the soul and vitality of Egyptian Ghawazee and Turkish dance. Two distinctive traditions of music and movement provide ideas and inspirations for your own improvisation and choreography.      .

Sunday

Lynette – Turkish Technique and Choreography   

Celebrate the passionate and dynamic music, movements, and spontaneity of Turkish Roman and Oryantal dance. Distinctive steps, gestures, and sinuous movements provide a base for ornamentation, layering, and dramatic expression in an Oryantal choreography.

Rahma – “Taxim (Taqsim) Balady AKA Balady Progression”       Building on what Rahma did 2 years ago, we will listen to and dance to different tracks to solidify the progression then explore some slightly out-of-the-box ways of dancing to it. We will apply some of the ideas from the Saturday workshop. This musical form works well for sword dance, so if that’s your thing, bring one along.


Notes on Lynette’s dance interests:

Lynette has studied Ghawazee dance since the 1980s with luminaries Aisha Ali, Jalilah, Khyriyya, and others, and through archival research. Her troupe Ghawazee choreographies have been staged in Vancouver theatres, Toronto (International Belly Dance Conference of Canada), Seattle (Mediterranean Fantasy Festival), Courtenay, Nanaimo, and many other BC venues. 
Lynette became entranced by Turkish Roman dance in the 1990s, and has developed a distinctive personal style for teaching and performing both Turkish Oryantal and Roman dance based on studies with Reyhan Tuzsuz, Gigi Dilsah, Artemis Mourat, Ferda Bayazit, Sema Yildiz, Ozgen, and others. 
In recent decades Lynette has led weekend dance intensives and 5 day retreats in spectacular locations eg. Dance Vallarta (Puerto Vallarta), DanceAway Mexico (La Manzanilla), Hollyhock Retreat Centre (Cortes Island), Oasis de la Dance – Studio Denise Enan (Quebec), Denman Island Dance Retreats, Smithers Dance Camp, and other BC locations (eg.Victoria, Tofino, Thetis Island, Quadra Island, Gabriola Island, Cumberland). She regularly presents classes and workshops on and around Vancouver Island.

2025 Dance Classes & Island Teacher List

2025 Dance Classes & Island Teacher List

Nanaimo  Lynette  www.lynetteharper.ca      dancetarab@gmail.com  250-797-7953    Multilevel/Intermediate & Advanced weekly class  6 Mondays March 3 – April 7   7:30-9 pm.   Vibrant Dance Studio Drop-ins welcome. **************************************************** Sunday  March afternoon workshops with Lynette   March 9    Turkish Style, Turkish Soul   March 23  Traditions and Fusions – Finding dance joy and… Read more…

ReOrient present Ghawazee dance at the Duncan Showroom, 2019

The dance in these videos is an interpretation of an historical style of dance and costume common in Egypt in the late 1800’s and into the 20th Century. Our choreography is based on historic photos and travellers’ writings about the Ghawazee, and our studies with Aisha Ali, Banat Mazin troupe members, and others.  The Ghawazee… Read more…

1001 Likes – July 2014

Lynette Harper rediscovers a DVD treasure. Reprinted with permission from the Middle Eastern Dance Association newsletter, Sahda, July 2014. Read more…

Belly Dance Fact & Fiction: References

Belly Dance Fact & Fiction: References

OPA Showcase Lecture/seminar, Victoria BC – presented by Lynette Harper Ph.D. November 2013 References – Books (*specific articles cited) Belly dance around the world: New communities, performance and identity. 2013. Caitlin E. McDonald & Barbara Sellers-Young, editors. Jefferson NC: McFarland & Company. * What is Baladi about al-Raqs al-Baladi? On the survival of belly dance in… Read more…

More books for dancers

More books for dancers

Four essentials for a dancer’s bookshelf, published in the last two years:  Belly dance around the world: New communities, performance and identity – The belly dance reader – Global moves – and You asked Aunt Rocky: Answers & advice about Raqs Sharqi & Raqs Shaabi.  Each book offers powerful ideas, analysis, and inspirations – and they’re… Read more…

Bekaa Valley Girls

Bekaa Valley Girls

Several excerpts from Bekaa Valley Girls, Lynette’s full-length collaborative creation with Rahma Haddad, presented in the Noon Dance Seriesat Vancouver’s Dance Centre, November 2009.   Duet with Rahma Haddad (part 1) This segment recalls when Lebanese cousins Lynette and Rahma first met.  Though raised in different parts of Canada, they shared a family history of… Read more…

Nanaimo dancers & teachers

Lynette  250-753-1659  laahper@gmail.com Genya  250-739-0589  genyasdancing@gmail.com Ramona  250-616-3824  Ramona@bellydancer.ca Giselle Jacob – Drum & percussion classes available  – see her Facebook page   Crimson Coast Dance Society  Artistic Director Holly Bright, Nanaimo, BC – Develops and supports contemporary dance creations, productions, performances and educational opportunities at both grass roots and professional levels in Central Vancouver Island. Read more…

Arab music understanding

Arab music understanding

Egyptian music appreciation and practice for bellydancers by George Dimitri Sawa A must-have for dancers, teachers, and students who wish to develop their understanding of Egyptian music!   The quality of the package is awesome – exceeding my already high expectations of  creator George Sawa, an Egyptian born historian, musicologist, qanun virtuoso, a true master… Read more…

Arab dance workshops

Arab dance workshops

TARAB – Arab music and spirit of the dance Explore the soul and vitality of Arab music as inspiration for dance improvisation and choreography. Teaching level: Multilevel; works well for mixed levels beginner through advanced. Read review. Length: 2 or 3 hours From Countryside to Cabaret: Egyptian Saidi and Raqs Sharqi styles Build your technique, movement vocabulary,… Read more…

Dance is in their blood

Dance is in their blood

  Gilded Serpent June 2007          by Kevin Potvin A reluctant visitor to a multicultural arts show comes away with a new appreciation for how art entwines with ordinary life for ordinary people. . . . (click here to read article) Excerpt: That doesn’t mean I don’t understand dance at all –… Read more…

Lynette Harper Workshop Review

Lynette Harper Workshop Review

  OPA! News, Victoria Spring 2008 by BOBBIE BARRY Lynette is the quintessential teacher. After 30 years of teaching and performing this art form, she knows her stuff! My first meeting and experience of Lynette Harper as a teacher was back in July 2003.  At that point I had been studying Middle Eastern belly dance… Read more…

Arab Women Arab Dance

Arab Women Arab Dance

Arab Women Arab Dance Opening of Arab Women Arab Dance, presenting life histories with dance. Featuring Lynette, Rahma Haddad, Salma Ferchichi, Rabab Ward, and Emily Basha. Produced by Vancouver’s Dance Centre. Excerpt from a Vancouver Dance Centre production, interweaving life history narratives with demonstrations by five Arab women. Read more…

Books for dancers

Books for dancers

READ THIS BOOK!!!! Belly dance: Orientalism Transnationalism and Harem Fantasy edited by Anthony Shay and Barbara Sellers-Young   For over a century, solo improvised dance, especially belly dance, has had enormous popularity, and by the 1970s and 1980s in the wake of the feminist movement, over a million women in the United States, and many… Read more…

Unveiled: Performing identities in the Arab diaspora

Unveiled: Performing identities in the Arab diaspora

On Canada’s west coast, a large and active bellydance community has grown and thrived distinct from Middle Eastern ethnic communities.  Orientalist fantasies and Egyptian stylings regularly appear onstage alongside western tribal and other ethnic bellydance fusions.  These performances do not challenge popular media stereotypes about the Middle East; they comfortably coexist with ideologies linking veiled… Read more…

Arab Women, Arab Dance

When most people think of Arab music and dance they usually think of bellydancing, the North American dance craze based on an ancient tradition. These two presentations at Vancouver’s Dance Centre (2004 & 2005) provided a personal and cultural context for understanding the dynamic and evolving art of Arab dance.  Five diversely accomplished Arab women,… Read more…

Exploring Tarab with Lynette

Exploring Tarab with Lynette

  Spring 2007  OPA! News, Victoria      by Sidona On February 18th members of Women of Widad piled into a van to take the trip up to Nanaimo to attend a workshop with Lynette Harper.   We were excited and all felt that we needed a burst of dance energy after the long winter and… Read more…