Miami Bellydance Convention

An award-winning professional bellydancer, Sandra has been performing in restaurants and night clubs in the San Francisco bay area for over a decade. She is a popular dancer at Arabic, Turkish, and Persian venues and is currently the house dancer at 3 popular night clubs on the San Francisco Peninsula. Middle Eastern audiences enjoy her natural understanding of Arabic music, her playful personality, and her authentic and relaxed 'raks-sharki' dance style.

Sandra began her study of Bellydance with Nanna Candelaria while a student at UC Berkeley and continued studying and performing with Nanna through her graduate work at Stanford. Sandra's understanding of Arabic belly dance is enriched by studying ethnic dance forms from many cultures, including Flamenco and Classical Indian dance. Sandra spent 4 months in Mexico studying Flamenco in 1998, and has spent 6 years pursuing the study of classical Indian Baratha Natyam, most recently with Shreelata Suresh's Vishwa Shanti school of Indian dance. Sandra studied classical Persian dance with Lorna Zilba and performed with her LifeDance Theater company and is currently studying Classical Persian and Central Asian dance with Ballet Afsaneh. To keep things groovy, Sandra keeps up her jazz/funk/hip-hop skills with Lisa Navarro along with traditional ballet technique with Eric Bourman at Western Ballet Academy.

As well as performing in weddings and larger events, Sandra, along with her dance partner and friend, Michelle, have also been invited to perform internationally. In the fall of 2004, the two dancers toured Northern India together, performing for audiences from New Delhi to Calcutta in hotels and amphitheaters. They returned to India in 2005 for New Years Eve to perform for a crowd of 8,000 in Bangalore. In 2006, Sandra spent the summer with Michelle and popular Seattle bellydancer, Nadira, in Turkey, performing in Istanbul nightclubs and also performing and teaching classes on the Turkish Riviera at Club Med.

Sandra is well known in the international Middle Eastern Dance community, appearing on the covers of 9 bellydance Cds. She is a popular model for Arabic-themed print advertisements, and is featured in the upcoming series of Bellydance performance DVDs produced by Peko Records/Hollywood Music Center. Sandra has been profiled in Slovakian and Russian magazines and newspapers, along with numerous appearances in local media, TV commercials, and advertisements.

Drops, Twists and Turns: Unexpected Combinations to Captivate your Audience

Keep your audience glued on your performance! Add some unexpected elements to the usual Middle Eastern Repetoire. Each combination contains an unanticipated turn, a sultry level change or quick drop, and an added twist.