In this page you will find the guest instructors for the 2010 Miami Bellydance Convention.To read their biographies, click on the instructor’s image.

Valerick Molinary (Puerto Rico)

Valerick Molinary started ballet, jazz and acrobatics when she was nine years old. When she was thirteen, she took her first belly dance class with Sandra Barreras in a summer dance camp. From that moment on, she has been fully dedicated to the study of oriental dance. At fifteen, she began taking seminars with distinguished American and international teachers such as Tamalyn Dallal, Virginia, Amir Thaleb, Angelique Nemeth, Ava Fleming, Kesia and Bozenka. At eighteen she took her first workshop with Yousry Sharif in Puerto Rico, which changed her oriental dance perspective. She has been mostly focused on Egyptian style and travels annually to New York to participate at Nourhan and Yousry Sharif events.

In 2007 she spent six months studying in Madrid, where she studied with Samara el Hayat. While in Europe, she traveled to Paris to participate in workshops with Yousry Sharif. After her stay in Madrid, she traveled to Morocco and Tunisia to be part of the “Encounter of Moorish Studies” with the University of Puerto Rico. From Tunisia she traveled to Cairo and participated at the acclaimed Ahlan wa Sahlan, where she studied with Mona el Said, Momo Kadous, Zaza Hassan and  Randa Kamel. She also had the opportunity to study with outstanding Egyptian teachers such as Mahmoud Reda, Tito, Lubna, Hassan Affifi and Nervein.

While making her BA, she studied modern dance with the acclaimed choreographer Petra Bravo; she was also active in multidisciplinary events with “Letra y Pixel” and Araba Productions.  At present, she studies with Mohamed Shahin and collaborates with the Sharquiyat Dance Festival in PR. She completed her BA in 2009, with a major on Hispanic Studies and Comparative Literature. In September of 2009, she won the Competition of the Miami Belly Dance Convention. Presently, she is a dancer at the well-know restaurant Makarios, in Old San Juan, and an oriental dance teacher.

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Jaya Vaswani (India)

Over the past ten years, I have performed at various venues across the globe including London, England, Los Angeles, CA and Miami, FL. I trained in Classical Indian dance (Bharat Natyam and Kathak basics) and studied at Richmond the American International University in London England. After graduating with a Bachelor’s Degree in Media Communications and Psychology, I moved to Los Angeles, CA to pursue my Bollywood dreams. In Los Angeles, I worked with three different companies; blue13dance, Taal Dance and Raqs Entertainment. At this time, I was featured in commercials and music videos. In addition, I was onstage in ‘A Journey to India’ for two years at the Levitt Pavilion in Pasadena, CA; ‘Karishma’ at the Ford Ampitheatre near the Hollywood Bowl.

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Tamra-Henna (CA)

Tamra-henna is an internationally acclaimed performer, choreographer and master instructor of Middle Eastern dance. Her style is solidly rooted in the rich culture of the Middle East where she lived, performed, and studied dance for 7 years. Tamra-henna has performed in many of the most prestigious nightclubs in Egypt, including those located in many of Cairo’s preeminent 5-star hotels. During her time in the Middle East she accepted contracts throughout the Arab world and has performed, traveled, and lived in Lebanon, Morocco, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Bahrain, Yemen, and Cyprus. More recently, she toured internationally as a featured soloist and workshop instructor with the world famous Bellydance Superstars. In addition to her performance credentials, Tamra-henna has expanded her knowledge and artistry in the academic realm.  She holds a Master of Fine Arts degree in Dance Choreography (within the genre of raqs sharqi) at the University of California, Los Angeles and has taught accredited classes in Middle Eastern dance technique and culture at UCLA, California State University, Pomona and, currently, in the dance department at Glendale College. For more information about Tamra-henna as well as the dances and culture of the Middle East.

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Ansuya (FL)

Ansuya is considered one of the most talented and accomplished performers, choreographers, instructors, and entrepreneurs in the Bellydance world today. With thousands of students across the globe, numerous television appearances, an IAMED Best Cabaret Dancer of the year award and three Golden Belly Awards, Ansuya is a superstar in her field.

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Sherri (LA)

Sherri has been a passionate disciple of tribal bellydance since 2000.  She has had the honor of working with many innovative and influential dance companies including Urban Tribal Dance Company, Atash Maya, Desert Sin and Elysium Dance Theatre. Sherri is distinguishable in her unique serpentine stylization, an interpretation that stylistically involves extreme muscle control and articulation. She is also an extremely versatile dancer and can morph from one extreme physical state to the next in an instant.

Having relocated to Los Angeles in 2005, she continues to study dance in various incarnations and teaches tribal fusion workshops both locally and abroad. Sherri performs internationally and has been featured in several internationally distributed DVDs. When she is not working on the latest Cherchez La Femme (her own company) or collaborative project, Sherri can be found performing as a “buxotica” with Lucha Va Voom or as “Slither” with The Living Garden.

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Aubre (CA)

Aubre has been studying dance since she was a child growing up in Seattle. Her dance background includes classical ballet, jazz, hiphop, tap, and her main passion, Middle Eastern bellydance. Studying with such esteemed talents as Suhaila Salimpour, Samara, Jamila Salimpour, Tamra-henna, Zahra Zuhair, Sahra Saeeda, Sahira, and many others, Aubre has developed her own beautiful and elegant style. She has shared stages with Cirque du Soleil and the Blue Man Group. She joined the Bellydance Superstars in 2004 and served as Assistant Director while touring extensively through Europe and North America and can be seen on the “Bellydance Superstars: Live at the Folies Bergere” dvd. She can also be seen on FitTV’s “All Star Workouts” teaching bellydance fitness and has two instructional dvd’s available “Bellydance Core Fitness” and “Tribal Essence”. Aubre has appeared on numerous film and tv projects and won the Grand Championship on the International Bellydance Convention in 2007. She is the creator and Artistic Director of the Lumina Bellydance Company. Armed with exquisite technique and a pure soul, her dancing mesmerizes audiences everywhere.

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Ela Rogers (MA)

A devoted participant of theater, dance, and the performing arts for all her life, Tribal Bellydance soloist, Ela Rogers has become known for her unique, dramatic musical interpretations, experimental fusion, her graceful and powerful technique, and her talents in fine arts and costume design. In 2004, Ela began her journey into the art of Middle Eastern Bellydance, under the direction of Elena El Amar of Massachusetts, and was a member of the Egyptian performance group, Zariifa Bellydance Troupe.  A year later, Ela was introduced, and fell in love with Tribal Style Bellydance, becoming spellbound by its earthy, serpentine nature.  Not having the resources of any Tribal Bellydance instructors in her area, Ela became determined to learn, and she developed a daily home practice with the accompaniment of the Fat Chance Belly Dance instructional videos, along with a dedicated Yoga and Pilates routine, to aid her in her self-training.  With patience, observation, and persistence, she has grown into a seasoned performer, and an inspiring teacher, always poking fun at herself as being a life-long student.  The quote from Claude Monet says it best…”It’s on the strength of observation and reflection that one finds a way. So we must dig and delve unceasingly.”  

Ela continuously uses elements in her dance from her strong backgrounds in the Martial Arts, classical ballet, jazz, and contemporary dance, as well as the “dark horse styles” of Hip Hop and street dance to create unique movements and eclectic interpretations, fused with a dance that is ancient and treasured.  She looks forward to the future of the beautiful metamorphosis of Bellydance, and being endlessly inspired by those who become enriched from its journey.  She currently performs and teaches on the East Coast.

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Estelle Shao (China)

Estelle Shao is a founding director of the Isis oriental dance school of Shanghai, which is the first oriental dance school in Shanghai and one of the foremost in China.

  Estelle was the first person to host such internationally renowned belly dancers from the the world to mainland China as Tamalyn Dallal, Morocco, Kaeshi Chai and Amar Gamal,Leila Haddad,Jillina,and the Belly Dance Superstars in Shanghai. as a consequence of these visits belly dance has become a significant trend in Shanghai.

  Influenced by her mother’s passion for dance, Estelle Shao has made dance a lifestyle and a way of expressing a woman’s beauty. After practicing ballet for 7 years, Estelle fell in love with belly dance in the summer of 2005 when she began classes led by a half-Arabian, half Italian belly dancer.  Estelle visited Egypt in both 2006 and 2007, where she took workshop from a lot of teachers at Raqia Hassan’s festival. In 2008,she went to Seattle and took Tamalyn’s week long workshop with Helene Eriksen as guest teacher.

Currently, she is collaborating with a few masters in Traditional Chinese Art Form and also those in the Mastery of Qi, researching into the relation between “Orientalism” in the Middle East and the traditional Chinese “Oriental” culture, how it is being expressed both in dance and in music. Through the fusion of both, exploring into the possibility in creating a new form of performance art style and trend.

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Mohamed El Hosseny (Egypt)

Renowned Middle Eastern master dance instructor Nourhan Sharif sponsored El Hosseny’s U.S. tour. He was a featured instructor in Sharif’s 12th annual Intensive Egyptian Workshop in New York City July 24 through 26. El Hosseny also traveled to Kalamazoo, MI, Miami, FL and Washington, DC to teach and perform Egyptian folkloric styles, including his trademark Simsimiyya, the signature dance form of his hometown, Suez, where he was born in 1973 and began his dance career at age 13.

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