The Moonlight Dance Studio
Bellydance classes
The Moonlight Dance Studio and the Mesothelioma Community Resource Network Join in supporting the use of dance therapy as a complementary therapy in overall mesothelioma treatment.
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Dance shoes About us-contact us Dance-fitness classes FUN dance stuff Photos-videos
Site design by: Inet Success Systems - www.InetSuccessSystems.com
"we specialize in making you look good...FAST"
Bellydance; A Dance AND Fitness Class
Learn the art of the sensuous dance form known as Bellydance! It fosters strength, confidence, personal expression, and celebrates the power and beauty of the feminine form.
Move Beautiful...
Look Beautiful...
Feel Beautiful!
About the classes:
There are different subsets and styles of Bellydance. They all differ in the music, costumes, and dance attitude. Follow this link to learn about the differences and see video links of dance performances: insert the link here. This is a class in the American Bellydance Style, which is a great place to begin because it draws upon many different styles and isn’t limited in scope or expression.
We use Live Music in our classes!
Bellydance has been described as “a visual manifestation of the music”, and dancing to live
music is always the ideal. A dance is like a
conversation between you and the drummer,
where the rhythms change and respond to your movements, and your movements change to respond to the music. It is exciting to feel the music follow you and support you. Most dancers don’t have access to live music, so we are very privileged to be joined by our percussionist White Deer and our music ensemble. There are regular performance opportunities for interested students.
For Fitness: The dance is low-impact, and strengthens the shoulders, thighs, core abdominals, hips and lower back. Many beginners say “I never knew I had muscles there--- but I feel them now!” Expect to use muscles that you usually don’t every day. We will begin gently and work into more as you strengthen. There is also an aerobic component that will last about 15 minutes.
Class format begins with meet and greet, stretches and warm-up, a “shimmy drill”, and a mini rhythm lesson to understand the “rhythm of the week”. We will then learn a small handful of new moves with plenty of repetition, and dance till we sweat! We will take a short break, and then put the moves we learned together into a fun combination, dancing until the end of class.
What to Wear: This isn't your typical fitness class at a gym! We dance barefoot (unless you have a medical need for supportive shoes of course). Wear a long, full skirt or comfy stretch pants or both. If you have a pretty shawl or scarf, tie it around your hips. I will bring a few to share. Wear a top that is form fit, comfortable and covers your tummy- no half tops and no baggy Tshirts please. I like to wear bracelets and jewelry, sparklies and jinglies, so feel free to dress up and be playful!
The Class Schedule is ongoing, which means you can join anytime instead of waiting until the beginning of a session. In any given class there will be newcomers, and it is a great opportunity to share what you've learned with each other, and to practice the moves you haven't done in a while. Class times run 2:00pm - 3:30pm on Sundays.
Class Fees: Classes are $10/week or $30/month. Some prefer to pay as they go, and others prefer to get the discount and pay by month. Paying monthly serves as motivation to attend every week, because you already paid for it! If you miss a week, I will not forward your balance to the next month.
**The class fee is waived for public employees of La Crosse county, including the Health Department and Human Services Department in conjunction with their employee fitness program.
Learn the art of the sensuous dance form known as Bellydance! It fosters strength, confidence, personal expression, and celebrates the power and beauty of the feminine form.
Move Beautiful...
Look Beautiful...
Feel Beautiful!
About the classes:
There are different subsets and styles of Bellydance. They all differ in the music, costumes, and dance attitude. Follow this link to learn about the differences and see video links of dance performances: insert the link here. This is a class in the American Bellydance Style, which is a great place to begin because it draws upon many different styles and isn’t limited in scope or expression.
We use Live Music in our classes!
Bellydance has been described as “a visual manifestation of the music”, and dancing to live
music is always the ideal. A dance is like a
conversation between you and the drummer,
where the rhythms change and respond to your movements, and your movements change to respond to the music. It is exciting to feel the music follow you and support you. Most dancers don’t have access to live music, so we are very privileged to be joined by our percussionist White Deer and our music ensemble. There are regular performance opportunities for interested students.
For Fitness: The dance is low-impact, and strengthens the shoulders, thighs, core abdominals, hips and lower back. Many beginners say “I never knew I had muscles there--- but I feel them now!” Expect to use muscles that you usually don’t every day. We will begin gently and work into more as you strengthen. There is also an aerobic component that will last about 15 minutes.
Class format begins with meet and greet, stretches and warm-up, a “shimmy drill”, and a mini rhythm lesson to understand the “rhythm of the week”. We will then learn a small handful of new moves with plenty of repetition, and dance till we sweat! We will take a short break, and then put the moves we learned together into a fun combination, dancing until the end of class.
What to Wear: This isn't your typical fitness class at a gym! We dance barefoot (unless you have a medical need for supportive shoes of course). Wear a long, full skirt or comfy stretch pants or both. If you have a pretty shawl or scarf, tie it around your hips. I will bring a few to share. Wear a top that is form fit, comfortable and covers your tummy- no half tops and no baggy Tshirts please. I like to wear bracelets and jewelry, sparklies and jinglies, so feel free to dress up and be playful!
The Class Schedule is ongoing, which means you can join anytime instead of waiting until the beginning of a session. In any given class there will be newcomers, and it is a great opportunity to share what you've learned with each other, and to practice the moves you haven't done in a while. Class times run 2:00pm - 3:30pm on Sundays.
Class Fees: Classes are $10/week or $30/month. Some prefer to pay as they go, and others prefer to get the discount and pay by month. Paying monthly serves as motivation to attend every week, because you already paid for it! If you miss a week, I will not forward your balance to the next month.
**The class fee is waived for public employees of La Crosse county, including the Health Department and Human Services Department in conjunction with their employee fitness program.
The History of Bellydance (great video examples)
Bellydancing is a young art form, originating from America in the 1930's. Women were gaining rights and confidence, skirts were getting shorter, and taboos were being broken. Stemming from fantasies of an exotic and romantic Middle East, bellydance was born at the World's Fair in Chicago. Jaws dropped and audiences were captivated. The dance became very popular and began to spread to several Hollywood films, depicting a far-off land of voluptuous harem women and Sultans in turbans. Tourism to Egypt increased as a result, and soon Bellydancing was exported to Cairo out of the expectations of wealthy American tourists. Every hotel employed a Bellydancer, and soon spread across the Middle East following their own cultural revolution in the 1960's. Since then, some of the best dancers and innovators are Lebanese, Turkish, Greek, and Egyptian, and Bellydancing is flourishing on every continent across the globe.
Different Dance Styles
Today there are several subsets of Bellydance varying in attitude, music, innovation and costumes. The style that is very close to the “original” Bellydance is called many names, including Raqs Sharqi, Cabaret Style, Restaurant Style or Egyptian Style. Costumes are fairly revealing, tight and covered in sequins. Movements are “proper” with conservative gestures and the movements are more formalized. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1-6oZ_9w3c
Another style is described as Folkloric, adding indigenous folk dances from Middle Eastern countries and wearing very modest costumes. Their music is very traditional and will often use canes (a stylized shepard's crook) or other props. Dance is loose and “folksy”, inspired by daily activities of agricultural village life.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGqvYQE7uiQ&feature=related
Another subset of Bellydance is called “Tribal”. This style is very diverse and has many variations. It entails rich eclectic costumes, heavy make-up and jewelry, elaborate headdresses, tattoos, piercings, and very innovative moves. Music varies from intense traditional music to modern pop, hip hop, techno and even urban industrial. Traditional and modern music can be blended in the Tribal Fusion style. Dance attitude is serious, dramatic and aloof. Often performed as solos, duets or trios. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uv31hKngR00
American Tribal Style or ATS (copyrighted style) is a form invented in California by a single troupe “Fat Chance Bellydance”. In this style, dancers always perform in groups, and work within a very limited dance move vocabulary that every dancer in the group knows. There is one leader which gives understood cues that lead the group to dancing in unison, even when they have never danced together before. Costumes use layers and layers of colorful fabrics, chunky jewelry and camel tassels and silk flowers.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zfB-8qHEX4&feature=related
The last Bellydance category is American Bellydance. It borrows elements from all the styles described above. Costumes vary widely, however it can be said that it is not as tight and glitzy at the Egyptian style, and not as serious, hard-edged and urban as the tribal styles. American Bellydance is joyous and loose, as well as formal and disciplined. Veils, finger cymbals and balancing swords are common, and music spans the range from traditional to modern. Anything can go here, and innovation is welcome. Dancers are encouraged to custom-fit the moves to find their own expression. Dances can be solo or in a group. It is a great style to begin to learn bellydance because it is the most inclusive of all the styles. Above all, American Style is about celebrating life, loving your body and loving to dance! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIhSm1YcXts
Instruction in Swing, Latin and Ballroom styles
About the teacher,
Violette Rose:
Violette is originally from Ann Arbor Michigan. She began as a musician on the string bass at the age of 12 years old, and traveled internationally with large symphony orchestras every summer throughout high school and college. In 1995 at the age of 23, she “took a summer off” and attended a music festival in Wisconsin.
She fell in love with a handsome percussionist
named Whitedeer and joined their traveling
folk/rock ensemble on a summer concert tour.
Violette then moved to Madison WI with Whitedeer,where he managed a musical
instrument store and Violette became a
Certified Nursing Assistant. After 2 years
they moved to the rural villiage of Gays Mills, bought a home, and got married at the festival where they met just 5 years before.
Together they started a retail music store in Viroqua, WI.
Every summer they toured from music festival to music festival as performers, and Violette attended workshops in Bellydance and Indian Dance.
They had their first baby, and when she was 9 months old in 2003, Violette began taking Bellydance classes at a local dance studio under Lori Peters. It began as a way to burn off some “baby fat” and get out of the house with girlfriends, but soon became the subject of serious study. She continued in weekly classes for years, through the birth of their second child, until 2005. Lori passed the class off to Violette, and Violette began as a Bellydance teacher. She then took ownership of a dance studio, and became an event promoter in Viroqua. With the students she taught and with area musicians, Violette and Whitedeer formed a live music and dance ensemble, which performed at medieval fairs, International fairs, local events and dance parties, fund raisers and folk festivals from 2005-2007. A unique opportunity arose to go back to University to finish her degree in Nursing, so Violette and Whitedeer sold their home, music store and dance studio and bought a home in La Crosse, WI. Violette attended Viterbo University in 2007, and worked in group homes for developmentally disabled adults, and adults living with chronic mental illness. She taught Bellydance during 2007-9, but had to prioritize school for the last 2 years.
In 2010, Violette and the whole family traveled to Bangalore, India for a 7 week study abroad program. She studied sociology, poverty, and gender issues. It was amazing experience, and it has influenced Violette's interests in Indian Dance and music. Violette graduated as a Registered Nurse in May of 2011, traveled to festivals as teachers and performers all summer, and came home to work at the La Crosse County Aging and Disabilities Resource Center. She enrolled in an Indian Bollywood Dance Class, and became inspired to begin teaching Bellydance once again. From Bellydance students and area musicians, Violette and Whitedeer are forming another music and dance ensemble, and hope to perform locally in the coming months.
