Movement

Anani I’naru is an award-winning Spanish Fusion Dancer who pays homage to her Puerto Rican heritage. She has taught belly dance, dancing with fans, skirt dancing, choreography, and castanets. After a temporary hiatus, she returned as one who dances differently; performing and teaching others from a seated position. Her love for dancing and teaching is the driving force that compels her to share her passion with others. She also enjoys learning from her students and looks forward to fun interactions in her classes. It is her wish to help others realize that, yes they can, and to have fun, too.

Class:
Seated Spanish Fan with Anani I’naru (Live workshop on October 11, 2023 at 7 pm Central)

Athena Howe is a Columbus, Ohio-based dancer who has been performing professionally since 2008. She has performed at hundreds, if not thousands of events, both nationally and internationally. Now, she teaches, performs, and hosts events in her home city while staying dedicated to her personal practice and learning. She fell in love with the decadent costuming and the glamor of belly dance, but over the last decade has grown to love the music and the culture. She loves being able to take a break from the stress of everyday life and wiggle- alone or with her troupe mates The Hip Art Collective. She performs with several bands in the central Ohio area and loves the unexpected surprises that come with live music.

As a teacher, she loves teaching all levels of dance and adores being able to help create movements that both challenge you as a dancer and lets you leave with some new content to add up your dance. Her goal isn’t to make you another Athena, but to help you find your inner dancer. As a student, be ready to work hard, laugh at a goofy joke, and be reminded of how great you are. She’s intensely body-positive, age-positive, and works to build an inclusive class for any student who joins.

As a researcher, Athena is always deep into some nuance of belly dance and its history. Her research has been published in the book “The Gilded Serpent” and she is currently researching trap influences in mahagarant (pop music from Menath countries) with a focus on Egyptian music post-revolution. She also is advising on her research on LGBTQIA+ contributions to music, arts, and culture in the region, with a focus on Egypt. She is known for her ability to discuss complicated issues with a human focus.

As a student, Athena is dedicated to the work it takes to be a good visitor in this art form. She loves failure and being wrong. Her recent foray into playing middle eastern music is a testament to that since she is more wrong than right some days!

Described by some to be “bold like hot sauce” or “basically the gay female Elvis,” Athena is a grateful dancer who is dedicated to the work it takes to be a belly dancer.

Class:
Honeyed Hands (Recorded live on May 9, 2022)

Originally from Arizona, Charlie Sharp has performed and taught all over the country. Charlie is also an experienced yoga practitioner and takes a lot of her class inspiration from physical therapy, dance rehab, and circus conditioning. She focuses on accessibility for all people to enjoy and feel represented in art and movement. Now based in North Carolina she is in a new chapter of creative endeavors.

Class:
Bendy for all Bodies: DisabiliBabe Edition (Live on February 19, 2023)

The goddess of Badass.

Mountain landscapes rise like the curve of her hips, her breath is the warm air of summer, her skin as smooth as quartz crystals. She is the serenity of the rainforest, but just as dark, wild, and untamed. A walking art gallery she wears her skin like a canvas and her heart on her sleeve. The Empress can fill you with the world’s beauty, if you just let her in…

Sometimes strange, sometimes sensual, sometimes both, Empress Eyrie blends burlesque with performance art and storytelling to bring her soul to stages all over Australia. Empress adores traveling to perform and share her creations with audiences anywhere she can. She puts the dynamite in dynamic disability; able to do a cartwheel one day and not even put on her socks the next.

Empress is the proud owner and teacher at Tease-Able Burlesque School, the world’s first disability-owned and focused burlesque school she prides herself on making burlesque open and accessible for everybody. She adores being able to perform with her mobility aids and show the world that disabled people can be sexy and deserve to be seen.

An experienced artist, proud disabilibabe and all-round magical creature there is nothing routine about her routines. Make way for the Empress…

Class:
Pretty Hands for Burlesque (Recorded live on November 16, 2022)

Jacqueline has headlined and been featured in burlesque festivals across the world, including Vienna, Adelaide, Montreal, Minneapolis, and New York City. She has performed twice at The Burlesque Hall of Fame Weekender in Las Vegas, becoming the first performer to ever compete in a wheelchair for a title at the Tournament of Tease. Jacqueline has also taught burlesque workshops and lectured on panels about mindful movement and adaptive performance across the country. Her decades of experience include training in ballet, swing dance, bellydance, aerial arts, clowning, musical theater, and more. She is a proud member of the collaborative burlesque instruction group Essential Tease.

Learn more at www.missdisaburlytease.com and www.essentialtease.com

Classes:
Energy Flow: Safe/Centered Stage Presence (Recorded live in July, 2021)

The Mind: Dance for Mobility Restrictions (Recorded live in July, 2021)

The Movement: Floor/Chair for Mobility Restrictions (Recorded live in July, 2021)

The Virtual Reality: A Panel Discussion About Virtual Burlesque Shows (Recorded live in January, 2022)

Based in NYC, Margo Mayhem is an international burlesque performer, this year having won two international titles: Monarch of Imperial Burlesque Festival (Montreal) and Queen of Bohemian Burlesque Festival (Prague). Currently #29 on the Burlesque top 50 list, she was crowned Miss Viva Las Vegas ‘21, Most Comedic at the Oregon Burlesque fest ‘22, and Best Debut at the Burlesque Hall of Fame in ’23. In her other life, she’s an actress boasting of five Broadway shows, five national tours, and countless regional jobs. Let her show you why she’s known as the Sexiest Muppet in Burlesque.

Class:
Face It: Storytelling From the Neck Up with Margo Mayhem (Recorded live on March 11, 2023)

This seasoned Performer thrives “outside of the box”! They are an international award winner, a skilled costumier, and an aggressive disability advocate. Well known for “creating opportunities” in the performance community for artists that don’t necessarily fit into a “typical” space, Mellogamy Muse is the founder of Ardent Artiste Productions, an inclusive production entity birthed in 2022. Mellogamy harnesses the lessons learned from her neurodivergence and living with spina bifida to bring connection and authenticity to her performances. There is much more to come from this standout. Mellogamy Muse is a Producer, Performer, Mentor, Teacher, and backstage lolly-supplying legend.

Class:
Introduction to Burlesque with Mellogamy Muse (Recorded 6-week course started in August, 2023)

This Portland, Oregon-based performer is a queer, disabled femme performance artist and burlesque dancer dedicated to creating pieces that push the norms and challenge the mind. Dubbed “the social worker of burlesque,” Paige has donned glitter like battle armor for over nine years, taking to the stage to use her body and words to bring joy and create change. She also teaches workshops and is a published poet and essayist. Paige believes strongly in the power of performance and the ferocity of femme!

Class:
Expressive Movement: An Introduction. (Recorded live on March 19, 2022)

Skirt Vonnegut is the sketch comedian of burlesque, here to satisfy your wildest nerdy fantasies. A classically trained dancer with over 15 years of sketch comedy, this retired karaoke DJ is the international award-winning entertainer that will tickle your every fancy. They are currently a wandering vagabond, but until recently they were based in Berlin, Germany. They specialize in slapstick, character-centric, and gender-bending burlesque spectaculars.

Special training: 
• 20+ years of professional ballet training, competition tap and jazz
• 15 years running sketch comedy
• 4 levels of comedy for theater at UNCA
• Floorwork master workshop with Sweetpea
• Past and ongoing mentoring by: Scotty the blue Bunny, La Viola Vixen, and Celeste Petrovic

You can follow Skirt on Facebook and Instagram. You can also learn more about them on their website.

Classes:
Faces and Hands for Stage (Recorded live in September, 2021)

Vandellous is known as the Crass Canuck, Canadian Hot Mess, the Dream Poutine, the Bound Beaver, the Moose with the Caboose! A teacher, producer, performer, and emcee with a career spanning Canada, Australia, and the US, Vandellous draws on an eclectic background spanning theatre, dance, kink, clowning, and burlesque to explore themes such as mental health, gender roles, and hypocrisies within a so-called enlightened society. They are passionate about each performer discovering their own distinctive voice and the stories they are burning to tell by combining movement, imagery, music, and more.

Class:
Expanding Movement Vocabulary Using Laban with Vandellous (Recorded live on July 16, 2022)