Find out how Suhaila, Jamila and The Salimpour School have shaped the history of belly dance and fused elements of hip hop dance with traditional Middle Eastern Dance. Great Suhaila Salimpour Quotes From This Podcast Interview: "And that's how we have all these hard contractions in belly dance now, pop and lock...People just think that always been a part of belly dance, like Cleopatra brought that in...It's because of me and Walter Freeman." "I can create and teach the strongest possible dancer in each person" "I made a choice to focus on my school and my students. There is only so much energy and time...I'm not on stage any more, but I am on stage. Thousands of people have a piece of me in them." "Get Belly Dance into Dance Departments in Academia." "We have to be able to have conversations with other dance forms in their language...We have to be able to talk about the body, about the history, about the anatomy and physiology, about the culture, about the music." "Bal Anat is this whisper inside all of us...of our ancestors." "With Bal Anat, we are not just entertaining. We are a part of you. We come through the audience, we grab your spirit, and you dance with us." The whole transcript of this podcast interview with Suhaila: Alicia: In episode 38, Suhaila dove into the politics of all dance, not just belly dance, and the changes in dance in the Middle East over the past few decades. Cultural appropriation, the trends that continue to fragment the belly dance community, the lack of foundational training ground that all belly dancers agree on, and much more. Well, Suhaila is back. And we have another great interview coming your way. Just in case this is your first time listening to A Little Lighter, I will introduce you to the belly dance legend that is Suhaila Salimpour. Suhaila Salimpour on Bal Anat, Jamila, and their Legacy - 038 Find out why Suhaila walked off the nightclub stage at 28, how we can show respect for the cultural origins of belly dance, and how her mother Jamila Salimpour danced her cooking.  The Salimpour School, format, and name have influenced so much of our belly dance in the U.S, as well as worldwide. The mother of tribal belly dance Jamila Salimpour was also the mother of our guest Suhaila. Born in the '60s, Suhaila, grew up with her mother's format, and the groundbreaking troupe Bal Anat. Suhaila has studied an array of Western and Eastern dance forms. She spent 10 years performing to live music in fancy night clubs in the Middle East, and Los Angeles. In the '90s, she began the Suhaila Dance Company, started directing the troupe her mother started Bal Anat, and created the very widely respected Suhaila Salimpour Belly Dance Certification Program. Both Suhaila and Jamila have done an unbelievable amount of work to raise belly dance up as an art form. This lineage of dancers and teachers, Suhaila and her mother Jamila, has given us so much, including pop and lock, and glute isolations that we all know and love in belly dance today. This is another chance for us to hear Suhaila's story. How Suhaila Developed the Salimpour Format Suhaila: Well, my format found me. So, I am my mother's daughter. I'm such a good soldier, and I took it for granted. My mother was the first person to put names to steps in a comprehensible pathway of learning and developing in this dance form. And so, growing up in all of that, I thought everybody trained this way in belly dance. But at the same time, simultaneously, I was also being trained in other dance forms. So, I was born with really bad scoliosis. I was severely pigeon toed, and would trip over my feet. And I had those Forrest Gump braces on my legs,