Neena Nour was diagnosed with mild cerebral palsy when she was 6. Doctors said she would be unable to dance, roller skate or balance.

Her determination proved them wrong.

Nour, 20, whose real name is Christina Pope, dances in the classical Middle Eastern belly dance tradition, known as raks sharki, and has been practicing her profession for four years.
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On Friday, the Mesa resident and several other dancers will perform at Mesa Women’s Club in a benefit for United Cerebral Palsy of Central Arizona.

“My mission in life is to inspire others,” said Nour, who had to overcome her difficulties and develop alternate paths through various therapies.

The work of groups like Asheville’s Baraka Mundi belly dance troupe is helping to bring the ancient dance form into the mainstream.

mostly about suhaila’s workshop…

Belly dancing is also fairly inexpensive. Tillinghast recommends you get a pair of harem pants and finger cymbals. But baring your belly is up to you.

i know some dancers that might disagree with that part…

From teenage schoolgirls to businesswomen and housewives, belly-dancing students say learning how to undulate their bodies and sway their hips is more fun than the traditional exercises available in the gym.

Today, dancing during pregnancy and after childbirth, once a privilege of only the grandest stars, is unexceptional. But for dancers who become pregnant, the body is an instrument of art as well as of motherhood, and those roles can sometimes clash.

“When I first started, I only gained aches and pains. But it exposed my own weaknesses, I realised how unfit I was,” says the glamorous Al Arishee, who attends the class with her 27-year-old daughter.

“Once I got started, it was really fun,” said Sandy Wiseman, 62, a Palm Beach Gardens resident who began taking the class last month. “It’s cardiovascular. You’re just profusely sweating. You get so much benefit, but you have fun at the same time.”

CAMPUS LIFE : Belly dancing equaled a good workout.

Her class of about 12 students ages 7 to 62 starts with a warm-up of basic dance moves, followed by stretching. The class then works on a new technique for the week and culminates in an open dance where everyone “kind of freestyles it,”Yancy said.