‘Vibe attracts tribe’ at Seymour belly dancing class

In January, Melissa, after having recently moved to town, brought the shimmies and shakes of her classes to Seymour.

“I didn’t know what was here, I didn’t know the demographic, all I knew was that there was nothing like this and I thought, ‘I’m sure the ladies want to do something different,’” Melissa said.

“I just put it out there to see what would happen, and I ended up getting over 200 people interested.

“I thought whoever would want to come will, and it’s that thing where your vibe attracts your tribe, and all of a sudden, these women are not so lonely in this regional town.”

Alongside the energetic nature of the class is the rich culture that comes with the craft.

Melissa, who has a Maltese-Egyptian and Croatian-Hungarian background, said that while it could be a bit difficult to grasp if you had never experienced it before, the dancing had countless holistic benefits.

“The dance style is confronting because it’s not linear — it’s round, and it can be confronting for a Western culture to move in that way.

“This dance style, it dates back, they found drawings of it in the ancient tombs of Egypt.

“Like any indigenous dance style, it’s very different from the way a Western person moves.”

The women who consistently attend Melissa’s classes have found them to be enriching.

Brooke Tabone, who had never done belly dancing before attending the classes, said it had been wonderful to see Melissa bring this culture alive in town.

“I like the culture, and it was a no-brainer (to start the classes). I was actually surprised to see something so exotic in Seymour,” she said.

“I like Melissa’s energy, I like the ladies in this class, it’s a good workout, and it’s fun, and a bit sexy as well.

“There’s no pressure, it’s really friendly and there’s no judgment either.”

Vee Shimi has been attending the classes since mid-way through the first term, said she had found the classes to be beneficial for her body.

“As a woman gets older, you have children, you survive their adolescence, and dating, and when all of that’s over, and they’ve flown the nest, your body, even if you’ve kept up your health and fitness, you think, ‘my body is not working the way it used to’,” she said.

“This belly dancing helps to show that I can still do this, I can still move in this way.

“I highly recommend it to anyone, any age group, any background, it doesn’t matter. You just put on your skirt and shimmy away.”

The women agreed that it was Melissa’s way of gauging the movements that made the classes so engaging and accessible, such as her instructions to “pretend you’re drunk at the pub dancing to You’re the One That I Want” and “pretend you’re holding shopping bags and closing the car door with your hips”.

Iryna Carmody said she was worried, after having belly danced for most of her life, that she wouldn’t be able to continue the practice when she recently moved to Seymour.

“It was a miracle for me to find belly dancing in a small town ... I feel so lucky because we need things like this here,” she said.

Kiki ‘K’, who had an eight-year break from belly dancing, said it had felt like “coming home” since she started Melissa’s classes.

Melissa’s classes run on Tuesdays from 6pm to 7.30pm and Thursdays from 10.30am to noon at the Seymour Senior Citizens’ Club on Anzac Ave.

Melissa encourages anyone to join to “come back into your body, connect into the earth ... and shake all those bits that we try to hide”.

For more information, contact Melissa on 0459 784 266.