I have always been in love with belly dance and learned on my own from belly dance videos behind closed doors. It wasn't until I saw the need to introduce my developmentally impaired daughter to an outside teacher that I started to take actual classes. My dance name, Olaya (Holaya Estrada-Ortiz), is actually my real name which was handed down to me from, both, my paternal great-grandmother and paternal grandmother, who were of Spanish Moorish decent. After taking class for about a year, my belly dance teacher, Miranda, dragged me to a student performance at Tagine's dinning Gallery in New York City. When the owner and manager saw me dance, she asked to hire me! There started my professional Belly Dance Carrier. Ten years since then, I have danced at Tagine's dinning Gallery many times, as well as at several other Arabic and Middle Eastern restaurants in New York City, and New Jersey. I have also kept taking classes and workshops to enhance my knowledge of this art form with numerous and different great belly dance teachers like Morocco, Suhaila Salimpour, Fatima, Altagracia and Keti Sharif.

I was fortunate to be one of the dancers certified to teach Keti Sharif's Original A-Z Egyptian Dance Routines when she came to New York in 2006! On my travels to Mexico and Puerto Rico, I have taught the Keti Sharif's A-Z dance routines, and have found that my students all fall in love with the way all of the steps are put together. My positive outlook, patience and passion for belly dance has also allowed me to teach young Girl Scouts and young women with developmental disabilities this wonderful art form.

Currently, I teach from my own dance studio, Olaya' Woman's Circle of Belly Dance. The classes range from Beginner Basic Belly Dance to Advanced Beginner as well as a class designed to fill the needs of students with disabilities called “Unique and Special Belly Dance”. In all my classes, I like to incorporate my knowledge of the Keti Sherif’s A-Z routines with salsa and rumba steps to give my belly dance a bit of a Latin flavor. Also, I teach the use of a sword, veils, candles and zills, and use sign language to communicate what “letter” we are about to dance to when I don’t have the use of a microphone! My most recent accomplishment has been that I have taught A-Z workshops at the Bergen Community College in New Jersey. The students have fallen in love with the routines! Who knows what will happen next! The ski is the limit!