A-Z Instructor Profile - Karen Atkins
 |
|
|
 |
Name | Karen Atkins (Zahira) |
| Location | Launceston, Tasmania | |
| Birthday | 11 November | |
| zahira1au@yahoo.com.au | ||
| Website | http://home.iprimus.com.au/kazzray/ | |
| Classes | See website, many classes running including A-Z and Pulse8 | |
| Karen
Atkin's (Zahira's) Biography Zahira teaches and performs belly dance in Northern Tasmania through her own business, Zahira’s Belly Dance Bazaar. She is also the organiser of the Tasmanian Middle Eastern Dance Festival (Nov 12-14). She specialises in the Egyptian styles of belly dance and loves playing zills (finger cymbals). Unlike many dancers, Zahira can’t say exactly when she first began belly dancing but what began as a Saturday morning interest somewhere in early 1993, soon became a passion and years later, Zahira can’t see herself stopping any time soon. Zahira has always enjoyed playing zills (perhaps, simply because no one had told her they were hard) yet she found that many ‘first time’ zillers were very nervous and easily discouraged. To help her students overcome this and keep them motivated, she created her own drilling programme, designed to have students gradually building on their skills until they were confidently playing. This then lead to Zahira producing her own, ‘no frills’ DVD, ‘Zills with Zahira’ featuring this programme. Her love of Egyptian belly dance has inspired Zahira to visit Egypt several times, where she enjoyed classes with master teachers and watched belly dance stars perform in the nightclubs. Recently Zahira was delighted to be invited by Amera’s Palace to be a Phase 1 judge for their Belly Dance Superstars Award competition. Zahira is a certified Zumba instructor and a fully qualified Remedial Massage Therapist. Her knowledge of the body and movement has greatly aided her in her commitment to teaching safe dance practices as well as creating ways to break down dance movements for students. Zahira is certified to teach Keti’s Original A-Z and the Advanced A-Z formats, both wonderful aids for students who know their basic movements well but still lack the knowledge or confidence to put them together into a flowing routine. Inspired by Keti’s Astrobelly, Zahira also teaches Full Moon belly dance classes, creating routines especially for each month’s moon, drawing on the elements, astrology, an event in history or mythology, a story or a symbol for ideas. Celebrate the Seasons belly dance classes take place on the equinoxes and solstices. In 2009, Zahira embarked on a new belly dance adventure – Pulse8 Fitness classes. After receiving her certification from Keti at the end of the year, she began running Pulse8 classes at her local gym. Zahira has enjoyed a positive response from participants, who say that it’s so much more fun to workout while dancing. Zahira couldn’t agree with them more! |
||