The BellyBody Project is a revolutionary new undertaking in the dance and movement arts.  It is the first ever holistic health & fitness program designed specifically for Belly Dancers.  As the artform of belly dance consistently moves into the main-stream dance community and becomes more widely accepted as a valid movement art form, there is a rapidly growing need for a focus on dance medicine and science applied specifically to belly dance and to professional bellydancers.

 

Copious quantities of research have been done on medicine and science for dancers studying and performing ballet, tap, jazz, modern, Irish dancing, and many other dance forms.  However, belly dance is somewhat unique in the movement arts in that it isolates very specific muscle groups to perform movements, segmenting the body into even smaller and more numerous working parts than any other dance form.  Dancers learning to isolate all of these different body parts are asked to train like professional athletes and dancers, but very little attention is paid to their overall fitness and healthcare.  When injuries occur, often dancers do not have access to many valuable forms of rehabilitation, nor do they have the kinesiological and biomechanical knowledge to address improper movement patterns or postures that may be leading to injury.  They sometimes lack the appropriate fitness knowledge to design a training program suited to their individual needs or don’t have access to personal trainers or fitness experts who can help them with these issues.

 

This is the primary goal of the BellyBody Project: to address the physical, mental, and emotional issues that arise for belly dancers.  These issues range from nutrition, strength training, flexibility training, anatomical knowledge, postural analysis, bodywork therapies and self-help exercises for specific muscles or problems, how to prevent injuries, how to safely train in the dance form at any age or life stage, what to do for injuries and how to recover from them, psychological and motivational issues, and dealing with burn-out and exhaustion, to name just a few.  With a thorough knowledge of how dance affects dancers both physically and mentally, dancers will be better able to cope with the increased demands of the training and  continue to dance through a long and fulfilling life and career. 

 

Mainstream dance forms are finally receiving the focus and attention of the scientific and medical community who are now embracing them as athletes and treating them as such.  It’s time that belly dancers joined their ranks!