The Martlet

Nath Keo, a belly-dance instructor and owner of Sacred Centre Dance, pitches his body back and forth like Muhammad Ali’s punching bag. It’s Saturday morning at the studio, and neither a night out at a club nor my 15 years of classical ballet training could have prepared me for this duality of muscle constriction and the freedom to jiggle. My thighs are starting to burn, but the “Indian cowgirl” music is impossible not to undulate to. I think I’m doing well until I glance in the mirror.

Keo lifts his green shirt up to show the participants of the 10:30 a.m. Shimmy and Sweat class how to control our stomach muscles to make our hips rotate in a figure eight.

“First suck in your stomach like you’re at the beach . . . ‘Heh, I always look like this’ . . . and then let it out . . . ‘Ooph, just had a beer,’ ” instructs Keo.

The introductory belly-dance class was brought to me by Dance Victoria’s Dance Days, sponsored by Y.A.M. magazine. From Jan. 27 through Feb. 5, dance classes, workshops, demonstrations and performances all over Victoria are free for the public to drop in. The festival is for all levels and ages, and almost any type of dance you can think of will be on offer. The age range in the class I took was somewhere between 20 and 70, all sizes included.

Dance Victoria has put on several programs in the past to promote dance, but Dance Days has been one of their biggest successes according to Valerie Clarke, a board member of Dance Victoria. Not only does it bring new visitors to the Dance Victoria website, but it helps local studios, recognizes various artists and choreographers, and gives anyone interested a chance to dance.

“It’s about getting people to see dance and appreciate dance,” Clarke says.

“I think it’s important for dancers to discover different forms of dance,” Keo tells me between Shimmy and Sweat and Intro to Belly Dance.

For me, it’s about returning to dance — maybe not the realm I came from, but definitely one I appreciate and am even tempted to explore more.

For those interested in participating in Dance Days, a full schedule is available at dancevictoria.com. You should wear comfortable clothes, register for classes (where required) and arrive early as classes fill up quickly.

For those interested in admiring dance from a distance, Dance Victoria has performances every month. On Feb. 3 and 4, Ballet Nacional de Cuba will be performing at the Royal Theatre. And on March 9 and 10, San Francisco’s LINES Ballet company will be performing choreography by Alonzo King. The poster for LINES shows dancers throwing huge handfuls of salt in the air mid-leap, which is something I need to witness.

Dance Days seems particularly important during these days of arts-funding cuts.

“Dance does not just have artistic and cultural value, but also social value,” says Keo. Canada and Victoria are so multicultural, he reminds me. Here, any person of any culture or dance background has the option to explore dance in any way they wish, from a night at the clubs to classical ballet to Shimmy and Sweat. That’s worth putting the dancing shoes on for, or sticking the belly out.