Belly Dance Festival

Festival Location: Snowbird, UT, USA

Festival State: Utah Festivals

Festival Type(s): Folk Dancing Festivals | Traditional Dancing Festivals, Arts Festivals

By: © Nelson Taylor 2009

Yasamina Roque is the undisputed belly-dancing queen of Utah. She and her husband Jason have been entrenched in Middle Eastern culture and danse orientale for over thirty years. Along with running a boutique and dance studio in Salt Lake City, since 1980 the Roques (now with their new daughter Ariana) have been organizing the oldest and largest gathering of belly dancing die-hards in the nation.

Over 400 performers make an appearance at this annual August event, including such mega-hit belly dance stars like Judeen, Joynan, Dahlal, Aziz, and everybody's favorite, the lovely Jawahare. While the shows are free for the 15,000-plus crowd that shows every year, seminars with the featured artists run about $30 a pop, which is nothing compared to the thrill of learning, say veil technique from delicious Delilah, the art of Egyptian cabaret from Sahra, or choreography from the FatChanceBellyDance troupe.