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Above: Inzar, Zorina and Melinda at Anglicon, a Seattle science fiction convention, sometime in the 20th century, in costumes designed by Inzar for performing a dance to the Star Wars Cantina Song, Please contact us! The troupe is available for performances at festivals, parties and concerts in Western Washington. Home | About the Troupe | Coming Performances & Frequently Asked Questions | Favorite Links & Meet the Performer *What's a WayBack Machine? Read about it on Wikipedia Website by Shahrazad. Copyright © 2006-2008 Shahrazad Dance Ensemble - Page Updated 3.1.08 |
Watch our website - "Meet the Performer" features artistic director Inzar. In April the site will host short bios of all six Shahrazad dancers.
Meet
the Performer - Inzar
Inzar, artistic director of Shahrazad Dance Ensemble of Seattle, is a dancer, costumer, and artist ---under the nom-de-paintbrush of Rena Bassilvergoran -- a musician and a singer. She has been making art since she was a wee small child, and has been studying dance and costuming since she was a wee small teenager. A member of several Seattle dance troupes before founding Shahrazad Dance Ensemble of Seattle with Laurel Victoria Gray (who later moved to Washington D.C. and founded the Silk Road Dance Company,), Inzar has applied her formidable design and dance knowledge to make Shahrazad Dance Ensemble one of the premier Middle Eastern dance troupes in Western Washingrton.
While creating choreography
that continues to be the troupe's signature dances, Inzar also worked
as a featured soloist at Seattle's lively Arab live-music nightclubs,
including The Lebanon, George's Bar and Grill, and Meenar's.
She has studied Flamenco and folkloric Middle Eastern dance styles and led the troupe in developing a folkloric repertoire featuring dance from the Levant, Egypt, Persia, Turkey and North Africa, including a 10-minute Tunisian suite. She also created the troupe's alter egos, "The Wild Women of Wongo," (a name borrowed from the title of a 1950's B-grade science fiction movie.) For the Wild Women, Inzar taught the troupe members new dance skills and created fusion dances that use props such as rattles, bones and snakes (the snakes are stuffed, not real.)
When not designing dances and costumes for Shahrazad Dance Ensemble, Inzar creates artwork in pen and ink, acrylics and watercolor, makes costumes for herself and her husband to wear at science fiction conventions, and writes stories. At Northwest science fiction conventions she leads panels in costuming, Klingon and Elvish language, and teaches her own choreographies of hobbit country dances and Elvish line dances.
Photso above © Tatsuki Kobayashi
Our Favorite Websites for Middle Eastern Dance and Culture in the Pacific Northwest:
The Babylonian Ensemble - producers of the Mediterranean Fantasy Festival in July
Saqra - performer, teacher and producer
Visionary Dance Productions - website of Delilah of Seattle, legendary dancer & teacher
Zanbaka - performer, teacher and producer
More Links:
The Arab Center of Washington - promoting awareness of Arab culture and heritage in the Pacific Northwest; producers of Arab Festival.
Ethnic Heritage Council - preserving and promoting ethnic and cultural traditions in Washington.
The Gilded Serpent - an online resource in magazine format that seeks to become a freely available library of knowledge supported by and for our music and dance community.
Photo
Feature:
Inzar
performs in a debke style dance with the troupe at the 2007 Northwest
Folklife Festival in Seattle.
Photo: Tatsuki Kobayashi