Qamar 14 Members

• After studying Fashion Design at Leeds’ Jacob Kramer College and graduating top of her class, Beverley spent the next five years working in the Design Room of a leading fashion house, before becoming a freelance costume-designer.
• Things may have remained thus, had not an unexpected encounter with Arabic Dance at a Flamenco theatre show changed Beverley’s life forever.
• It’s hard to imagine now, but only a few short years ago there were no Bellydance classes in Leeds, and those dancers who did give lessons were rarely advertised; still, determined to learn all she could, Bev persevered and eventually found Betty Thompson who taught traditional Arabic Dance after many years’ living in the Middle East.
• After those first lessons in Betty’s kitchen, and with UK Bellydance now “out and proud”, Bev went on to study with many of the leading names in Egyptian and Middle Eastern dance,
• She now teaches and performs herself all over the country: in restaurants, at corporate events, and in stage shows and festivals, including many events with the Asian and Middle Eastern communities. Her regular weekly classes are to be found at the Yorkshire Dance Centre in Leeds, at Horsforth, and Harrogate; and in addition to these she organises many other activities, musician workshops, dance parties, ladies-only events, and team-building courses. She has also appeared on local and national TV and radio.
• Bev – or Hazarah, as she is now known – has become a recognised performer and is widely credited as an exciting troupe-choreographer with delightful attention to detail.
• Since 2005 she has worked with Moroccan musician Hassan Erraji, both as a performer and as a dance-leader working with schools, and with children and adults with learning difficulties.
• In 2006 Hazarah founded her own dance troupe — Egyptia — which now performs regularly at shows and festivals throughout Yorkshire and the North
• In 2008 she was asked to produce a theatre show for Knaresborough’s Feva Festival. This involved creating group choreographies, designing and producing costumes, and working with musicians and technicians and brought her, full circle, back to the theatre show which first started this lifelong passion.
• Nor has Hazarah abandoned her “roots” in fashion and design, for she also runs the Baladi Bazaar, selling both her own exclusive belly-dance designs and dance-wear imported directly from Egypt.
• Her continued study includes the JWAAD Teacher Training Foundation Course and MADN’s Safe Exercise Practice for Older Adults. She also holds a Certificate in First Aid for Dance

• Jo first took up belly-dancing for a bet and never thought to fall in love with it. She had her first lessons with Anne Kingston and Shirley Lewis, and when these ended learned what she could from workshops and videos.
• Such sporadic opportunity to dance, the then near impossibility of finding Middle Eastern music, and a growing curiosity about the dance itself led Jo inevitably to the Arabic community and persuading them to share their skills and experiences.
• Learning piecemeal from Egyptian, Algerian, Yemeni, Turkish, and Iranian sources – and generally having a bit of a laugh and a lot of food – was never going to produce anything “dance purists” would approve of, but Jo rather enjoyed her eclectic learning curve and feels she had far more “dance adventures” than if she had stuck to lessons!
• She performed for 18 months with a Moroccan band, (and with legendary Algerian musician Maurice el Medioni), experiencing a life on tour travelling from festival to festival. This isn’t anything like as glamorous as one might suppose!
• Jo has a keen interest in Egyptology and for ten years until 2006 helped organise lecture programmes, day schools, and workshops with many famous names throughout Yorkshire. She herself presented open lectures to local museums, universities and Egyptology societies and contributed to various journals. An opportunity to work on the collections at Sheffield and Towneley and the then little-known collection at Harrogate led to many things, including an appearance on Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour.
• As a writer Jo contributes regularly to the UK’s dance journals and has recently completed the first English translation of Charles Didier’s last work, Les Nuits du Caire which contains many facts and fantasies about female performers in 19^thC Cairo.
• Jo is also a folklorist and story-teller. She has produced poetry-plays for story-telling groups, as well as working in and acting as adviser to local theatres, and combining stories with music and dance.
• Since she has spent so much of her adult life with musicians and performers – her brothers and partner, Alex, are gigging musicians – she often feels today’s dancers have a highly romanticised view of how their “art” came about, one that very much forgets the dancers of the past were real women. She is currently researching and preparing an account of their lives.    

• Jan first became aware of Middle Eastern dance in 1982 when she acquired an Iraqi brother-in-law. It was the music that attracted her first – new and beautiful sounds filled with a soulful passion quite unlike anything heard before.
• Seven years later she came upon a newspaper advert for local belly dance classes and took the chance to discover more music and learn a few moves to keep up with the in-laws. She knew she was hooked from the very first class, quickly realising there was so much more to Middle Eastern dance than good exercise and beautiful movement.
• From 1989 she studied with Betty Thompson in Leeds, and like her teacher, joined the Raqs Sharqi Society; she began her own first classes in 1994 and became a fully-qualified Raqs Sharqi teacher in 2000.
• Since then, Jan has become a noted teacher of traditional Egyptian “baladi” and “saiidi” styles; her students come away with a good grounding in movements that can be earthy or passionate, soulful, sad, or full of joy – and they return again and again from whatever style they now pursue to discover once again the delightful roots of Egyptian dance.
• Jan is known to be a passionate advocate of Egyptian dance. As a qualified nurse she has a sound knowledge of anatomy and physiology which she brings to her classes.
• Dancing with Betty’s performance group, Arabesque, she became close friends with Bev Smith – Hazarah – and they continued performing together and organising dance events after Betty retired.
• As a solo-dancer, with Arabesque, and her own troupe Hareer (“silk”), she has performed at weddings, private parties, restaurants, nursing homes, hospitals, and hospices. Recent performances include London’s renowned Planet Egypt.
• Jan has regularly travelled to Cairo giving students their first experience of Egyptian dance in its home country and taking classes with noted Egyptian teachers.
• She currently teaches 8 weekly classes all over West Yorkshire and works regularly within local Adult Education programs. She also teaches dance in schools and is recognised for her natural empathy with those learning to dance.
• She remains committed to improving her skills and knowledge and to finding new ways of bringing Middle Eastern dance to an enthusiastic audience – hence Qamar 14!
• In addition to her Raqs Sharqi qualifications, Jan holds City and Guilds Teaching Qualification 7307-1 and 7407