Workshop: Zay el Hawa - Lebanese-style Choreography (Friday, Sept 27, 7:30 - 9:30pm CDT)

Workshop: Bang a Gong - How to DANCE with Your Finger Cymbals (Saturday, Sept 28, 10:00am - 12:00pm CDT)

Featured Instructor for 2024

Biography for Tamra Henna

Tamra Henna (Joi Razinha) started belly dance classes in 1992 with Z-Helene and was immediately smitten with the dance and the music and inspired to dive headlong into the Austin belly dancing community.

From the very beginning, Tamra Henna was inspired by the divas of the “Golden Era” of Egyptian cinema, the vibrant stars of Lebanon and Egypt from the 1980’s and 90’s, and the dynamic American nightclub dancers working in the communities of the Arab diaspora in the U.S. Her dance style has been described as “pan-Arabic,” incorporating concepts and ideas from these times, places, and dancers into a unique whole.

In 2001, she moved to Dallas, and spent the next 20 years performing at venues large and small all over North Texas, including private events, restaurants, nightclubs, and cultural festivals. She was the head dancer at the largest and longest-running Lebanese nightclub in North Texas for well over a decade, was a member of three award-winning professional dance groups, was featured on several made-for-DVD show productions in the early aughts, and was cast in the “Virginia: Reflections” show in Dallas in 2018.

In 2005, she started teaching weekly classes, and eventually created the “Dallas School of Belly Dance” - a curriculum-based program created to take students from novice dancers to hobbyist performers. Several of her former students are now successful professional dancers in their own right, and many more have found both a lifelong love of belly dance and enduring friendships through the community fostered in these spaces.

In 2021, Tamra Henna moved from Dallas, Texas to Cincinnati, Ohio, where she continues to perform and teach workshops and private lessons and coaching.

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