BellyDanceGR: From happy accident to Grand Rapids’ center for world dance
From friends asking her to teach them belly dance to a business on a mission to create a non-competitive dance & fitness community focusing on world dance, Sarah Mayne is now bringing world-renowned performers to her East Hills studio.
You could say that BellyDanceGR (BDGR) founder Sarah Mayne’s entire foray into the world of belly dance was as the result of several happy accidents.
“It was never an intention of mine to own a studio and have dance companies,” says Mayne.
Now 15 years after first doing small classes at the request of some girlfriends, the accidental business that grew from a need in the Grand Rapids community has grown into a center for world dance. Located in the East Hills neighborhood, BellyDanceGR’s facility on the top floor of the Blackport Building houses also houses Ambrosia Theater, so the one location serves as both a dance studio and 72-seat Black Box theater space.
BellyDanceGR’s classes are geared more for adults — both women and men. In addition to belly dance instruction at all levels from beginner to advanced, the dance studio features instructors offering a rotating potpourri of offerings, including Aerial and Hatha yoga, Bollywood dance, choreography, Hula Hooping, and the Chinese dance Qi Pao.
“I look to give opportunities to anyone that has a focus on a world art form and wants to teach that art form in order to create a community where people can experience the movement and music of different cultures in one place,” says Mayne.
The Grand Rapids native’s career in dance began like many other young children: taking dance lessons in ballet, tap, and jazz. She studied at Ken Tepper Dance Studio. But also like many children, she drifted away from dance. for a time, but then returning to it in high school, this time in the forms of ballroom and swing dancing.
After getting involved in ballroom and swing dancing in high school, Mayne discovered belly dance while traveling to a festival in Oregon. She instantly fell in love.
“I remember sitting down and watching the fluidity and the grace of the movement and thinking ‘that is what I want to learn and dance,’” says Mayne. “I had done partner dancing in the past and my husband, or anyone else who has ever partnered me will tell you: I don’t let the men lead very well. It is one of my weaknesses. I thought, ‘this is a style of dance you can dance by yourself.’”
When Mayne returned to Grand Rapids in 1998, she sought out belly dance classes locally in the American Tribal Fusion Style, a modern Western form of belly dance melding several dance styles from hip hop to Flamenco to Indian classical dance. The closest studio offering something like this form of dance was in Hastings. There she says she was introduced to another modern belly dance style, American Cabaret or stage performance style.
Mayne began traveling the United States and abroad seeking further instruction, particularly in the Arab or Egyptian style, and began teaching and performing.
After a few years starting a family, Mayne returned to teaching belly dance in 2003 thanks to the request of her friends. Soon, she says, these few girlfriends were inviting their friends—and things blossomed from there into the first iteration, The Mayne Studio.
In 2006, The Mayne Studio became BellyDanceGR, with the mission to create a non-competitive dance & fitness community specializing in the professional instruction and performance of world dance.
“I really feel like we are in this society where women are in constant competition with each other and with themselves,” says Mayne. “There are a lot of belly dance competitions and dance competitions in general. Belly dance is an art form and I think when you start adding competitiveness to an art form, you take the art out of it. People start judging you on what their perceptions and expectations are. This art form is meant to be an emotion expression of the music and everyone is going to see and perceive it differently. I don’t want women to look at belly dance and see curves, breasts and being young and think they have to be anything other than what they are.”
In addition to BellyDanceGR’s class offerings, there are two performance troupes specializing in Egyptian style Raqs Sharqi, American Cabaret, Theatrical Fusion and various Folk styles of belly dance. Allspice Dancers is BDGR’s hobbyist troupe formed in 2016, and Delkash (meaning fascinating and attractive) Dancers is its professional troupe. Mayne began this troupe in 2003, and it now performs not just locally, but nationally and internationally as well for weddings, festivals, fundraisers, and cultural events.
With the addition of the dance troupes, Mayne says she found that she not only needed to be a teacher, performer, and director, but also a choreographer. Like the founding BellyDanceGR, Mayne says she began choreographing out of necessity.
“Someone asked me if I could perform at an event and the women I was teaching at the time said that they wanted to perform as well and wanted me to make up a dance for them,” says Mayne. “I had never done that before but more requests came and it really snowballed into me becoming a choreographer. It has become something I really enjoy.”
Mayne’s choreography and both performance troupes’ dancing skills will be on display Saturday, March 17 as part of BellyDanceGR’s “Hafla,” featuring headliner Yasmina Ramzy of Toronto-based Arabesque Canada.
Ramzy, a mentor of Mayne’s returns to Grand Rapids March 16–18 for a series of classes and workshops in addition to the “Hafla” performance. Visit the BellyDanceGR website for details.
A practitioner of the Raqs Sharqi style belly dance, the award-winning dancer/choreographer has since 1981 performed in the Middle East and across the globe over 10,000 times, often for royalty and heads of state.
“She has a gift for this art form,” says Mayne. “Choreography and movement pour out of her without effort. She is really responsible for helping to popularize belly dance in Canada and the United States.
For the informal “Hafla,” Ramzy will perform several solos (Sufi dance and Zar), while Delkash will perform “Millayah Laff (a.k.a. Eskandarani or Alexandrian Dance). Set to music by Bassam Ayoub, the inspiration for the work comes from the millayah laff, a wide silk floor length cover up which well-to-do Middle Eastern women wore over their clothes when leaving their homes.
“The millayah laff literally means wrapping sheet which was worn by bint al-balad (meaning daughter of the country) from the 1930’s to 1960’s. The dancing of bint al-balad with the millayah was first introduced by The Reda Troupe as a theatrical dance presentation based on Mahmoud Reda’s childhood experiences growing up in Alexandria,” says Mayne. “He took the character and environment of his youth and translated that into stage movement. In this way the dance grew out of non-dance movements.”
Also on the hourlong program, Allspice Dancers will perform Mayne’s “El Wad Da Khateer” (That Girl Is Dangerous), a work for seven dancers put to music by Mohamed Shahin. The dance tells the story about a man infatuated over a strong, independent woman. In addition, dancer Zahra Gamal will perform “Ahwak,” set to music sung by Safaa Farid, and students from Mayne’s “Innovation & Explorations” class will dance.
BellyDanceGR presents “Hafla” featuring Yasmina Ramzy
7:30 p.m., Saturday, March 17
BellyDanceGR’s Ambrosia Theater
Blackport Building, Ste 200
959 Lake Drive, Grand Rapids
Tickets: $15/advance, $20/door
Available online at or in person at BellyDanceGR’s studio.
