Happy accident led Lisa to exotic art of bellydance

City Lives –  Denise McNamara meets Lisa Collins, a leading exponent of a 4,000 year-old female ritual

For most women the idea of letting our bellies all hang out is repulsive; sadly few of us are blessed with washboard stomachs. But not every culture is conditioned into believing that flat tums are the holy grail.

Bellydancing has emerged as this year’s cool keep-fit regime, a way to tone up and have fun, while releasing our inner-goddess.  And the bigger the tummy for this ritual the better.

For 13 years Lisa Collins has been training the city’s female bodies in the art of Arabic enchantment. She first started belly dancing in 1999 after a car crash. It was an Egyptian doctor treating her in University Hospital Galway who recommended it as a therapy to help strengthen her injured lower back.

“We had no hot yoga or pilates back then. There was an English woman offering classes here at the time. I think I crawled out of the first class or two. I was so stiff I was not able to put a handbag on my shoulder. But once I heard the music I got so energised. I quickly became hooked and wanted to learn as much as I could about the dance form.”

Growing up Lisa always loved dance, be it classical, waltz or Irish dancing. She was always trying to emulate Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers on the television.

She took classes in disco and won several awards including representing Galway in the Malibu Ireland Disco Dancing Championships. Tops of the Towns was a variety competition hugely popular in her native Corrib Park. A local resident, Bernie Donovan used to recruit all the youngsters of the estate into rehearsals. They made the national finals twice.

When her bellydance teacher gave up giving classes, Lisa found she could not quit. She continued improving her technique by buying dance videos of famous Egyptian dancers from the US and travelling up to Dublin for classes.

In 2005 she auditioned for a teacher training diploma at the Josephine Wise Academy of Arabic Dance (JWAAD) in the UK and was one of the 12 students accepted – the only Irish dancer to do so at the time.

“This was a two-year intensive Egyptian dance course. It helped me develop my own dance and deepened my knowledge and understanding of all aspects of Egyptian dance. I trained in teaching techniques, anatomy and safe warm ups; interpretation of Arabic music, history and culture and advancing my own dance level,” she recalled.

These days the 45-year-old travels to England to teach at festivals and takes part in workshops with famous teachers and dancers from across the UK, France and Germany such as Professor Hassan Khalil, Yasmina of Cairo, Randa Kamil and Rakkia Hassan. Her training has also taken her to Turkey and Egypt.

For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.