March 20, 2017

Meet Jenna of DanceGardenLA in Atwater Village

Local Stories

Today we’d like to introduce you to Jenna.

Thanks for sharing your story with us Jenna. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
After a successful belly dance career in NYC, I moved to LA for all the right reasons — it’s the good life! After exploring the dance scene here, I met Zahra Zuhair, and we decided to make our dreams come true and open our own dance studio. At first, we thought we would need to offer other dance forms as well, but belly dance ended up being, and remains, our biggest draw. We fixed up a little space on Glendale Boulevard, also in Atwater Village and opened our doors to the myriad types women (and yes! men!) who had fallen in love, or would soon fall in love with this art form. After about 7 years there, Zahra went on to focus on her own work, and shortly thereafter I upgraded to a nearby studio in the vibrant ATX complex where DanceGardenLA is thriving today — still offering tons of bellydance options, both traditional and fusion styles, and adding in other enticing dance forms like Samba, Bollywood and Afro-Brasilian dance as well. We have a roster of incredible teachers on our weekly schedule, occasional performances, and even a weeklong event each summer celebrating our founding mothers: LA Legends of Bellydance!

Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
All in all, things have been fairly smooth. I had a wonderful partner at first, and that is a huge advantage. I’ll say, having to split the electric bills with our oft-changing neighbors at our original location was no picnic! 😉

Please tell us about DanceGardenLA.
We are known for having the most excellent bellydance teachers! Many of our instructors, such as Zahra Zuhair and Fahtiem are in demand around the globe for special workshops and performances. We have titan of the Tribal Fusion world Sherri Wheatley. Princess Farhana is a sparkling staple in the LA Bellydance scene; Helena Vlahos is a Greek Goddess who is considered a legend in our field. Jenna (that’s me!) starred in a trio of best-selling instructional videos. Nasila is super knowledgable in regional dance styles. Kamala Almanzar is a noted choreographer, DeVilla’s dance company is popular and prolific, and Arturo is truly one of the best male bellydancers I have ever seen!

Instructors from around the world stop by to teach workshops at DGLA, so there is always something special going on. These weekend workshops, plus about a dozen ongoing classes every week make DanceGarden the place to be for bellydancers of all levels.

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