When Stephanie Tooke was 11 years old, she went to a Greek restaurant to celebrate her mother’s new marriage – and it was there that she saw a belly dancing performance that shocked her understanding of how a dancer should look. “What was so shocking to me was this dancer was not skinny. I thought only slim people could show their midriff,” she says. “And [seeing] that really shifted the way I thought about things.”
Witnessing that performance was the start of Stephanie’s own goal to become a belly dancer one day. But she would have to wait another seven years to enrol in a class. At the time, many studios would not accept children until they turned eighteen. When Stephanie was finally enrolled, she realized her goal would not be an easy one. “I was terrible! I thought that these things would come so natural to me,” she says.
While pursuing her undergraduate degree, a combination of constant practice and patience allowed her to become better at belly dancing. After about five or six years of dancing, she was teaching classes herself.
