WHO WE ARE

Founded in 2008 with dancer Leanne Carrington-Payne at the helm, we began our exciting dance journey. 

 

Leanne was a member of another group for 4 years until her teacher retired and the group ceased, though the teacher gave Leanne permission to use the original dances from her old group, Leanne chose, out of respect to her fellow dance colleagues, to instead write new dances with different infusions to create our 'Mystic style', ensuring that Mystic Bellydance have their own special style, and makes us a popular group on the belly dance circuit, with lots of lovely comments over the years from other well known belly dancers such as Maria D'Silva, Galit Mersand, and Lorna Gow (Lorna of Cairo).

​

We pride ourselves in creating beautiful dances that tell a story.  We've heard it said that our dances aren't a 4 minute routine but a miniature show!  We love dancing and work hard at ensuring our routines are unique, often having something more traditional and something 'left field' as Leanne calls it, which we are known for especially at Hafla's (belly dance events) that we take part in throughout East Anglia... we've even danced in a Scottish castle for our tour guide and other members of the public.

​

Our main style is cabaret, but we include infusions of other styles from South American/Latin flavours to Bollywood, 20s Charleston to tribal styles (Gothic, ATS).

​

It is also really important to us that we are respectful to the cultures behind belly dance, and are mindful that our depictions of their cultural dance in our public performances pay tribute to all the dancers who have gone before us.  Whilst we know that we could just teach the moves and let people dance them; we like to ensure that we talk about the origins behind the dance moves too, so expect that you'll learn about a move we call a 'Randa' after Randa Kamel or a 'Tahira' after Taheyya Kariokka because they are their signature moves, or we'll explain about the Melaya and its history, so its not just a dance with another prop. 

​

Whilst we love our dance classes, we are especially proud to be active members of the belly dance community of East Anglia and attended numerous events and support other belly dance teachers, dancers and groups too.  We regularly work with other groups on shows and support fundraising efforts by other belly dancers also.

​

We are very fortunate that as a group we understand that being supportive of each other and working together provides the best results and it shows both on and off stage and in and out of class, and that dancing is just part of our classes; mental health and general well being are integral too.  So come along, and join our belly dance family.

​

I