American Cabaret Beginner Hour Class

American Cabaret Beginner Belly Dancing Class 

With

Scarlett Royale

Photograph by Bill Frazer

Check out his DeviantArt page he is awesome: http://bardulf.deviantart.com/

About Your Instructor 

My name is Scarlett and I have been dancing since I was 3. I have 7 years in ballet, tap, and jazz, and 5 years in modern dance. I have been studying belly dancing since 2007. I have studied under Paula Stump (Gypsy), Ani Oakly, Masati Janan, and Lisa Zahiya. I have taken intensive workshops with Aziza, Sadie, Souhail Kaspar, Lisa Zahiya, Zoe Jakes, and Masati Janan. Having taken intensive workshops and studied under these wonderful instructors I have learned a great deal about the world of belly dancing and all the categories of it. I choose to go back to my base of American Cabaret and teach more often than not. Fusion of my classical styles and belly dancing is my other form of dance. I have been intensely educated in American Cabaret and American Tribal Style. I have gotten to do some study in Egyptian, Lebanese, Turkish, and a number of smaller sub groups of belly dancing and folk dance.

American Cabaret   

This ray of belly dancing has a heavy base is Egyptian and Lebanese immigrant culture blended together to form American Cabaret, to which if you see a belly dancer in the USA it will more often be this style or a form of fusion. There are other cultures meshed into this style but it is heavily based in the 2 cultures mentioned. As most things in the USA it is a melting pot kind of style. 

Hour Class Content

In this class study I am showing you the beginnings of this style, and giving you an hour of content to do on your own for a low impact workout.  It works a lot of core muscles as well as larger. This style will sculpt your figure in a way you will like. So lets get you the layout of the class. 

1. Warm Up

2. Circle Isolations

• Horizontal Head Circles
• Horizontal Chest Circles
• Horizontal Hip Circles
• Small Horizontal Hip Circles or Oumis
• Vertical Chest Circles
• Vertical Hip Circles 
• Body Waves

3. Figure 8s

• Back Motion Horizontal Figure 8s
• Foward Motion Horizontal Figure 8s
• Upward Vertical Figure 8s or Infinity
• Downward Vertical Figure 8s or Mya
• One Hip Figure 8s or Bicycle Hips

4. Basic Moves

• Hip Drop and Kick
• Walking Hip Twist or Egyptian Hip Bump
• Step Together Step or Jewel Step
• Single and Double Vertical Hips On the Up
• Traveling Twist
• 3 Step Turn and 1/2 Turn

5. Arms (this may move to position 2 in the future)

• Positions
• Wrist Rotations
• Snake Arms
• Arabesque Arms (future add)

6. Shimmy

• Horizontal Shoulder Shimmy
• Horizontal Hip Shimmy
• Vertical Chest Shimmy
• Vertical Hip Shimmy
• Choo Choo 
• 3/4 Shimmy

By following the video playlist on my youtube channel you can go through this list along with my music playlist (am in process of now)  to play while doing the class you will get approximately an hour of instruction.


I will periodically post suggestions that may help in trouble areas of different techniques. Feel free to use them. Keep in mind this work is channeling very much my first instructor Paula Stump (Gypsy).