Directors & Support Staff

This is the group of fabulous individuals who are working countless hours to bring the 2008 Las Vegas Bellydance Intensive event together. These people are the hard working, creative, talented, and selfless individuals who believe in the vision of creating an event that celebrates the diversity of our community. This core group of movers & shakers deserve your admiration & appreciation. Feel free to send them a word of encouragement or two ;)

Samira Tu'Ala, Organizer & Director of Marketing

Samira Tu'Ala Belly Dance Photo Samira (aka Alisa McAffee) started her bellydance life at the age of 17 in Salt Lake City, UT (1991). She dove into the professional realm relatively quickly and ended up migrating to Las Vegas in 1996 where she worked at various local restaurants as well as Ceasar's Palace and the MGM Grand. In 1998, she graduated from UNLV with a B.A. in Health Education and a minor in Women's Studies. After a brief stint in Peace Corps, she returned to the states and started a career as a professional ballroom dance instrctor. During her 7 years as a co-owner of the Arthur Murray Dance Studios in Las Vegas, she developed regular monthly events for the belly dance community and started organizing the Las Vegas Bellydance Intensive in 2003.

Although Samira has been a dancer since 1991, she realized quickly that her passion was creating community through dance. The regular monthly haflas and the Bellydance Intensive are extensions of her love of the Las Vegas Belly Dance Comnmunity. As her events have outgrown her ability to manage them on her own, she has "collected" some of the brightest and talented women to assist her in continuing to provide community dance events to Las Vegas.

Tori King, Director of Volunteers & Assistant Organizer

Tori dancing Tori King started bellydancing about 5 years ago, and after a short time realized that if she wanted to study with the masters, she had to travel great distances. So, seeing a void - filled it, and started hosting world class instructors into Las Vegas in 2004, and has kept raising the bar each year. Samira asked Tori to help with the LV Bellydance Intensive in 2006, and a great friendship arose out of the unique opportunity the relatively young LV Community has to create itself from scratch.

Tori also is the troupe director of Daughters of Durga, and dances with Ethnophonica. She is on the Board of Directors of Nevada Wilderness Project that has in 6 years protected almost 3 million acres of Wilderness in the state of Nevada!

http://www.daughtersofdurga.com/workshops.htm
http://wildnevada.org/

Amaryllis Carter, Director of Entertainment

Amaryllis/Salome Belly Dancing Amaryllis (aka Salome) started her dance journey at the age of 3 with her cultural roots of Salsa and slowly progressed to Merengue, Cha Cha, Tango, and many other forms of dance. She started bellydancing in 1993 and eventually turned professional and started teaching in 1999. Amaryllis has been an instructor for the Bellydance Intensive and is joining our ranks this year as a director. Aside from keeping all the other directors giggling, Amaryllis manages to keep Samira organized (which is saying a lot! LOL!) and we are extremely grateful to have her energetic enthusiasm as well as her organizational skills for our use this year!!

Visit her website at www.shimmythis.com.

Janie Midgley, Director of Vending

Janie Midgley took her first bellydance class is 1973 as a college student at San Jose State University. She danced mostly for fun because she never believed she could make any money doing it. That was until about 12 years ago when a friend pulled her up to dance at a restaurant. After receiving many compliments, she dove back into the art and started taking classes again. Today she does make her living through belly dance via her love of costuming. Janie has an extensive resume as a bellydance event organizer (www.wigglesofthewest.com) and has and imense amount of knowlege as a vendor. We are so happy to have her join us this year as the Director of Vending. We believe that she is the right person to make the shopping experience at the 08 Intensive fabulous!!

http://www.designsbyjanie.com

Danya Cornelius, Assistant Director of Advertising & Marketing

Danya is a very talented and creative artist who specializes in creating fabulous art & jewelry, bellydancing, and spinning fire and poi. She has a great resume which includes working as a fire safety tech at a professional show in Vegas, performing with Cirque du Soleil, and working as a caricaturist in Las Vegas and Texas. She has helped us with graphic arts at previous Intensives and we are thrilled to welcome her back this year as Director of Marketing & Advertising. Danya will be helping us coordinate the advertising efforts as well as working on the website. We are glad to have her onboard.

http://www.seraphinafire.com
http://www.ravenrings.com

Noora Amaar, Assistant Director of Entertainment

Noora Noora has been performing in Las Vegas since 1990 but began her daning at the age of three in Ballet and Jazz. She has performed at many of the large casinos in Vegas including MGM, Mirage, and Aladdin. She was a major contributor to the 2007 International Belly Dance Convention as one of the Stage Managers. Noora works as a co-instructor for Aziza of Las Vegas, participates as a member of Troupe D'Aliah, and teaches private lessons in her spare time. Noora has started crossing over to other forms of the dance (mostly Tribal Fusion, and ATS) so she can become a well-rounded, educated dancer & teacher to her community.

Troupe D'Aliah Website

Additional Support Staff

Jenni Chin, Graphic Design--Jenni has helped us for the last few years with advertising and our show program. She always helps and is a tremendously valuable resource.
Heather Corral, Friday Night Show Director--Heather has been involved with the Las Vegas Bellydance Intensive for the last 4 years and we are excited to have her help with the theater show. She is a natural at running this production and we don't know what we'd do without her.
Carolee Cameron, Graphic Design--We are excited to have Carolee onboard as one of our new team members. She is working on the postcards and advertising for the 08 Intensive!!