About Karen

After many years of jazz dance and classical ballet, Karen took her first bellydance lesson at the age of fourteen and has never looked back! She has been teaching since 1998.

Karen’s philosophy of dance is simple: bellydance should be fun!

Karen has studied most forms of bellydance, but is currently focused on modern fusions of traditional Moroccan and Middle Eastern styles. Her own choreographies incorporate traditional movements into unique, perky dance routines, often set to modern Arabic music or to “non-traditional” music by Canadian artists like Loreena McKennitt and Jesse Cook. Her dances frequently include veils, canes, zills, swords, candles, baskets and so on.

Karen has taken workshops and master classes with many of the best dance instructors in North America, including Morocco, Delilah, Yasmina Ramzy, Hadia and Tamra-henna. She has performed, both solo and with her students, in Kingston, Ottawa, Toronto, Syracuse, Rochester, Atlanta and New York City. Karen is a member of the Ontario Middle Eastern Dance Association (OMEDA).

Two of Karen’s students are now teaching classes of their own! If you’re interested in the American Tribal style of bellydance (which Karen loves but doesn’t teach), you might want to check out Lisa Pennock’s Tribal Pulse dance group. For classes north of Kingston, Adishakti teaches in the Seeley’s Bay area and sometimes in Cornwall.

Contact Karen by email at karen@nobodys-watching.com or by telephone at 613-547-6912.