Biography
2004 Trio of the Year
2004 Best Troupe
Raqs Habibi is a multi-award-winning and geographically-challenged dance trio, based in the east and west sides of the San Francisco Bay Area of Northern California and the Portland, Oregon and Camas, Washington border towns of the Pacific Northwest.
Raqs Habibi is comprised of three individual and distinct dancers making their way through the belly dance scenes in their own towns, who also fly/drive/hitchhike to dance together several times per year. Examples, you say? Raqs Habibi meets to spend 48 hours straight in a Vancouver dance studio choreographing new work and rehearsing existing pieces . . . Raqs Habibi meets to enter (and yes, often win or place, knock wood!) belly dance competitions . . . and Raqs Habibi meets to put on the longest false eyelashes and the shiniest fabric they can find to dance and entertain peers, friends, fans, and fellow dancers.
Raqs Habibi have been racking up frequent flyer miles in their current incarnation since 2004. Jasmine, Monica, and Shakira Om Mia met in a Walnut Creek dance studio in 1992. They worked together as solo dancers in crazy Moroccan restaurants, at fancy weddings and parties, and ultimately in choreographed stage pieces with Troupe Ya Habibi (1993-1996). In the late 1990s Ms. Shakira headed north with her family and to learn from and perform with the fabulous Aziza and Banat Al Fez. Monica and Jasmine held down the Bay Area fort, together as Raks Sahibat and Mumtaza, and apart as soloists and instructors.
With well over a decade of working together, Raqs Habibi bring intuitive improvisational connections to their tightly choreographed dances. As a professional quality trio made up of accomplished soloists, each with varied experiences from the party circuit and club trenches, Raqs Habibi has vast experience, unabashed humor, and an obvious love for Middle Eastern dance that can not and should not be hidden. With thousands of hours in dance studios studying with greats from many genres, Raqs Habibi are uniquely situated to perform many styles in all sorts of venues.
Raqs Habibi's first instructor talked about the importance of a working dancer having paid her dues. With Raqs Habibi the experience is manifested in three dancers who continue to work hard to further the beauty and relevance of modern American belly dance.
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