Zahra Zuhair
Master teacher, performer, and choreographer, Zahra is world renowned for her knowledge, authenticity, and dedication to the art of Middle Eastern dance. Raised in oriental dance from a young age, Zahra is known for her musicality, flawless technique, and elegant style. She has trained and influenced many of today’s international, bellydance stars! Zahra has performed and taught workshops worldwide, including Raqia Hassan’s Ahlan Wa Sahlan Dance Festival in Cairo Egypt.
Zahra fell in love with bellydance in the early 1970’s in Columbus, Ohio. She enthusiastically studied traditional folk styles as well as oriental bellydance styles, including Lebanese, Turkish, Moroccan, Tunisian and Egyptian. Zahra began teaching in 1977 after the tragic death of her teacher and mentor, Scheherazade.
She began a specialization in Egyptian dance with her first study tour to Egypt in 1979, studying with Cairo’s top teachers. Zahra has had the good fortune to see first hand, 3 decades of the great dancers of Egypt, such as Nagua Fouad, Soheir Zaki, Fifi Abdo, Mona Said, Aza Sherif, Hannan, and many more, to the present day stars. Zahra has continued her study and love of Egyptian dance, and conducts study tours to Egypt under the name Eternal Egypt Tours.
Los Angeles, CA. has been Zahra’s home base since 1984, where she has been one of LA’s most esteemed teachers for many years. Her always-evolving style keeps students, old and new, coming back for more.
She is also the artistic director of the Ghazella Dance Company, and has written, directed and choreographed theatre productions intertwining Middle Eastern stories and dance, under the name Po Na Na Dance Theatre (loosely meaning a blend of many things) since 1997. Her productions include Layla and Majnun; The Veils of Inanna; Tapestry; and Journey, In Search of the Divine.
Music is why we dance. Always dance to the music, with the music, and only because of the music.
Watching a dancer show off tricky complex moves one after another, just to try to wow the audience is like watching
someone do aerobics. It becomes nothing more than an exercise drill. The simplest movement can be brilliant when
executed beautifully, in perfect harmony with music.
Zahra’s certification program, Artistry In Motion (AIM), is a dance intensive and dancers symposium, created for the continuing development of oriental dance excellence. In 2007 Zahra co-founded DanceGardenLA dance studio, with dancer, Jenna (formerly of New York). DanceGardenLA is Los Angeles’s hottest dance studio promoting and preserving the art of Middle Eastern dance, where Zahra, along with many of LA’s luminary instructors conduct classes.
A great dancer accomplishes a harmonious blend of strength, elegance, high technical ability, and
musicality, all the while appearing a seamless, effortless vision. A great artist acquires all of these skills,
yet with that acquisition comes the realization the journey has just begun.
