The Shimmy Sisters: Belly Dancing Businesswomen
By Melanie Dellas

Leilainia and Adelaide aren’t your average belly dancers. They are what they call a “Cabaret Collage.” They fuse traditional Middle Eastern dance with styles of modern, salsa, African, Indian, ballet and hip hop, to bring out the essential elements of who they are. Their diverse shows may include snakes, swords, candles, fire fingers, Isis wings, glow hula hoops, and traditional belly dance props such as veils and zils. They are beautiful and theatrical in their performances, and the audience loves them.

But they are also impressive businesswomen, marketing themselves well, and have quickly become two of San Diego’s most well-known belly dancers.

It all began in El Paso, Texas. Born to a dancer mother and an artist/musician father, Leilainia and Adelaide grew up surrounded by dance and music. “My dad’s Arabic and really got into Middle Eastern music, so my mom started doing belly dancing,” Leilainia said. “I grew up with it all around me. Four of my mom’s friends had kids, so I was one of four girls running around in the little costumes. I thought it was normal, that everyone was creative and had a life like that.”

Moving to San Diego 10 years ago changed all that. “I was performing solo in El Paso, and when I moved here I stopped dancing for awhile because I didn’t know if I liked it,” Leilainia said. “It was just what I always knew, and I wanted to explore other things. I went to SDSU for journalism and realized that without music and dance in my life, I felt like I couldn’t express who I was; like a huge part of me was silenced. So I went back to dancing.” (To read the full article, please see Dance San Diego's March/April 2008 issue!)