Elen oriental

At the age of six, I began attending the School for Athletic Fine Arts. Two years later my teacher advised me to move to a ballet studio.

 

At the age of twelve, I decided to study in the department of World National Dances, and completed my studies in 1996.

 

I consider a fortunate twist of fate, that I met Yelena Arzuniants, a wonderful dance teacher and famous dancer in the past. Yelena was one of the few students of Makhmoud Esembayev. She has been giving me individual lessons in her private studio, and thus I studied oriental dances for two and a half years completely free of charge. Later I was accepted to the college of Choreography as well as N. Pridonishvili School of Popular Dance, both of which I graduated with honors in 2001. During the same year I completed courses on manual bio-massage and extra sensory methods, which proved very useful in my later studio work.

 

From 2001 to the present I have been teaching oriental dances (initially providing individual classes, but now I am teaching groups). The essence of my method is that I help my students to improve the condition of their muscles and joints as well as to prepare psychologically to perform the difficult yet totally compelling moves of belly dancing. Most people do not normally use the groups of muscles which are needed for the flexible and iconic “shimmy hips” moves of belly dancing. This physical and psychological preparation is achieved through a combination of warm-ups and gymnastics with the elements of yoga and dance movements.

 

My lessons are two hours each. During the first part of each lesson the students perform fitness training combined with yoga in order to firm muscles and relax joints. During the second part of the class we are learning dance movements and of course dancing. My methods result in weight loss (thanks to speeding-up of metabolism), straighten posture, relieved back pain, and normalization of the function of digestive organs (thanks to blood circulation in the abdomen) and improved mood and tone.