Arts & Entertainment
Kashmir Nights Hafla Brings Bellydancing to New Port Richey
Bellydancers share their talents at the Kashmir Nights Bellydance Hafla.
On the third Tuesday of every month, the Quality Inn off U.S. 19 in New Port Richey is host to more than sleeping visitors. It’s a meeting place to celebrate art and life through dance as bellydancers show off their skills at the Kashmir Nights Bellydance Hafla.
The host of this event- a bellydancer and instructor herself- is GloriAnna Longton, a woman who resides on the Port Richey/New Port Richey border. She began the Hafla, an Arabic word standing for “party,” in January 2010 after six years of studying and practicing bellydancing.
“There isn’t anything else like this in Pasco County,” Longton said. “It’d be great if there were more venues like this that encourage people to practice and show off theirs arts.”
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This past Tuesday, August 16, Longton’s eight-year-old daughter and her friends collected the $5 entry fees from guests as they walked through the door’s of the hotel’s restaurant and lounge. They smiled and asked guests to buy tickets for items like free bellydance lessons, skirts with coin fringes and sparkly handmade jewelry to be raffled off later that night.
Most of the attendees were family and friends of the bellydancers who then invited more family and friends out until there were 50 or more people lounging about talking and laughing and checking out the jewelry and bellydance clothing vendors in the back.
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The dancers- from students to professionals- took turns dancing to their personal musical styles, ranging from tribal fusion to more traditional Bollywood and Middle Eastern music.
Their outfits were glitzed up with clanging coin fringes and sequins and sparkled in the dimly-lit room as they danced both improvised and choreographed steps.
New Port Richey resident Sherry Stamback, who goes by , danced to "Annie’s Song" by John Denver, in memory of her grandfather. A music mix-up caused the beat to switch to one more lively and to the crowd’s delight, she quickly switched to a faster-paced dance until the music was corrected back to her song.
“Do I bellydance?” Stamback said when asked why she enjoyed bellydancing. Stamback said bellydancers typically study not only different styles of dance but the history and cultural relevance behind the art.
“Bellydance” invokes images of beautiful, young, sultry-looking women in midriff-baring clothing with movements centered around their bellies but it’s a little misleading. Bellydancing uses the whole body, especially the hips, and the dancers range in age and body type, all of them beautiful, all of them confident.
Longton said that bellydancing is not only an art but a fitness routine that is low-impact and which teaches you to isolate and control your muscles.
“Bellydancing tones you in a really feminine way. You become more shapely, more womanly,” Longton said. “It gives you a lot more confidence and more comfort with your body. I see people really open up and become more familiar with their body. That aspect is good for women because they have a lot of insecurities about their bodies and bellydancing kind of cures that and then they go out on stage.”
New Port Richey resident Doris Berge, who goes by “Lady D” when she bellydances, said that getting out in front of people built up her confidence and gives her a creative outlet.
“I can change the way that I look and be very creative in my costumes and the way I dance,” Berge said. “The Tampa Bay bellydancers network is huge and I never knew that before.”
Unfortunately, Longton said, bellydance is sometimes compared to a more risqué form of dancing.
“I don’t think that when bellydancers are dancing they’re thinking it’s sexy,” Longton said. “It’s sensual but I think people get the wrong ideas about it. They compare it to pole-dancing and that’s not even close. It’s an ancient art form that goes back 14,000 years. There are Egyptian hieroglyphics depicting women dancing and dressed as bellydancers.”
During the intermission, world-famous boogie keyboard player Tommy Johnson, who’s had millions of hits on his YouTube videos, played his keyboard for the audience and even had Longton’s daughter sing “Over the Rainbow” while he played.
When the last group, Nature Coast Tribal, finished dancing, the bellydancers were all called up by name to take a few more artful steps, in place of a courtesy, for a final round of applause and cheers and from the audience.
Old and new friends bid one another their goodbyes and wished safe driving and a good night upon each other. This tight-knit community feel, in addition to the talent and variety of music and dance, Longton said, is what attracts people out on these Tuesday nights.
“I think if more people knew about [Hafla], it’d be even larger.,” Longton said. “And there are so many different styles of bellydancing.”
Check out Longton's website for updated event information on upcoming Hafla bellydance nights.
