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More midlifers taking up belly dancing

By: Kathy Gilbert
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Rhonda Tinsley

Across the city, middle-aged woman are donning slit pants, rolling their bared bellies and clapping cymbals above their heads.

Middle-age crisis? No. They’ve found the joys of belly dancing, an exercise fans say is fun and suitable for any age.

“I love using my body. I want to use it ’til I die, and belly dance is one way I’m going to continue to do that,” said Susan Yates, a Chattanooga baby boomer who declined to give her age. She has studied at Zanzibar Studio downtown for five years.

At Chattanooga Dancesport off Jersey Pike, most students are baby boomers, ages 44 to 62, said Rhonda Tinsley, 51, the instructor for dance troupe Sahara Caravan.

“They’re the ones that have stuck with it the best. They’ve wanted to do it for a while, and once they get involved, they stick with it,” Ms. Tinsley added.

Boomers belly-dance for several reasons. It’s often a deferred dream, students said.

“I loved watching belly dancers. They intrigued me. But from the time I was 20, I was raising children,” said Jeane Davis, a 51-year-old medical referral specialist and Red Bank resident who has studied for a year and a half at Chattanooga Dancesport.

And unlike hip hop, the jitterbug or ballet, belly dance can be performed at any age.

“Older ladies are less intimidated by belly dance than other dance forms. It’s hard to become a ballerina at 45,” said Jillanna Babb-Cheshul, owner of Merry Bellies in North Georgia.

Globally, belly dance is also traditionally performed by senior women, Ms. Babb-Cheshul added.

“One of the things I loved about belly dance is that I could watch a performance by someone who was 60 years old, and it was exciting and beautiful,” she said.

And a slim waistline — challenging to achieve at any age — is neither required nor desired.

Staff Photos by Allison Kwesell Susan Yates, front, and DeeDee Dowden belly-dance at Zanzibar Studio downtown. Ms. Yates, who started dancing five years ago, said it is the best thing that she has ever done for herself. “I don’t feel old,” she said.

“You don’t have to be petite, you don’t have to be gorgeous, you can just come and have a great time,” Ms. Davis said.

As women reach menopause, their pelvic floors tend to weaken. Belly dance also strengthens muscles which, if slack, can cause incontinence, experts say.

For most students, though, belly dance is just a way to have fun.

“I spent the last 58 years holding in my stomach. Now I’m learning not to, and it’s so freeing — almost a guilty pleasure,” said Emily Thayer Campbell, a 59-year-old former non-profit manager from Chattanooga who studies at Zanzibar Studio.

Flowing, flirtatious and feminine, belly dance challenges older women’s notions of aging.

“We need to do something to feel like we look good, because we still have this image in our heads that we were young and beautiful,” Ms. Tinsley said. “And the mirror keeps lying to us that we’re changing.”

E-mail Kathy Gilbert at kgilbert@timesfreepress.com