 Ashli Costello, 21, is the third generation to carry on the art of belly dancing. It began with her grandmother Maruja Eckart then passed down to her mother Pilar and now to her. LEONARD ORTIZ, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
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Tradition whirls on
A mother teaches her daughter, her granddaughter and decades of community center visitors the art of belly dancing.
Traveling across the Strait of Gibraltar, 12-year-old Maruja left her native Spain to visit Morocco with her parents. There the young girl learned the tradition the she would pass on to her daughter, her granddaughter and eventually to hundreds of Huntington Beach women – the art of belly dancing.
After years of belly dancing in venues throughout Spain, Maruja Eckart, who declines to give her age, arrived in the United States in the 1960s, eventually settling in Orange County. Here she began teaching her daughter Pilar the Turkish and Moroccan style of belly dance she learned as a child. Pilar didn't take to it immediately: "I didn't think I was voluptuous enough to be a belly dancer."
Years later, when Pilar's daughter Ashli was old enough, Maruja taught her, too. "When I would go to grandma's she would let me pick out my veil. I would always pick my favorite color, pink," says Ashli, now 21. During that time Maruja started teaching belly dancing at the Murdy Community Center in Huntington Beach, and she has continued teaching for the past 30 years.
Now, Maruja, Pilar and Ashli gather at the community center each week to pass on the art of belly dancing to future generations.
