About Us
Andrea
With almost twenty years of bellydance experience behind her, Andrea has a close familiarity with classical, folkloric and modern forms of the dance. Aside from training with teachers based in New Zealand, Brazil, the USA, Russia and Italy, she has travelled to Egypt to learn from renowned dancers such as Yasmina, Heba, Ashraf Kodak, Hasaan Saber and Dalida.
While in Egypt, Andrea took the opportunity to attend cultural performances, research costumes and enjoy the local culture. Passionate about Arabic music and dance, Andrea seeks to create choreographies and costumes that authentically reflect those of the Middle East. She has a heartfelt mission to bring Egypt to Aotearoa.
In 2012, Andrea became Aziza's principal teacher and director and began to share her knowledge with students. Committed to promoting bellydance as an artform, she has organised numerous glittering showcases featuring local dancers and guest artists.
Bellydance connects Andrea to her true self and allows her to escape stereotypes associated with race, age, religion and body type. It is this sense of freedom and oneness with the self that she hopes to inspire in her students. When her students smile as they enter the studio and dance with soulful joy, she sees her vision as a teacher falling into place.
Rebecca
Rebecca's love of Egypt began in 1989 when she spent five weeks travelling from Cairo to Aswan and back. Six years later she took her first bellydance class with Vivienne Lee Smith of Newcastle upon Tyne. Vivienne brought glamour, decades of experience and sumptuous moves to class, and her early encouragement is why Rebecca is still dancing thirty years on.
After moving to Scotland, Rebecca took classes with Hilary Thacker, whose knowledge of traditional forms of bellydance (based on her travels and performances in North Africa), taught Rebecca the breadth of this dance form. In 1996, when Rebecca returned to Egypt, she got the chance to try Nubian dancing on a Nile felucca, and that was when she knew that Middle Eastern dancing probably had her for life.
One of the first things Rebecca did on arriving in New Zealand was search up bellydance classes, and in 2019 she began teaching with Aziza. One of her best achievements (aside from her children), is that she has successfully fanned the flames of bellydance addiction in students and lured them into a life of haflas and glorious Aziza companionship. Rebecca is hugely fond of saying, “Without Aziza, I just don’t know where I’d be”.