Nina is a professional belly dance performer and instructor with over 30 years of experience choreographing and performing in the Baltimore-Washington Metropolitan area, Puerto Rico, New York City, and Northern New York. Over the years many of her advanced students and a few of her very young students have been involved in some of her many community performances including locally at events such as the Holistic Health Fair in Potsdam. In 1985 she brought the essential beauty of this vibrant dance form to the North Country, and continues to offer instruction in belly dance to area residents.
Belly dance is a beautiful, colorful expressive dance and a creative art form. The dance movements exercise and tone the body as the rhythms capture the heart and uplift the spirit, making this a healthy, enjoyable and fun dance for body, mind and spirit.
Throughout her many years as a belly dancer Nina has enjoyed a wealth of experience and training in numerous other dance styles. She is a multifaceted instructor with knowledge of a wide range of dance forms from other cultures. Her belief in the principle of unity in diversity inspired her to involve herself in intensive study with an exhaustive list of preeminent instructors of various other styles of dance.
Nina’s interest in working with children led her into another life experience as an early childhood educator. While living in the Baltimore-Washington Metropolitan area she worked as an educator with the Faulkner Ridge Montessori School, the Singer Learning Center, and the Early Childhood Learning Center. She also served as a children’s class teacher for many years for her faith community (Bahá’í Faith) in Maryland, North Carolina, and New York.
She combined her love for educating children with her skills as a dance instructor. Locally she provided dance classes for young children for the Madrid Youth Commission and for PICIES multi-cultural organization based in neighboring Franklin county. She has worked with children to put on multi-cultural music and dance performances at festivals, malls, and other organized events.
Brilliant Star Children’s Program, Nina’s inspiration, came about as a result of her experiences providing dance instruction to children. This program received a grant in 2003 from the New York State Council on the Arts. Brilliant Star Children’s Program was created to offer children a workshop where their hearts and minds could be uplifted through the use of songs, dance, games, and other activities (including multi-cultural activities), all of which conveyed positive messages for the participants. This program was successfully conducted in Asheville, NC; Montgomery County MD; Northern Virginia, and New York State. It has proven to be a source of upliftment and delight for participating children and their parents. The current offering at the Yoga Loft, Brilliant Star multi-cultural dance for children, shares similarities with this program but is unique. It provides a strong multi-cultural experience for children through one of the most fundamental elements of humankind, namely, dance.
Nina also does Polarity Therapy and she is a Reiki Master. She has also produced a music CD with dance activity booklet for children entitled "Let’s Sing Dance and Light up the World". She enthusiastically believes in the healing power of music and dance and both practices this belief in her daily life and warmly provides this to others.
