Tapp’s Arts Center offers popular belly dancing classes

A six-week belly dancing workshop at Tapp’s Arts Center hasn’t even started yet, and already, it’s so popular that organizers are considering offering another segment, programs manager Shige Kobayashi said.

The workshop, which begins at 7 p.m. tonight, is sold out, but “we’re taking contact information from people who are interested,” Kobayashi said. The second segment would probably begin later this month.

Ashley Moore, who will instruct the classes, has been belly dancing since 2005 and was instrumental in developing Columbia’s Delirium Tribal into Columbia Alternacirque.

“Drawing from her previous experience in dance and belly dance and tribal fusion, she’s applying it to healthy living in general and new motherhood,” Kobayashi said.

Moore herself is a new mom.

“I was always inspired by the women in my life to be my truest self through belly dance,” Moore writes on her website. “Now that I have a daughter of my own, I feel it is more important than ever that I follow my heart and nurture the creative spirits of those around me. It is my mission to be a fine mother and an exemplary teacher for those who might use movement as their medium.”

Moore will teach the key movements of her style of performance, which borrows techniques from cabaret and tribal dances. Students also will learn how to choreograph their own dances. The workshop is $60 for six sessions.

Call Tapp’s Arts Center at (803) 988-0013 for information on future belly dancing classes.

Moore will host open studios from 6 to 10 p.m. Thursday at Tapp’s Arts Center, 1644 Main St., for anyone interested in signing up for a future class. The open studios are part of the gallery’s First Thursday reception, which also includes live music by Silver Screen Orchestra in the courtyard, Dave Robbins’ “The Pace of Nature” exhibition in the main exhibition hall, and work by studio artists.

Rebekah Lewis Hall, rhall@thestate.com