I am a Master teacher of BellyDance Worldwide Teachers, my students are in more than 50 countries, I've been teaching BellyDance since 1993 and related to the Arab Artistic World since 1982. I teach a bellydance program made by two courses, first course I created in Egypt on the year 2008, and second course in 2011 when I was contacted by Unided Nations of Dance to choose me and my program to get involved as an International Qualification, since then my students they can open their dance schools internationally in more than 155 countries when they achieve Level 3 provided by the CID (equivalent to ending the BQBDTC of my program).
I was born in an artistic Bellydance & Arabian atmosphere, due that my mom was one of the first bellydancers in Spain. I grew up between musicians and dancers of the Arab World.
I studied the career of Classical Ballet as a full-time student, and soon I started to shine in the BellyDance career when I joined my mom's clases, assisting her students and then dancing next to her. Soon I started to make her sustitutions and then a while after my own shows around Spain, Morocco, around Europe as tours, and later on in Paris 1998 and London from year 2000.
I studyied in London the career of Architecture BA at University while I kept dancing and teaching BellyDance during those 5 years.On those times, I danced in the most high class Arabian (egyptian, turkish, lebaneese, moroccan, argelian, iranian, ...), Indian and Greek restaurants in London as a regular performer. I started to be known in London when I had to come back to Spain.
But still nowadays the owners of those restaurants and musicians remember me, I use to be known with the stage name of Shams al Nur, in 2002 I change it to Amora Shams.
I stayed in Spain for 2 years, while I started to upload my videos, the photo with the sword on my head is from the video which quickly got many visits, in few months, when YouTube was still new in the internet, this video become for a while the most seen Bellydance video on the internet.
And then I went to continous my dance career in the land of the Pharaohs, which I had to be for 15 years of my life preparing myself to be ready to dance there.
And I felt prepared until I arrived there, becuase I found out the badly image that a dancer had and still has in Egypt.
Soon I started to be very dissapointed on the quality of dance they were performing there, they were never again like those dancers that I watched on the VHS videos and Egyptian Satelite that I grew up with, I started to wonder what happen to them? What happened to Bellydance in Egypt?
While staying in Egypt, I was continously asked to teach, at the beginning I didn't want to teach, I was feeling that was incorrect to teach in the land of the Egyptians as I am a foreigner, but very quickly by a comment that someone did, I started to understand why was important to teach, even to Egyptians, to teach them to dance properly, with morals, with good techniques, and to recover how they use to dance 20 years before me arriving to Egypt, my point of view changed when I was told by an Egyptian lady (after watching my dancing) the following sentence:
"You have the moral responsability to clean up and change the image of BellyDance in Egypt!"
This sentence really affected me, I felt instantly a very heavy weight over my body, but thanks to her, I decided to create for first time ever, even if I was doing something similar but not structured before wth private students, was to create a Structurated Course with levels, and under my point of view, as a very experienced teacher, in that moment already teaching BellyDance for 15 years and related to BellyDance for already 25 years, to provide with Level Certifications, and this is how I ended up teaching the course that nowadays I call it BBDC.
I wanted to create a course that in just 1 month (normally the time that any job gives you free for holidays), students could go back to their lifes and start a new life if they wanted, independly of their starting level at the beginning of the course, they could end up performing "as a profesional performer", obiously not like a 5* dancer straight away after the course, but give them enough knowledge that they will need through their dance career to make them become the 5* dancer that many want to become without the need to go to more teachers, and this was not at all an easy job, but not impossible, just because I was already teaching in an intensive way to private students and in an easy way to group weekley students for already 15 years, and those private students will allways say the same:
"Noneone teaches as quick you taught me!" ...
"Noneone shares how you share with me the secrets of BellyDance" ...
"You are amazing, I never had a so dedicated teacher like you" ...
Comments that any teacher could keep going on to teach like I do, but is not an easy job, because requires lot of dedication while you have your students in front of you, not only in the class, but also in my free time!
Each course I teach, I always end up very tired, I take two weeks to phisically recover and come back to normality. But I become the happiest person on Earth when I see that my effort was worthed, when I see that my students make an spectacular performance in the Show Test, dancing in front of public and everyone wowing them, public comming to tell me that they were amazing, some even saying that they look like they were performing for many years, and this really makes me happy, because many times my students were just absolute beginners 20 days before!
When Suher Zaki sister, saw my BBDC students Show Test in 2011, she told me that I am doing a good job, and she encoraged me to keep teaching the course.After the course, those who keep going on in their dance career, I like to share their goals, because each one they achieve, is also my own achievment, specially when i see in their dancing the corrections I made to them, the movements I taught them, the way of doing things that I taught them, the character that I taught each of them to focus in to créate unique dancers not photocopies of other dancers, and so on, ...
Sometimes students are not easy going, some are hard to teach, not becuase they can not move properly, because everyone has a similar bone structure, and for me is not an issue to teach them to move with good quality and elegance as I have done it for 23 years, but because their closed mind.
If a student that comes to me comes with the aptitude that "I pay, I get it" that student will never get any certification from me. I have even been asked by a chinesse dancer to pay for the course and without her attending the course, to send her the certifications, and I told her: "NO WAY!! i am a truthful dance teacher, and I don't give certifcation in exchange of any money! I only provide certification to those students who are good students and complete each level passing written and practical exams." I am sure there must be teachers around the world doing this, but not me.
Maybe I am like this because I had to go through a lot when I was a full-time student for 10 years at the Professional Conservatory of Dance in Spain, they didn't pass anyone the exams, I had to work very hard to get all my marks, this is why I am very hard with my course students too, if I am easy going teacher, they will never learn quickly, and the course has a dynamic, and each day they have to learn an specific issue, otherwise they will not improove! This is why the BBDC is the most intensive BellyDance Course on Earth!
And thanks to my way of been, now me and my dance school "Become Belly Dancer School" are proud to be members of the United Nations of Dance and therefore be able to provide with International BellyDance Qualifications.
Warm Regards
Prof. Amora Shams
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