Since falling in love with Middle Eastern dance in 1994 when she was fifteen years old, Mayada has become a dynamic teacher, a popular performer, a creative choreographer, creator of Canada’s first bellydance magazine: MID-BITS, and creator of Bellydance Talk Radio. Mayada has taught bellydance classes across Toronto at venues including Fierce Fitness, Arabesque Academy, Royal Ontario Museum, Ryerson University, York University, Toronto Bellydance Collective, as well as running specialty workshops across the continent. Mayada has performed throughout Canada and the US. Highlights have included opening for many great masters (Wael Kfoury, Assi Helani, George Wassouf, Ragheb Alameh, and others), Royal Ontario Museum, Caravan, CNE, United Nations Millennium Summit (NYC), Int’l Conference on Middle Eastern Dance (LA), Int’l Bellydance Conference of Canada, theatrical presentations Descent of Ishtar and Isis, as well as performing for years as a regular soloist at Arabic restaurants, clubs, and special events. Mayada loves to blend knowledge from her fitness background, her own self-love theories, and bellydance to spread the message of loving yourself fit!

Christina Djokoto began her music and dance education at an early age with training in classical piano, flute, ballet and jazz. In 1995 her interests turned to Middle Eastern Dance and she began a twenty year journey studying, touring, and performing as both a member of the original Arabesque Dance Company, and as a featured soloist. Along the way Christina has also explored and performed Latin, Brazilian, and Afro-Caribbean dance forms. Christina’s enthusiasm for music and dance persists today, mostly by dancing in her kitchen when only her dogs are watching.

In 2006 Leanna started studying Oriental Dance with local teachers in Hamilton and eventually in Toronto. She has also learned from many international instructors such as Mahmoud Reda, Aida Nour, Tito Seif and Randa Kamel. Leanna’s most memorable dance experiences include playing a bellydancer on the TV show Reign (2016) and performing in the Cirque du Soleil Opening Ceremony of the Pan-Am Games (2015). As a lead dancer in Arabesque Dance Company (now Yasmina Ramzy Arts) she has performed in the production of Sawah (2014), the International Stage at the CNE (2016- 2018) and Dance Ontario Dance Weekend (2014-2020). Leanna directs BellaDance who performed in Hamilton’s biggest arts festival, Supercrawl in 2019. Leanna also performs regularly as a soloist with the Arabesque Entertainment Agency and has engaged audiences for over 10 years.

Seduced by the richness of Middle Eastern Music and the beauty of the dance movements, Katy began taking Middle Eastern Dance classes in 2003 at Arabesque Academy with Yasmina Ramzy, Denise Mireau, Audra Simmons, Mary and Saba. In 2005, Katy joined the Rhythm of the Nile Dance Company, under the direction of Nada El Masriya. There, she discovered her passion for Egyptian Folkloric dance, realizing her dream to perform as a lead dancer in “Rhythm of the Nile”, “Ayyam Zaman”, and later in “Egyptian Panorama”, and “El Toreth El Masryi”,with the now named Egyptian Dance Company. A highlight of Katy’s career was having the honour to share the same stage as The Reda Troupe, when they performed in Toronto in 2012. Katy has explored and studied other dance forms such as Ballet, Hip Hop, and Flamenco. She has also taken workshops with renowned artists, Fifi Abdo, Randa Kamal, Aida Nour, Doaa Salaam, Aziza of Montreal, Hannan Sultan, Nesrin Bahaa, Ehab Hassan, Tito Seif, Roula Said, Mohamed Shahin, Mohamed Salah, and Dr. George Sawa. Passing on her love of bellydance to her students at Egyptian Dance Academy, Katy worked as an instructor from 2008 to 2016. In November of 2016, Katy joined The Arabesque Dance Company, where she continues to grow as a dancer and performs at various events in Toronto such as Dance Ontario Dance Weekend, Bellydance Blossom Festival 2017, and Scrubs the City: Marrakech Fundraiser in support of SickKids Foundation.

Anastassia began her Egyptian dance journey at Arabesque when she was 16; taught by Melissa Gamal, Saba Alemayehu, Sarita, Amy Leung, Yasmina Ramzy herself, and many others. For her, this dance is a way to manifest more beauty into the world. Performing has been a big part of her life; she has been a devoted troupe member of diverse and dynamic groups: including the Arabesque Academy Troupe (director: Yasmina Ramzy), the Undines (director: Ioana Timariu), and Snake Bite (director: Laura McCutchan). The past few years have been transformative in her dance with the help of Yasmina Ramzy, Badia Star, Zahira, Mohamed Salah, and Nada el Masriya. She has taken workshops with renowned dancers such as Randa Kamel, Esmeralda Colabone, and Shahrzad. In 2018 she joined Arabesque Dance Company / Yasmina Ramzy Arts (a long-time dream) and is now excited to help the vision of Al Qamar come to life.

Asli has always been impressed with belly dancing and admired it in her home country, Turkey. In 2010, she started learning under the instruction of Joanne Camilleri at University of Toronto. These classes enhanced her passion for this art form. From 2010 to 2018, she was part of Dragonfly Belly Dance Studio, and she improved her dance skills under the tutelage of Zahira and Anuka. During this time, she was also part of the Dragonfly Student Troupe (2013-2016), performing in Luminescence (2015) and Alchemy (2017). As of 2019, she is a new member of Yasmina Ramzy Arts/Arabesque Dance Company, under the mentorship of Yasmina Ramzy. She has performed in many festivals including Dance Ontario Dance Weekend (2019), Habari Africa Festival (2019) and Canadian Arab Orchestra Multicultural Festival (2019). Alongside belly dance, she also performs Turkish Rom and she is an ardent student of Egyptian Folklore styles. In 2016, she won an award for her Turkish Rom style performance at Star Belly Dance Canada.

Rhythm Vekariya started Belly dancing in India in 2014 under her dance teacher Joseph Stanley. Since then she won numerous dance competitions and talent shows. Belly Dance just came naturally to her. In 2016, she decided to pass on this knowledge further to other girls. She started organizing belly dance workshops and choreographed various shows all over the small city of Ahmedabad in India. She also studied belly dance with the famous Belly dancer of India – Meher Malik. Currently Rhythm is a part of a company named – Yasmina Ramzy Arts in Toronto. She looks forward to study oriental dance under different teachers and grow as an artist.

Vivian has always been surrounded with dance and music. Her mom is a piano teacher who also directs singing classes. She sent Vivian to learn Chinese folklore dance and piano since she was 6 year old. Fell in love with Bellydance was at a lecture about world dance forms, Vivian was amazed by how charming and beautiful Bellydance is and deeply attractive to it. She taught by Dariya Mitskevich for two semesters and graduated from her professional training class. She’s been performing and teaching classes ever since. After moving to Canada, she won 2cd place of professional soloist from Hamilton International Bellydance Competition, she got invited to perform on CANADA NATIONAL TV (CNTV) for Chinese New Year Gala. She is a new member of Yasmina Ramzy Arts/Arabesque Dance Company. Keep exploring and passing the passion of Bellydance.