Ayshe is a New York dance artist,
choreographer and designer. Ayshe blends her Greek and American heritage to create an exotic and unusual dance style. She has trained extensively in classical ballet, modern dance, yoga, and numerous ethnic dance forms, particularly Middle Eastern dance, ancient Pharaonic dance, and Indian dance. She holds a B.A. from Hunter College in Dance & Human Movement, Archaeology, and Middle Eastern Studies. Ayshe's dance styles include: Turkish and Egyptian style bellydance, Indian dance, ancient Egyptian Pharaonic dance, and fusion/ fantasy bellydance.
Recent projects and appearances:
Recently, Ayshe has been working on creative performance projects and workshops with Venus Uprising (www.venusuprising.com) and has been performing in dance and fitness dvd's for World Dance New York. In the spring of 2009 she performed and taught at Maja's "Spirit of the Tribes" in Florida and had the honor to perform at Cirque du Soleil's premiere party for the show Kooza. In 2009 she started working with a new group, "Cult of Isis", focused on performing ancient Egyptian dances. The group premiered in the Venus Uprising show, Metamorphosis and at Rakkasah East of that year. In 2010, she taught and performed at Rakkasah's Spring Caravan and Cult of Isis was featured at the NY Theatrical Bellydance Conference in July. Lastly, in the spring, Ayshe joined Tayyar Akdeniz's "Folk Tours" as a personal assistant and member of the teaching staff. In 2011 Ayshe is excited to announce being invited to teach and perform at the Theatrical Bellydance Conference. Also, she is scheduled to teach at the Rakkasah Spring Caravan in 2012.
Past projects and appearances:
For many years Ayshe has danced throughout the New York area, in clubs, museums, cultural festivals, and theater settings. Some notable appearances have been at MTV's Christmas Party, the Taj Mahal Casino and Ceasar's Palace in Atlantic City. Also, of note, have been appearances at the Museum of Natural History and Lincoln Center's Bruno Walter Auditorium with Morocco's Casbah Dance Experience. As part of New York City's summer arts festival she appeared on Summerstage with renown Calypsonian, Super Blue, and again in the New York Grand Opera's production of Aida (2003 & 2008). In the summer of 2002, Ayshe performed and did costuming for Jehan's off-Broadway production of Goddessdance, at the American Theater for Actors, and again in 2003 at the Poet's Den and the Director's Studio. Also, in spring 2003 she appeared in an international music and dance festival in Trinidad. In 2004, Ayshe appeared in Lincoln Center's summer dance series as part of the show, "Divas of Middle Eastern Dance".
Over the years, Ayshe has appeared with numerous dance companies from the New York tri-state area. Within the Middle Eastern realm these have included, the already mentioned, Morocco's Casbah Dance Experience and Jehan's Goddessdance. Besides these she also appeared with the Shoshana Dance Theatre, the American Egyptian Dance Co., and Ramzi El Edlebi's dance troupe. She collaborated with Nadia Moussa for several years on a number of projects, appearing and presenting works in venues such as the Public Theatre and the Turkish community's millennium Mayfest Arts Events Series. In the mid-nineties she organized a New Jersey Middle Eastern dance series, at the Istanbul Tavern Dinner Club, that bi-annually presented different dance troupes. These included Oriental Images, Dunyavi Dance Theatre, and Morocco's Casbah Dance Experience.
Ayshe's Wings of Isis
Besides designing a number of the costumes featured in Goddessdance, Ayshe has been designing "Wings of Isis", a spectacular dance prop that transforms a dancer into a vision of a winged goddess. Ayshe is responsible for the initiation of "Isis wings" as a specialty for Bellydance cabaret performances. Her instructional dvd, WINGS: THE COMPLETE TECHNIQUE, is the only one of its kind, fully describing and teaching, step by step, the movement vocabulary that Ayshe has created for dancing with wings. Wings were originally used for costuming in Las Vegas acts & Caribbean carnival parades. They found their way into Middle Eastern dance as a means to depict the Egyptian Goddess, Isis, who appears on ancient wall paintings with large bird wings.
Ayshe designs wings for dancers worldwide. Her wings are featured in BELLY DANCE SUPERSTARS. Her company, "Wings of Ayshe", emphasizes designing high quality wings of unusual fabrics and textures. Ayshe continues to experiment with wings, using them with many styles of music and movement.
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