By CRAIG CROSBY
Staff Writer Sunday, February 04, 2007

enlarge Staff photo by Jeff Pouland

Unity College student Nikki Lee, left, smiles while belly dancing recently during a class taught by science professor Emma Creaser.

Today's Top Headlines
from the Kennebec Journal

Rep. Pingree hears varied proposals for health-care solutions
HALLOWELL Fire that cut communications labeled arson
MONMOUTH Police defended after slim budget rejection
State's schools chief to parley
Wasser will lead newsrooms at KJ, Sentinel and in Portland
BRIEFS
Hockey still in picture for Harrington
Portland boxer to face legend's son

All of today's: News | Sports
from the Kennebec Journal

Today's Top Headlines
from the Morning Sentinel

$1.3 MILLION FOR HEALTHREACH
Families Matter grows to meet special needs
Chellie Pingree listens to ideas on health care reform
FARMINGTON Rain alters plans for 4th of July
District regroups after budget failure
Vote on county budget hits snag
Burnham driver wins checkered flag at 2 tracks on same day
Maine boxer gets unique opportunity

All of today's: News | Sports
from the Morning Sentinel

The arms are next, flowing gracefully up and down, like silk swirling in a breeze.

Now comes the waist. Knees slightly bent, shoulders horizontal to the floor, hips thrust side to side.

"Now, listen to the music," says Emma Creaser, as a mix of rhythmic Middle Eastern music plays in the background. The students struggle to keep up as Creaser demonstrates proper technique.

It is just their second class, but the Unity College students who signed up to learn belly dancing are finding more fun, and pain, than they had bargained for.

"It's a core workout," says junior Karen Symes, a wildlife major from Pittston. "It gets your arms. It gets your calves. It gets everything."

"It's hard to keep my knees bent all the time," adds junior Brittany Currier, a wildlife major from Ripley.

Belly dancing is a new course offering for Unity College this year.

Creaser, who held a couple of classes on campus last year for the Women's Environmental Leadership program, agreed to teach the class when approached by students who attended last year's sessions. Senior Tara Morgan, an ecology major from Fairfax, Vt., wrote the course description.

"I've been interested in belly dancing since high school," Morgan said. "This is the first opportunity I've had to learn it."

The one-credit art course meets every Wednesday. Students will be graded on their effort and participation, including a public performance at the end of the year. The class reached its 14-student limit on the second day of registration.

"The students wanted it," Creaser says. "They set it all up. There were girls who wanted to take it that couldn't get in."

If Unity College, which specializes in training environmentalists, seems an unlikely setting for a belly dancing class. Creaser is perhaps the least likely of teachers. With a doctorate in marine physiology, the head of marine biology at Unity still marvels at her ability to break free of her inhibitions for an art she recognizes is very exotic.

"I'm British," she says, her accent still intact. "How much more uptight can you be? You become more comfortable with your body."

Creaser took up belly dancing less than three years ago when a friend from church began offering lessons. Since those first faltering steps Creaser has traveled as far as St. John, New Brunswick, and Boston to take part in belly dancing workshops.

"I always knew I was never going to be a ballet dancer," Creaser says.

Being a relative newcomer to the art, Creaser was reluctant to teach the class. She agreed, with her instructor's reassurance, because Creaser believes belly dancing can develop essential traits, such as creativity and health, that should be a vital component of higher education.

"It's a really good way to make people well-rounded, body and mind," she says. "Really, this is about an all-around education. You have to take care of your body."

After a light warm-up of neck thrusts and snake arms, Creaser begins to introduce the students to more technical elements, such as hip thrusts and an alluring walk that emphasizes hip movement. The students are focused on Creaser's movements and try to imitate them, but there is plenty of giggling.

"It's not shimmy," Creaser says with a chuckle. "The walking shimmy is not what we're doing."

Creaser progresses from one movement to another. Each works off the previous and becomes increasingly difficult.

"That's a nice shimmy," Creaser tells a student.

Finally, the session moves to the dance's namesake when Creaser shows her students how to make their bellies ripple. She tells the students to use their hands to help guide their muscles as they push out with their upper stomach muscles while contracting the lower muscles, then reverse the order. It is not long before the students start to feel a burn.

"It's a really good core workout," Creaser says. "The exercises you do in the gym are not going to impact those muscles."

Next, the students grab their finger cymbals, or zills, and attach one to their thumb and three others to their forefingers. Creaser counts off one-two-three as the students try to keep up with the ever-quickening rhythm of the music.

"This is definitely an exercise like this," Creaser says while patting her head and rubbing her belly.

The students spend the last several minutes of class working all the new moves into a real dance. They strut, thrust and wave in time with the alternating rhythm.

"When in doubt, shimmy," Creaser says, laughing.

When the class is over, several students, including Currier, stick around for extra instruction or to try on some of the garments Creaser brought to class.

"I needed an art course and I'm not real big on the pottery thing," Currier says of her decision to take the class. "I've never done anything like this before."

What she has found is a woman-friendly environment -- one man signed up for the class but had to drop out because of a scheduling conflict -- that is supportive and uplifting. All the students are learning and trying to overcome their own reservations, Currier said.

"You have to not care what other people are looking at and if they're critiquing you," she said.

And unlike other exercises or forms of dance, belly dancing has a way of accentuating the positive for all body types. One need not possess a svelte physique to excel.

"It's a celebration of all body types," Creaser said. "Every body type there is can do a particular move better, so they're all an advantage."

By the end of the semester the students will have learned enough to continue dancing on their own, Creaser said. Many of the students are already quizzing Creaser on workshops and classes available in their hometowns.

Senior Laura Craver, a wildlife and environmental writing major from North Grosvenordale, Conn., has taken tap and jazz dance lessons in the past. Belly dancing has proved to be her passion.

"I like dancing and this seemed fun and exotic," Craver said. "After the first class I was addicted."

Craig Crosby -- 861-9253

ccrosby@centralmaine.com