HIBA YONO

‘Everything you always wanted to know about belly dancing but were afraid to ask,’ would subtitle any interview with Hiba Yono, the West Bloomfield-based dancer who brings her art to numerous venues as varied as St. Jude’s Children’s Benefit and our own ‘Taste of the Arab World’ premiere.

She’s quick to dispel the most common misconceptions—that there is the slightest connection with what she studies, performs and teaches—and erotic dancing.   “We’re not strippers,” she says, amused at the often prudish confusion that surrounds her artistic efforts.  “This is an ancient form of dance, once linked with fertility symbols at Arab weddings.  I fell in love with the movements and the freedom expressed in belly dancing very young.  I was four years old when I first began to dance.”

Specializing in the style known as Egyptian Oriental, Hiba’s performances are filled with beauty, sensitivity and poetic expression.  A strikingly beautiful women (an accountant by day), Hiba’s dancing is part of a tradition that is possibly the oldest in the world.  Said to have originated in Egypt, it may have descended from a religious dance Temple Priestesses once practiced.

Hiba refers to the art form by its Iraqi name, raqs baladi or by the general Arabic raks sharqi, and speaks of it with a reverence and spirituality that transcends the spoken word:

“There’s no real way to phrase how I feel when I dance,” she says.  “It’s my zen.”