about us

	Andrea Perkins has been teaching bellydance since 2002. She opened Zanzibar in 2003 with Cat Johnson and directs the Dandasha Dance Company. In 2005, she received her yoga instructor certification from the Asheville Yoga Center, under the direction of Stephanie Keach. Originally from Salt Lake City, Utah, Andrea began her study of bellydance when she was fifteen years old with Kismet, after many years of ballet, modern dance, and theater training. After graduating from the University of Utah with a BA in Literature, Andrea moved to Cairo, Egypt for a year in order to teach English and write for Egypt Today, where she covered art and entertainment. In Egypt, she experienced the dance at its source, in its original cultural context. After returning to the states, she worked as a staff writer for Metro Santa Cruz, an alternative weekly newspaper in the Bay Area. Read more...
	Juli Downum's life took an unexpected turn in her second year of college when she bumped into a belly dancer in her collegiate place of employ, Banana Republic. Juli did not know the woman was a belly dancer or what the pending conversation would hold for her. If she had she may not have asked, but she could not resist the temptation to satisfy her curiosity regarding this peculiar style of dress. One simple question, “why are you dressed like that?” not only changed the course evening, as Juli was given her first rather painful and public impromptu lesson, but the course of her life, as the dancer, hereafter referred to as Susan Yates, so prophetically said it would. Read more...
	Born and raised right outside of Chattanooga, Miranda Cagle took the typical Southern girl dance trilogy of ballet, tap, and jazz, but years of scientific schooling and personal anxiety kept her far away from the performing arts through her teens and twenties. A serendipitous glimpse of tribal bellydancers at a California Rennaissance Faire in 2003 was the moment that turned out to change her life and led her to save and repeatedly muse over a class advertisement she saw when she came back home. She started taking classes with Andrea Perkins at Zanzibar in the fall of 2003 on a dare from a friend (at the time she was so body-conscious and private that she didn’t wear tank tops or shorts). Read more...
	Stacey Nolan is a Chattanooga native who holds a BS in Public Relations, with a double minor in Spanish and Vocal Music from MTSU. She is currently pursuing a Master's Degree in Secondary Education from UTC. Stacey started our as a gymnast when she was eight and began to pursue her vocal training at age thirteen. She has been studying Middle Eastern Dance at Zanzibar Studio, under the direction of Andrea Perkins, since 2004. She has also worked with other teachers of Middle Eastern and world dance, including Rachel Brice, Jill Parker(Ultra Gypsy), Heather Stanz (Urban Tribal), Mira Betz, Elizabeth Strong, Noella Garcia Carmon, and Nichole Hanna (Gypsyville). Read more...