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 May 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).

Miranda has been studying bellydance at Zanzibar ever since, and has been performing with the Dandasha Dance Company since 2004. She began teaching in 2005. She has attended workshops by Ziah Ali of Awalim, Tobias Roberson, Mira Betz, Urban Tribal, Ultra Gypsy, and flamenco dancer Noelia.

Miranda has two science degrees and currently handles diversity/inclusion programming and grantwriting at the Chattanooga Zoo, in addition to managing the petting zoo. When she is not communing with glorious ladies at the studio or her hooved children at work, she communes with cats Tango, Yuki, Solomon and Lilah, and ponders how to renovate her new house with little money or skills.

"Bellydance and Zanzibar Studio continue to bless my life and challenge me physically, mentally, and spiritually."