The London Times - February 2004

Belly dancing: Shake it, shake it, baby!
You can belly dance your way to fertility. That’s the miracle claim for women who are having difficulty conceiving

by Anne Dixey

It is an unlikely place for miracles to happen.
First you hear the noise from the jangling of coin belts around swinging hips and the tribal whoops of encouragement. Then you see a mass of swaying skirts and veils.
But this is no ordinary dance class. Many of the women here have achieved personal miracles after years of suffering from health problems. Some are looking for answers that the conventional US medical system is either unable or unwilling to give. And others are, quite literally, belly dancing for babies.
This joyous band of sisters — from teenagers to grandmothers — are disciples of the charismatic Dr Sunyatta Amen, advocate of alternative medicine, vegetarianism and belly dancing.
“My grandfather was the healer for his village in the Caribbean — what the doctor cannot fix there you go to the medicine man for,” she says.
She began training in conventional medicine but, with a vegan dad who ran a health food shop in Harlem and a Jamaican-Cuban family who loved to dance, her roots were pulling her elsewhere. “Belly dancing is a dance of fertility,” she says. “The movements mimic conception and childbirth as well as traditional women’s jobs like carrying a pot of water on your head. It helps the menstrual cycle, fibroids and the symptoms of menopause.”
Last year seven women in the class had babies, including Sunyatta, who danced the whole nine months of pregnancy. Four of those suffered from fibroids — benign tumours that grow within the wall of the uterus — or other complications. One of them is Pamela Ouwigho, resplendent in an ornate belly-dancing costume. She proudly passes her seven-month-old daughter around the class, her own little miracle.Her doctor told her the pregnancy was “high risk” because she had severe fibroids which can cause miscarriage or early onset of labour. But Pamela believed belly dancing helped her to understand her body, in particular her uterus.

So did Carmen Hines, six months pregnant, serenely swirling her veil around her unborn child. The office worker and waitress had a history of cervical problems before joining the class. “My doctor thought I would have a lot of problems,” says Carmen, 29. “He said ‘don’t be disappointed if you do not get pregnant’.”
Another dancer, Ayanna McNeil, 31, had been trying unsuccessfully to conceive for a year before starting the class. Her doctor told her she just had to wait. “Sunyatta talked about how isolating some areas of the body would benefit the reproductive organs. Within two months of starting belly dancing I conceived. I attribute a lot of that to the work I was doing in class. When I was giving birth I used some of the movements she taught us. My labour and delivery were amazing — almost pain free.”
Belly dancing is said to be the oldest form of dance, traditionally performed for other women, often during fertility rites. Dancers go barefoot to be in physical touch with the Earth. Sunyatta advocates that dancing is done in conjunction with a “dancer’s diet” — for many a radical move from junk food to whole grains and raw ingredients. The combination has been life-transforming for Abiola Idris, 34. She suffered ten years of menstrual cramps, heavy bleeding and sickness. It was so bad that she often had to miss work. Six months after joining the dance class and changing her diet the symptoms were gone. “In two years I have lost 20lb (9kg),” she says. “Going to the gym is so mechanical; here we have fun, bonding and unity.”

Shannon Lewis, 25, is dancing in defiance of her family history. Her mother, grandmother and great aunts have all had hysterectomies for fibroids; cousins and aunts already have them. Shannon is hoping that following Sunyatta Amen’s path might just save her.

EXCERPTED/EDITED