05072 - Strafford, Vt.
Jade Elias, 6, lives in Strafford with her parents, Pam Doyle and David Elias, and four brothers and sisters. Her first belly dancing performance came without ever having taken a lesson and she's been dancing ever since. The following is an edited interview.
I got a good report card, and when we get a good report card we can do something fun by ourselves and we can pick which parent we want to go with. My mom said there was a belly dance performance, and I said, "Oh god, I would love that!"
I saw everybody doing cool moves and they were in great costumes. One had all red around her. Two of them were partners, they were like Cheetah Girls, and they had cool glasses and they had cool high heels, and one of the mothers, she showed her stomach. It was really cool.
I whispered to my mom, "I can do that," and my mom told someone who told the girl that was playing the music, and the girl said "sure."
I took my shoes off and I performed. It felt really good, and I smiled. I didn't even know that I was getting the beat, I just tried to get the beat and everybody started clapping and I think somebody whistled.
When I'm dancing I don't think about it, I'm just really, really happy and just feel proud.
I started dancing when I was probably four. The first time I belly danced at home I was watching a movie, and I actually followed what the girl did. Sometimes I dance at home to my sister's radio to maybe probably really cool songs where she puts a CD in and we listen to it and belly dance or I have my MP3 player and I listen to Shakira, her Hips Don't Lie.
I think I'm going to be a singer and a dancer. I might write my own song and then make it into a disk and then play it so I can belly dance to it. I'll probably sing in belly dance language, so I guess I'll probably have go to college to learn that.
Belly dancing is great to learn and I've never had something better than a little brother or belly dancing.
Listen to Jade Elias and some of the music she dances to at the belly dancing workshop.