Jill Parker's Beginning Tribal Belly Dance classes are a classic San Francisco experience: They're welcoming, weird, diverse, sweaty, trance-inducing, and somehow simultaneously straight and gay. Some students love to feel they're in a place where it's OK to actually have a belly, some come to gain the inevitable boost in sexy points, and some just want a great workout. They all get what they want, plus the caring yet hands-off instruction of the charismatic Parker. She's internationally revered for having made a historically and culturally informed contribution to the nature of modern bellydance -- she's known as “the founder of the modern tribal fusion belly dance movement.” A typical beginning class is diverse in age, gender, size, race, and level of dance experience, and that's the way the teacher likes it. She's inspiring rather than demanding, and if you could see the smiles on the post-class faces, you'd know how much it means.
