Belly Dancer of the Universe Competition
The Willow Street Center
Long beach, California
February 15 & 16 , 2003
sponsored by Tonya & Atlantis
"For an ultimate learning and pleasurable experience"

Besides the preliminaries for the Universal and Egyptian categories, contests held earlier in the weekend, and not covered here, were:

• Little- children ages 7-12
• Junior- ages 13-17
• Divine- dancers with professional experience greater then 20 years
• Fusion- defined as all music & dance styles with a focus on ME music & dance
• Belly Rolling for Charity
• Drummers

 

Finalists for the Universal category
Contestants for this category danced in the preliminaries to recorded music of their choice
that had to include time signatures of 4/4, 6/8, and 9/8.
For the finales, each contestant danced to the same full routine including taksim and drum solo, played by live musicians.

 

Musicians

Giza Club group with proud mom of winner---
Zelina, Cheryl, Amina, Malaya, Amy.
Malaya is the mom of the winner of the
Universal category, Azhia, from PA

Winners of the Egyptian category contest pose
with sponsors and trophies:
Tonya, Harry Saroyan, unidentified, Calypso in purple with 1st place trophy, Ralph Karapetian, Atlantis below, Elisheva in green as third-runner-up, Meera in purple with second runner-up trophy, Enheduanna in red with the first runner-up trophy.

Universal category contest winners.
Azhia- first place, Atlantis,
Jamileh 1st runner-up, Meera 2nd runner-up,
Shabnam 3rd runner-up.

That's a Wrap!