Southern Cal’s “Shira” Reminisces

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, along with the multiple Arabic clubs in Hollywood, there was also a thriving Greek, Armenian and Persian nightclub presence in the Los Angeles area. Shira (Jane Padgett) was a popular dancer in those clubs and is still a popular working dancer in Southern California. In this business, there are the dancers with a presence in the dance community due to participation in showcases, competitions, teaching and self-promotion,and additionally, there are the “workhorses”, those who slogged away at the clubs, entertaining the masses for years and years, flying under the radar.

With a dance career that expands over decades, Shira has a wealth of information to share about the history of belly dance entertainment in the Los Angeles area, and indeed, I learned so much about the dance universe that is parallel to my Arabic nightclub experience – the Armenian, Greek, and Persian clubs of LA.