The Gilded Serpent presents...
Vilia
Valerie Cherry
A dancer since childhood, Vilia didn’t discover belly dance until after she saw a documentary about it in her native country of England. Never dreaming she would eventually live in America, she had already decided it was something she wanted to learn how to do. So in 1976, a year after arriving as a new immigrant into the United States, she sought out classes and began learning this ancient art form. It immediately felt like second nature to her, as if she had done it somewhere before in the dim and distant past.
Since that time, Vilia has performed extensively as a professional soloist, mainly throughout the southeastern area of the United States, and particularly in Atlanta, Georgia. She likes to incorporate aspects of her other dance training in ballet, jazz, flamenco and latin ballroom into her style, and continues to study yoga and Pilates to help maintain strength and flexibility.
Vilia’s teaching experience has been varied, from basic fitness classes, through ballroom dance to Oriental dance and even a latin dance workout at Crunch Fitness centers. Now semi-retired from performing, she teaches private belly dance classes upon request, and has channeled her creative energies into designing women’s and children’s clothing and belly dance costumes, drawing on her years of experience as a technical designer/patternmaker in the garment industry.
Articles on Gilded Serpent by or about Vilia
- 10-13-03 The “Tuck It Under” Phenomenon
“Tucking under” is for ballet, and it has less to do with posture than it does with enabling the execution of the kinds of movements and positions that ballet demands.
