Masmoudi & the Naughty Nomads
Baseema
Baseema means ‘smiling’ in Arabic. It sounds like ‘bossy ma’; a humorous yet appropriate play on words.
You will rarely see Basseema without a smile on her face, but she is really only bossy when she is
stage-managing.
Basmeea took her first dance class, hula, at the age of seven while living in Hawaii. This is where her love affair with the dance started. She began ballet classes at the doctors’ suggestion after having her feet crushed. The ballet helped to strengthen her damaged feet and she thrived on the discipline and technique of ballet. During her early years she studied many forms of dance and went on to major in Theater Arts with an emphasis in Dance at UC Santa Cruz. Baseema discovered belly dance after college and marriage when she moved to Turkey with her husband for his military assignment. After moving back to the states she started attending Renaissance Festivals, which lead to her current profession as a wire jeweler. Baseema met and became friends with incredible tribal belly dancers and musicians while selling jewelry at "ren" faires and attending Pennsic.
So, how did this California girl end up in Alabama? Her husband, Ed, is a native of Alabama and he wanted to live close to his family. After sitting on her "derriere" in Alabama for many years making jewelry and watching it get wider and wider (the derriere, not the jewelry), she decided to rediscover her love for dancing though tribal belly dance. Many of her belly-dancing friends have been an inspiration for this newest focus in her life.
In January 2005, Baseema played a key role in establishing the troupe Masmoudi & the Naughty Nomads. In May 2005 she saw a serious need for a dance home. Belly dance classes in the Huntsville area were (and some still are) being taught at gyms and karate studios. Unbeknownst to each other, both Baseema and Anala started looking for a space on the same day. They continued the search together and found The Studio. With tons of scrubbing, scraping, painting, crawling, and gluing they converted a very nasty space into a beautiful dance studio. The Studio opened in June 2005 and is located on Jordan Lane in Huntsville. At present offer belly dancing, traditional Irish step dancing, and flamenco classes. Baseema is the official owner of The Studio and she hopes to house as many styles of movement and dance as can be taught under one roof.
Anala
Bellydancing started for Anala when the Karate studio she trained at loaned space to Lisa McFadden to teach
a belly dancing class in July 2003. She slipped in on a free Wednesday night class to see what is was all
about and she’s been hooked ever since. Anala finds belly dancing a great way to strengthen and tone her
body without having to put up with all the testosterone in martial arts classes. So, how do you feel about
all the Estrogen, Anala? :)
Since her surprising introduction to bellydance, she has danced with the Beledi Club of Huntsville, Khamsa Qabeela, and most recently as a founding member (with her glorious tribal sisters) in Masmoudi & the Naughty Nomads. She loves going to seminars and has attended workshops with Wipoorwil, Jill Parker, Heather Stants, Kamal, Suhaila Salimpour, Kamille, and other wonderful instructors. She hammed it up performing at the Alabama Renaissance Faire 2003-05, Panoply 2004, TribalCon, Spirit of the Tribes 5, several Hurricane Katrina benefit shows, and the Beledi Club’s 2004 Summer Workshop. She also performs for haflas and with her buddies at the drum circle in Big Spring Park on Sunday afternoons.
Anala currently studies with Rhyolyn who is also a member of the Naughties and is working on her own choreographies in a fusion of her favorite styles. She hopes to bring more of her martial arts training to her personal belly dancing style. Who knows – Tribal Martial Arts Fusion (TMAF)? It could happen!
Rhyolyn
Rhyolyn, pronounced \RYE o lin\ (rhymes with violin), is a variation of the word rhyolite.
Rhyolite is a fine-grained intrusive igneous rock predominately composed of siclicate minerals.
It may also contain larger crystals in it's fine matrix (porphyritic rhyolite). Rhyolite forms when
felsic (silicate rich magma) cools slowly underground (intrusive). Felsic magma is thick, viscous,
and associated with violent Mount St. Helen's type erruptions.
She doesn't have an explosive temper, just a lot of energy and degree in geology. She picked the name by going through an extensive list of rocks and minerals and morphing them into character names. She used Rhyolyn as a role playing handle during her early undergraduate days before she got too busy for gaming. In 1997 she completed her undergraduate degree and went on to get a Masters in Computer Science. After leaving school in 1999 to take a software engineering position with Evans & Sutherland she moved to Salt Lake City where she worked for 4.5 years and completed her degree. So what does all of this have to do with bellydance??? Not much. It's just an explanation on where her name came from and how she got to Salt Lake City - where she discovered the dance.
In Salt Lake City she was a software engineer by weekday and a belly dance student/performer by night/weekend. She performed regularly with precision cabaret troupe Avatar under the direction of Thia. She also performed solo for dinner and party crowds at several Salt Lake restaurants: Cedars of Lebanon, Grecian Gardens, and House of Kabob and Pita.
Rhyolyn moved to Huntsville in January 2004 to be with her man (now husband), Scott. She still works as a software engineer, but continues to devote all her spare time to the study of dance, music, and costume design. After moving, her dance interests expanded from Egyptian Cabaret and Folk Middle Eastern dance to include World/Tribal fusion and Indian Classical Dance. She attends workshops on many bellydance styles, both fusion and pure - always in search new ideas and inspiration. In class, she teachs a combination of basic belly dance technique (Egyptian, American cabaret, folk, and tribal), as well as Middle Eastern rhythms, zils, and fusion. She also studies Odissi Indian Classical dance with Ratnashree Nanda and is very interested in African dance, Hula, Bhangra, and Bollywood. She just loves those long bollywood films which include lots of fantastic costumes, dancing, laughing, crying, and drama. She tries to get all her drama on film 'cause she doesn't need/want it in real life :).
Rhyolyn has taken nearly 40 workshops now (see her "Stuff” link on her personal web page for the complete list) and her current favorites are Suhaila Salimpour, Raquia Hassan, and Heather Stants. But, she owes much of her current success to the ladies who have spent countless class hours teaching her how to dance: Thia (UT), Viktoriya (UT), Linda Linda (UT), Tamar (UT), Lisa McFaddin (AL), and Ratnashree Nanda (AL).
Rhyolyn began working with Masmoudi & the Naughty Nomads after her fabulous dance partner, Mitara, moved to Boston in January 2005. She loves dancing with the troupe as well as studying, teaching, and choreographing.
Last Update: 01/13/06
