Teaching Grace

Liesa Bassoi Pederson has introduced belly dance to the North Country one jingle of a sarong at a time.

Story by Rachel Hislop

The beat of the music playing from the corner of the dance studio bounces off the mirror-lined walls, panels that capture the reflections of graceful women making small, rhythmic movements with their hips. The jingling of the coin scarves wrapped securely around their spinning mid-sections crescendos slowly, matching the beat of the music until they all collide in the rhythmic unison that is belly dance.

Liesa Bassoi Pederson stands in front of her class at Plattsburgh’s Premier Tan & Body Center, slowly rolling her tattooed mid-section and verbally instructing her belly dancing trainees without missing a beat. Dancing is almost as commonplace to Pederson as bipedalism is to humans, and it has been almost all of her life, with the last 25 years fully dedicated to studying what is disputably the world’s oldest dance form.

“I’ve always danced,” Pederson says. “I was always intrigued with world dance and world culture. We have Turkish roots, so everyone always danced.”

In a midriff baring velvet shirt and black pants complimented with a coin sarong and a coined headscarf, Pederson stands tall and graceful, with notable posture and her chin to the sky, as she speaks. But an air of arrogance is nowhere to be found; her stance is simply the result of a life of learning and teaching grace through dance.

The New York City native started her dance career in grade school, enrolling in a folk dance class that eventually carried her interest of the art into belly dancing over a period of years. 

"We would go to these clubs where all these belly dancers performed...it fascinated us."

“There was actually a group of Turkish people in my high school, and they had Turkish classes, so it wasn’t really belly dancing per se. It was more of like folk dance,” Pederson says. “You’ve always got some of the torso going on in a lot of the dancing from the Middle East.”

Pederson, who is of Turkish and Italian roots, cannot recall a time in her life where world culture did not play an influential role. From a father who served in Burma during World War II and made a career switch from an artist to a scientist, to a rather eccentric sister, there has been no shortage of exposure to subcultures in her upbringing.

“My sister was a beatnik and lived in Greenwich Village in the ‘60s,” Pederson says. “I would go and visit her, and we would go to these clubs where all these belly dancers performed.  We would go to all these classes and workshops, and it fascinated us. It sort of became a fad in the late ‘60s and ‘70s.”

Pederson relocated to Plattsburgh to attend classes at the SUNY Plattsburgh where she furthered her education using the very few cultural arts outlets available in the area. Pederson’s stroke of luck in the North Country came in the form of influential dancer Joann Ives.

“Amira (Ives’ stage name) went on dance study tours all over the world – Egypt, Morocco and Turkey. She was a certified Dance Educator of America.

Amira trained me to take over her classes and in the ‘80s I worked for her at Plattsburgh State. I taught at the university through Amira, and when she retired I started teaching at Clinton Community College. I’ve been teaching classes at Clinton since ‘96.”

Pederson continues to reach out to students through belly dance instruction more than 14 years later.

“Liesa has a way with teaching belly dance,” says Bobbi Jo Hart, Pederson's student for more than 5 years.  “It comes natural to her, and she shares that with her students.  She makes us all feel like we are all beautiful dancers.”

"I want to say, ‘Belly dance your whole life, and you’ll look like me.'"

And belly dancing is meant to do just that – express beauty and grace. The art of belly dancing is said to be the oldest form of dance, having ancient roots in cultures from the Middle East to India. Throughout history, this ritualized expression is traditionally performed for other women, not men, as western culture may suggest. In fact, Westerners seem to commonly distort the essence of belly dance, confusing it for a form of strip dancing or burlesque. Oriental dance, the original name for belly dance, is a folk dance of celebration intended to celebrate weddings, fertility and other family events.

“It’s like exploring femininity, even for men, because some men have feminine sides, and being aware of not crossing a line with your body. Moving it, but not moving it into that other area,” Pederson says.

The correct name for belly dancing is Oriental Dance; the Turkish name is Oryantal, and the Arabic name for it is Raqs Sharqi, which means dance of the East. The dance focuses on isolating different parts of the body and moving them independently in intense patterns.

 “It gives people the chance to express themselves through their bodies and music, which sounds kind of cliché, but on another level that’s all it is, moving to music,” Pederson says.

“It’s got this emotive quality, so belly dancing is very accessible on a basic level. It’s kind of a folk social dance, and people from those countries [that practice belly dance] have the tendency to use these more torso driven moves. I really just like sharing it with people.”

“ [Liesa] is enhancing the cultural life of the North Country with music and influences from other lands,” says Anyes Adams, who studied with Pederson last fall. “All types of women of all ages with different bodies all dancing and enjoying themselves without any judgment in Liesa’s class.”

"She knows who she is and is comfortable and confident in that.”

Pederson hopes to be the same sort of influence for one of her students, like her mentor, Amira, was for her. When asked about her future aspirations and what she hopes to gain from teaching belly dance, Pederson lifts her head slightly to the ceiling and states that she wants more of her students to branch out and become interested in teaching belly dance in areas that lack in the arts, like Plattsburgh.

“I’ve put a lot of energy into it,” Pederson says, “and I would like to see it continue to flourish.”

Sarah Skinner, internationally renowned performer and instructor of belly dance with more than a dozen belly dance DVDs in circulation internationally, used to be the youngest member of Pederson’s dance troupe prior departing for college.

“One thing I really admire is that she knows who she is and is comfortable and confident in that,” Skinner says.  “She encourages her students with everything that she has and is supportive of her students blossoming into amazing artists in their own rights.”

Pederson, who is now in her early 60s, devoted more than 25 years to belly dance. Now, it seems as if the art form repaid her dedication by halting her aging decades ago.

“I first started seriously studying belly dancing with [Amira] in 1981. When people ask me how long I’ve been belly dancing, I say 25 or 20 years plus because I am starting to not to really care about saying my age. I want to say, ‘Belly dance your whole life, and you’ll look like me,’” Pederson says through a shy chuckle, lowering her head for the first time in the interview.

“I didn’t think I would be a sixty year old belly dancer, still teaching and dancing and performing.  But I am. I still am, and I love it. It’s amazing.”

Would you ever take a belly dancing class?

Top of Page