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Sherry Coffey stands facing the mirror. In a slow sweeping movement she pushes her hips to one side, then back to other. They swing seductively to the heavy beat of Middle Eastern music, while the gauzy red skirt hung low around her hips follows their moves in a wave-like flow of fabric and color.

I am staring at Sherry’s hips, half enchanted, half incredulous, watching as they carve a wide, deliberate arc out of the stale fluorescent air around her. Her long earrings jingle with every step, and the gold trim on her cropped scarlet top catches the light as she writhes in front of the mirror.

Photo by SARAH FELDBERG

Belly dance instructor Sherry Coffey demonstrates a fan dance at Etudes de Ballet.

“Left. Right,” Sherry calls out in time with her snaking movements. I am shaking my hips too, trying to force them to trace the same graceful shape as Sherry’s, but they are being awfully stubborn.

It’s a Tuesday night in Naples, and I am attempting to channel my inner seductress at Etudes de Ballet dance studio on Pine Ridge Road. I’ve signed up for the beginner’s belly dancing class, but dressed in yoga pants and a tank top in the brightly lit studio I’m feeling decidedly less than sexy. Looking up at my hip-twisting reflection in the mirror, I realize that I am grimacing with concentration.

Sherry Coffey, who goes by the dance name Na’ila for her performances, has been belly dancing for about 30 years. She got her start in Seattle after she saw a class advertised and decided to try this infamous and fascinating dance form.

“It just kind of resonated with me,” Sherry says. “There are so many different styles and types of belly dance that there’s always something new to learn.”

In her Tuesday night classes at Etudes de Ballet, Sherry teaches mostly cabaret and Egyptian styles of belly dance with a little bit of tribal style mixed in. The Egyptian style generally features a solo female performer, the kind of elaborately adorned dancer featured in movies, nightclubs or at Middle Eastern restaurants. Tribal style, on the other hand, involves a group of dancers. “It’s more of a sisterhood thing,” says Sherry.

On this particular Tuesday evening, I am one of eight students in the beginner’s belly dancing class. We space ourselves out around the studio and follow Sherry as she leads us through a series of stretches and warm ups. We breathe and bend; we twist and straighten, and then, with a hypnotizing rhythmic soundtrack pumping through the speakers, we get down to business.

At its most basic level belly dancing is composed of a variety of isolations and small precise movements. By concentrating on a specific set of muscles dancers move individual body parts independently of the rest of the frame. We begin with head isolations. With her palms pressed together above her head and arms bent into a wide diamond shape, Sherry moves her head forward and back. Her shoulders stay still, her arms are frozen; only her head juts forward and back enchantingly. Next, we add lateral head thrusts. Finally we put them all together, smoothing the four points of movement into a slow head circle that looks right out of a snake charmer’s ritual dance.

After we’ve mastered the head we move on to shoulder, rib cage and hip isolations. Our rib cage isolations transform into smooth body rolls, and our hip swings gradually morph into the sensual hip circles that belly dancing is famous for. As I watch myself swivel my lower body in broad, determined curves it occurs to me that I am actually belly dancing.

The rest of the class builds on these basic movements. Our music quickens, and with Sherry leading the way we practice walking hip swings, traveling hip circles and classic Middle Eastern arm styling.

When the hour-long class comes to a close I feel that I’ve vastly improved from my first awkward thrusts and swings. I’ve also discovered that a lot more goes into belly dancing than a few shimmies and shakes.

“Some people think that its just going out there and shaking it,” Sherry says, “but there’s actually a lot of work and discipline that goes into it.”

As I step out of the studio and back into Etudes de Ballet’s busy lobby, I pass a bin of a triangular hip scarves sewn with coins and jewels – the emblematic symbol of belly dancing in the Western world. I imagine myself wearing one, hearing the jingle of the coins as I practice rapid hip circles or gliding body rolls. And then I shake my head; the scarf will have to wait for my second class at least.