Nomad Dancers is a collective inspired by traditions of India, Persia, Central Asia, Middle East, and Turkey, traveling across borders and bridging cultures in search of the ultimate dance experience. The Nomad Dancers proudly present Persian, Afghan, Tajik, Azeri, Uzbek, Uighur, and Ottoman Turkish traditional folkloric dances, as well as Bollywood and Fusion choreographies, at cultural events, celebrations and festivals in the Washington DC metropolitan area and beyond. The individual Nomad Dancers' fascination and interests in the graceful, playful, colorful, and rich dance traditions from across this vast region, coupled with the dancers' myriad experiences and talents, have inspired a varied repertoire of dances and glorious costumes prepared by the Nomad Dancers themselves.
While the Nomad collective itself is a relatively new phenomenon, created in December 2008, each of the individual dancers brings years of professional experience in various dance styles to the group, and have performed in venues ranging from universities and embassies to Washington DC's Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, to the majestic Registan Square in Samarkand, Uzbekistan; from across the United States to Italy, Greece, Cyprus, India and Afghanistan. The Nomad collective is dedicated to bringing master teachers from around the world to help us refine our skills and craft our choreographies, better enabling us to bring diverse audiences together, and to spread cultural awareness of the region.
Nomad Dancers is a proud Arts Partner of Joy of Motion Dance Center.
Contact us for concerts and cultural events:
nomad.dancers@gmail.com
Caroline Besley
Caroline began her dance studies in Evergreen, Colorado at the age of 17. Her background is in Egyptian Oriental style, in which she has been performing since 2005. She is known as Farasha Aziz in the DC belly dance community. She has studied with many wonderful teachers in the region, including Yasmin, Mina, and Artemis. In addition to performing with the Nomad Dancers, she performs as a soloist at some of the areas finest restaurants, including Mie N Yu and Marrakesh Palace. Caroline is thrilled to be a part of the Nomad Dancers, and finds every new dance an exciting challenge. Besides Egyptian dance, she is particularly enthralled with Persian and Azeri styles. When she is not dancing, Caroline is the manager at Joy of Motion Dance Center, Friendship Heights.
Keely Fahoum
Keely grew up in Missoula, Montana and started dancing at the age of three. She studied tap and ballet until the age of 12. She went on to dance and perform with her high school varsity cheerleading squad for three years and began studying Egyptian Oriental dance as a compliment to her graduate studies in Middle East politics, history and Arabic language. Keely loves the Middle East and finds that dance is a wonderful way to enrich one’s knowledge of any culture. Since 2008, she has performed with three student companies at Saffron Dance in Arlington, VA: Classical Egyptian Companies, Beledi and Ayoub and Egyptian Folklore in Saidi Company. In 2010, she received the Aaliyah Quinn Middle East Dance Scholarship from the Tiraz Dance Network. Keely was thrilled and honored to join the Nomad Dancers in 2011 and loves learning Persian, Afghan and all Central Asian styles of Dance.
Parastoo Ghodsi
As a child growing up in her native land of Iran, Parastoo enjoyed imitating Persian, Arabic and Indian dance videos. While in college, she enrolled in ballroom and international dance classes. Later, she joined the Penn State International Dance Ensemble under the direction of professor Elizabeth Hanley, studying and performing a variety of international dance styles including Eastern European, Greek, Spanish, Tahitian, Egyptian, Chinese, and Indian. After graduating from Penn Statue University with a degree in computer science and math, she moved to Washington DC area. Aside from working as a software engineer, she continued following her passion of dance by performing with Silk Road Dance Company as a principal dancer for several years where she had the opportunity to learn from leading Central Asian dance artists including People's Artist of Uzbekistan Qizlarhon Dustmuhamedova. In 2009, Parastoo joined Nomad Dancers and continues to perform beautiful dances of her motherland and neighboring regions.
Annie Lum
Annie is interested in many forms of dance -- ballet, salsa, Middle Eastern, and Central Asian, among others. She started figure skating at age 6 after seeing her sister dressed up in her ice show costume. Annie took ballet classes as part of her training program and she has loved dancing ever since. She graduated from Boston University in 2008 and moved to the DC area to start a job as an Aerospace Engineer. While looking for dance classes in the area she found Saffron Dance, where she studied bellydancing and was instantly hooked. While a student at Saffron, she became aware of other Middle Eastern and Central Asian dance styles she enjoyed, and eventually joined Nomad Dancers as an apprentice.
Sema Muslu
Sema is a Turkish-American, who was born and raised in Fairfax, VA. Growing up listening to Jackson 5 and watching Soul Train, she showed interest in music and dance from an early age. One summer, while visiting Hemsin, her parents' birthplace in the Black Sea region of Turkey, she was introduced to a traditional folk dance called Horon. Since then, she became intrigued with folkloric dances from all regions of Turkey. In 1999 she joined the Washington DC Turkish Folk Dance Group, which at the time was known as ATSA-DC Dance Group. In 2004, Sema co-founded Kardelen Turkish Dance Ensemble. By joining Silk Road Dance Company in 2004, she learned various dance styles from the Near East, Middle East, and Central Asia. In 2010, Sema joined Nomad Dancers to continue to learn and perform beautiful dances of this region. Sema is currently a Data Analyst for Indus Corp and a board member for American Turkish Association of Washington, DC.
Mindy Russell
Dance has been a huge part of Mindy's life since she was a young girl. She started ballet and tap lessons at the wee age of 3 and has been dancing ever since. She continued taking tap lessons but it wasn't until during her graduate studies in education that she discovered the allure of Middle Eastern dance. There was an instant connection and it led her to try other dance forms such as Persian, Indian, and Flamenco, all of which she loved. But Eastern dance forms felt most natural to her and she quickly found her way to the Silk Road Dance Company and then to the Nomad Dancers. In her spare time, she is a mom to two wonderful children and she loves to share her enthusiasm for dance with them on a daily basis.
Saghi Saghafi
As a small child, Saghi exhibited an interest in all forms of dance. When she was just 5 years old, her family moved to the United States from her homeland of Iran. To pursue her interest in dance, she took ballet, tap and jazz classes. While acquiring her college degree in Business, she continued studying these dance styles and kept her interest alive. In 2010 after seeing a performance of Persian dance by Nomad Dancers, Saghi was inspired by memories of her homeland and the style of dance she had seen while growing up. Since joining the Nomads, Saghi has learned many varieties of traditional dances of Central Asia and the Middle East.
Christel Stevens
Christel Stevens, Co-Director of Nomad Dancers, is a scholar, performer, and teacher of dances from India. She holds a Master's Degree in Dance from the American University in Washington, D.C., specializing in Bharata Natyam and Manipuri classical dances of India. Christel has traveled the world, researching and performing dances of India, Afghanistan, Iran, Turkey, Greece and Uzbekistan from "native speakers" of these dance traditions. She has taught classical Indian dance for several years at the India International School of Northern Virginia, where she established an adult performance company, Megha Shakti Dancers, that performed in venues in the DC metro area including the National Cherry Blossom Festival, Dance Festival of India, the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, and Indian Independence Day celebrations. Christel has also choreographed for the theater, including Open Theater/DC and La Mama E.T.C. of New York City, and works on the costume crew at Synetic Theater. She has served on awards jury panels for both the Helen Hayes Awards and Metro DC Dance Awards. She is also a founding board member of Indian Dance Educators Association of DC, Maryland and Virginia.
Adriane Whalen
Adriane Whalen, Co-Director of Nomad Dancers, teaches ballet, tap, jazz and belly dance to adults and children at Joy of Motion Dance Center and Skyline Sport and Health. She is the Director of Raqs Jameel, Joy of Motion's Youth Belly Dance Company. Adriane has performed with the Berkeley Conservatory Ballet Company in Berkeley California. Recently, she has been performing Middle Eastern and Central Asian dance, appearing at the Kennedy Center Terrace Theatre, Philadelphia Museum of Art, North Carolina Museum of Art, and the Embassies of Egypt and Uzbekistan, Shakespeare Theatre, Dance Place, and Atlas Theatre in Washington, DC.
Annetta Burger
