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.
Veronique El Hajji
From a very young age, Veronique has always been enamored with dance and movement. She began ballet training with The National Ballet of Canada and studied Asian traditional dances with The Beijing Song and Dance Company in Beijing, China. She perused her passion and received her B.A. degree in Dance from The American University in Washington D.C. She was awarded the Darmasiswa Fellowship from the Indonesian Embassy to study Balinese dance and music in Bali and a scholarship from Jacob's Pillow with Mark Morris. Throughout her professional career, Veronique has worked with Bessie award winner David Rousseve, Placido Domingo of The Washington Opera, The Spanish Dance Society, and at temple ceremonies in Bali among others. In addition to performing, Veronique is director and founder of Circle of World Arts, a 501 c3 and currently teaches dance and choreographs for Saffron Dance and The Lee Arts Center. Veronique is honored to be a part of The Nomad Dancers and thanks everyone for her amazing experiences to dance, laugh and create together!
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.
Marian Norris
Marian has danced all her life. She dutifully studied ballet, jazz, and tap throughout her childhood, never quite finding her groove. In college she discovered Iyengar yoga, Hawkins technique for Modern dance, live drumming, and the joys of developing her own choreography. She pursued her love of dance on the side during graduate studies in aquatic ecology, experimenting with different genres and venues, including Middle Eastern, hip hop, African and Balinese. In DC, she has studied and performed with Coyaba Company, Deborah Riley Dance Projects, Carla and Company, Ensemble Mumtaz, Silk Road Dance Company, and Raqs Caravan Folklore, among others. She greatly enjoys wandering the Eastern dance landscape with her Nomad sisters.
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.
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.
Joanna Veltri
Joanna fell in love with dance when learning folk dances at her summer chamber music school in Vermont while a high school student. In college, she studied both Latin and International Standard ballroom dancing. As a travel writer in Costa Rica, she discovered salsa, which kept her happy for the next five years, until she discovered and fell in love with Turkey. Her early career as an economist sent her to the far reaches of Central Asia, in fun places like Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Kyrgyzstan, where she further fell in love with all things Turkic. In 2003, she joined the Washington D.C. Turkish Folkdance Group, and then was a founding member of the Kardelen Turkish Dance Ensemble in 2005. Joanna danced with Silk Road Dance Company for a year, before spending a couple years overseas in Afghanistan (and a short stint in the Philippines). She came back stateside, rejoined Kardelen, rekindled her love of salsa with the DC Casineros (a Cuban salsa rueda casino dance group), and happily joined Nomads in August 2009.
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
