Amira Dance in Wichita celebrates its 50th anniversary with two performances

Already a belly dancer at another Wichita studio, Di Flower had to scope out the competition when she saw her first Amira Dance Productions performance in 2010.

“Oh my goodness, the amount of individuals on stage and how much fun they were having,” she recalled. “I just wanted to be part of that group just by watching one show. It had me hooked.”

She immediately began taking classes and rehearsing in Amira’s Delano studio.

“Once I got to the studio, I knew I was home, finally,” Flower said. “In that (other) studio, I didn’t find my true joy.

“The women at that studio are very strong women,” she added. “They hold you up and don’t tear you down, and I thought, ‘I have to be part of this, somehow.’”

Flower, now co-studio director with Elisa Montoya, is celebrating a half-century of Amira Dance Productions with two performances next weekend at TempleLive.

Sixty-eight performers, from teenagers to an 80-something, will be on stage for the “Fantabulous 50th Anniversary Dance Odyssey.”

Amira Dance Productions was founded in 1974 by Alice Castilow, whose stage name was Amira, who had studied Middle Eastern dance while living in New York City. Castilow died in 2004, but her eponymous studio has lived on and expanded through the years.

“I never knew Amira, but I feel I know Amira,” Flower said. “Everybody who had known Amira definitely spreads her light.”

Among those are Patricia Baab, who joined the company shortly after its first year and became co-owner and co-director, in charge of the group’s annual public performance, after Castilow’s death.

“Amira did not want to go into the theater,” Baab said. “She wanted to make it more personal, and almost all of our performances were more like adult recitals that would go on for three hours.”

Under Baab, performances were moved into venues such as the Orpheum Theatre, Crown Uptown and now TempleLive.

The group has also expanded its repertoire, offering Polynesian, Bollywood, hula hoop and couples ballroom in addition to belly dancing.

“We began to expand, and I think that’s what’s kept us alive,” Baab said. “Our studio is not just belly dance, and the fact that we offer this eclectic mix has kept a lot of students interested.”

At 76, this is the first year Baab has not been on stage with Amira Dance, working backstage instead.

But she knows the thrill of moving to the music.

“The music is awesome,” said the former ballet, jazz and tap dancer. “I enjoy the fact that it requires me to move my body from head to toe to fingertips and allows me to express myself to that music. It just felt really good.”

The only rocky point in Amira’s 50-year history, Flower said, was during the pandemic. Although the company got its 45th-anniversary performance staged in March 2020, it was a week before the country virtually shut down. The 2021 performance and classes had to be over Zoom, with Amira losing money it would have made over a ticketed show.

“We did it with the help of our community, our students, our staff and going out of the box to initiate a Zoom class during COVID. It saved us,” she said. “We were able to build that back up, year after year.”

Belly dancing, including at Amira, is an art form that welcomes any and all body types, Flower said.

“It takes all of us, and we create such an amazing vision,” she said. “We instill in everybody that everybody has a different body type. There’s so much beauty in every body types. It makes the pieces that much more fascinating.”

While their vibrantly colored costumes often are low-cut and midriff-baring, belly dancers have worked for decades to combat incorrect stereotypes.

“Back in the ‘70s, the misconception was that it was an exotic dance and had connotations that were kind of smutty,” Baab said.

“We get compared to strippers,” Flower said. “There’s a lot of negativity behind belly dance. We don’t remove our clothes. It’s much like hip-hop, ballet or any of the other art forms. We should be put more in that type of genre.”

“It was hard to overcome that,” Baab added, “but I think that once somebody goes to one of our shows, they come away with oh-my-gosh, the variety of costuming, the body types, ages and entertainment and music that came across is just stunning.”

Another misconception is that belly dancing is easy to do.

“When they see what the dancers are doing, especially when we give a free class and they come to the class,” Baab said, “they realize you don’t just jump on the stage and start dancing.”

Flower said she enjoys giving classes to beginners and “watching them grow.”

“It’s kind of like watching a horse be born and catching its legs,” she said. “I get the biggest tickle looking when someone gets it. It just happens and it’s that magic moment. That makes me so happy, and I giggle in class, and everybody knows what I’m giggling for. It’s like a spark that happens, and it happens forever. I love that so much.”

Nearly instantly, Flower said, communities form around belly dancers.

“They have been the strongest groups of women I have ever seen, and the beauty behind their art form and how proud they are to be a belly dancer is phenomenal,” she said.

Flower flies to Portland, Ore., annually to train with a world-renowned belly dancer and bring techniques back to her students. She compares Amira Dance with other companies that she sees.

“Knowing what I have here, compared to all the travels that I have made, learning and expanding knowledge, I am so happy that here in Wichita, Kansas, I have this amazing community of women, and a few men, in dance,” Flower said. “We’re all kind of entwined in dance.”

Flower said she’s thrilled knowing how many people have found their calling as performers over 50 years.

“We don’t own dance. Dance is to be shared and create a community,” she said, “and I’m so happy we’ve done that and continue to do that year after year.”

AMIRA DANCE PRODUCTIONS ‘FANTABULOUS 50THX ANNIVERSARY DANCE ODYSSEY’

When: 3 and 7 p.m. Saturday, March 1

Where: TempleLive, 332 E. First St.

Tickets: $30 for general admission balcony, accessible by stairs only; $25 general admission floor tickets nearly sold out, from ticketmaster.com

Try it: ADP will have a 90-minute free belly dance sampler class at 6:30 p.m. Friday, March 6, at its studio, 1702 W. Douglas.