Hip to Hip

The HIP to HIP Middle Eastern Dance Studio was first opened in 1998, and was Melbourne's first full time Belly Dance school teaching all styles of the Art of Belly dance. As we relaunch Hip to Hip in 2017, we are proud to be associated with its founding Director Melissa Cristina, who will join us to continue the tradition of providing high quality and authentic bellydance tuition and performances.

We aim to provide students with a pathway to attaining performance ready competency and have created a dance curriculum (with our partner Strut Entertainment) that starts with fundamental and beginner courses and leads all the way to our advanced classes that target students with 2-3 years of dance experience and professional dancers wanting to maintain and refine their skills.

The classes are fun and challenging and will provide different ways of learning and gaining mastery adapted to each student's needs. Students gain competency in fundamental movements at beginner levels and work their way up to greater confidence and exposure to different genres of middle eastern dance at intermediate levels, including the use of props such as veils and cane.

Advanced level classes are where students refine their understanding of arabic music and in particular drum rhthyms to enable improvised performance and choreography with increasing complexity. Zills and sword work are included in advanced classes and we often work with live music and guest musicians.