Barbara Grant for the Gilded Serpent

The Gilded Serpent presents...
Barbara Grant
Barbara Grant grew up in California’s San Fernando Valley, where her earliest dream was to become an actress. Inspired by her family’s love of the American musical theater, she performed in plays and shows until her early teens.

Barbara has had the opportunity to study with a number of fine instructors, including Rhea (Greece), Baraka and Amina (San Francisco), and Carmen Evans (Tucson, Arizona.) She completed Baraka’s teacher training certification in Bastet Oriental Dance and taught for three years at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson, where her troupe, “Wings of the Desert,” performed in local shows.She has also taught classes at Tucson’s Canyon Ranch Health Resort.

Barbara has written several articles and reviews on the subject of Middle Eastern dance, published in Habibi magazine and The Gilded Serpent. She received a B. A. in mathematics from San Jose State University in 1983, and an M. S. in optical sciences from the University of Arizona in 1989. She is currently a self-employed consultant working on a book on the
measurement of light, and has recently returned to her first love of acting.

E-mail: barb_dance(at)earthlink.net

Articles on Gilded Serpent by Barbara Grant
6-9-06 Weird Rituals and Beyond: Exploring Current Controversies in Middle Eastern Dance by Barbara Grant
If you are like me, (I know that many are not) you first responded viscerally and negatively to both situations. Then, as the shock wore off, perhaps you tried to make sense of it all.

2-1-05 Walking the Line: Reflections from a Christian Dancer by Barbara Grant
I’ve personally never thought of my dance as erotic or enticing. I’ve considered it an attempt to distill the results of study about particular ethnic and cabaret styles, amalgamate them into American form, and present the outcome to an audience as entertainment.

7-18-03 My Greek Transformation, A Conservative Engineer meets the “Instigator of Revolutions” by Barbara Grant
Rhea displayed boundless energy, far beyond my own at the best of times. How would I be able to keep up with her?