Erin Crouch for the Gilded Serpent

The Gilded Serpent presents
Erin Crouch

Erin Crouch is a tribal belly dancer in Chicago, Illinois. She has been dancing since 2004 and started in Washington DC, taking classes with

Alexis Rodich, who taught her the joys of a glut squeeze ala Suhaila Salimpour and with
Ebony from Sahara Dance who does some awesome urban fusion.
Erin joined Public Urban Ritual Experiment (PURE) DC in September 2005. PURE is an all-volunteer group of musicians and dancers who take their performance off the stage and into the street to build community and show the importance of movement and ritual. Erin performed with the DC branch for 8 months and in April 2006 she moved to Chicago.
She promptly joined PURE Chicago, eventually becoming the group’s facilitator, organizing dancers and events. Today, she frequently collaborates with Erika Ochoa of Pineapple Studio, who started the PURE branch in Chicago. PURE Chicago has nine dancers, all of whom Erin loves dearly. Some of her proudest moments include performing with PURE Chicago at the Field Museum and Navy Pier and with multiple PURE branches at Operation Ceasefire in 2005.
Erin currently takes tribal classes with Jatare from Hipnotic and with
Karen Hersh from the Gypsy Queens , who both totally rule. Both of her instructors were recently certified in Black Sheep Belly Dance format, so she is trying to learn to start moves on her left side too.

Erin holds a degree in Russian and Economics from the University of Alaska in her hometown of Fairbanks, Alaska. She spent a year in Siberia in 1999-2000 as a fellow for public service in a Department of State-funded program and worked as an international trade specialist for the Department of Commerce in DC. In her Chicago day job, she administers humanitarian grants including disaster relief for a large volunteer service organization.

Her favorite pieces of costuming are a green fringe belt, a Flying Skirts coin bra and pair of orange satin pantaloons. Her favorite move is a ¾ shimmy and she dislikes the choo-choo single. Two of her favorite dancers are Heather Stants and Asharah and taking Heather’s workshop at Rakkasah East Spring Caravan in May was a definite high point in 2007.

Besides dancing, Erin enjoys roller derby, medical museums and traveling. Her husband Ron is a Ph.D. student at DePaul University, majoring in psychology.

Erin’s articles and reviews on dance-related topics can be found in Jareeda and Zaghareet magazines, online at the Gilded Serpent and in the Washington Area Middle Eastern Dance Association (WAMEDA)’s newsletters. She can be reached at purechicago@gmail.com

Articles on Gilded Serpent by or about Erin:
1-15-08 Cairo’s Streets Come Alive: Baladina Egyptian Dance Theater and Sharia Mohamed Ali by Erin Crouch photos are by Adrian Fenty
October 13, 2007, Chicago, Illinois. A modern temptress steals a man away from a traditional woman, who then finds a new man of her own. Perhaps a necessity for a dance company composed of mostly women, men seemed a hot commodity in the performance.