Dancing Isis Dance!

Maria began her journey into Middle Eastern style of dance 1989. Her inquiring mind and a sense of being guided from a place deep within has taken her above and beyond what she first envisaged when she stepped into her first Bellydance Class.

Maria is the creator of Embodied Bellydance™, she developed this unique approach over many years of teaching and performing.  She has been a prominent member of the dance community since the late eighties.

Performance artist, dance instructor, with a Advanced Diploma in Dance Movement Therapy – Maria is
highly respected and sought after.

As part of Melbourne’s well-known Middle Eastern Music and Dance group “Yalla” she has
performed at most major festivals around Australia.

She taught weekly classes Melbourne for 20 years and frequently traveled regionally
and nationally to share her knowledge and particular teaching style and philosophy. She now lives in Ostra, AN Italy. Her wholistic approach to teaching is grounded in a deep knowledge of self on a physical, emotional and spiritual level. Maria incorporates elements of Alexander Technique, Body Mind Centering, Anatomy, Pilates, Dance Movement Therapy, Visualization and Somatasization in her teaching.

As a Dance Movement Therapist she works with Disability groups including physical and
intellectually disabilities, mental illness, women in prison and the elderly with dementia and Alzheimer’s.

She has a Certificate IV in Training and Assessment, Coaching Certificate with Australian Sports Commission, Certificate in Holistic Massage, Certificate in Esoteric Healing and also works as  a Massage Therapist Body worker . Sha has an Advanced Diploma in Dance Movement Therapy with Institute of Dance Movement Therapy in Australia (IDTIA).

“I first met Maria Sangiorgi when she contacted me to see if I would  teach an Alexander Technique workshop for her performance group The Snake Sisters. As the only time our schedules would match was a Monday morning (which would mean Sunday night preparation time)  I wasn’t too keen.   My first response  was to suggest she asked someone else who had trained in body mind awareness of the organ systems.

I didn’t really know that much about Egyptian dance, mistakenly thinking it was a simple folkloric form.  Maria persisted in her request and when we finally did work together I was surprised to learn how complex  the Raq Sharqi dance form is. I’d been teaching  at the Victorian College of the Arts  – School of Dance  and was very familiar with the demands of classical ballet  upon the body.   I was taken aback to discover that Egyptian dance  was even more demanding than ballet,  as it  requires the classical axial form be maintained, whilst spiraling around the very same axis.  This means that there is no room for error.  One cannot ‘cheat’ or overuse muscles to ‘hold’ a position.  The  spherical dynamics  of the form will not allow this.   The dancer needs to be truly  in balance, otherwise the sprialic movements  cannot occur.

We worked together on Monday mornings for five years !  After this   Maria and her colleagues taught me a series of  workshops  integrating Raqs Sharqi with the information we had been exploring.  This became the Melbourne Movement Research group that met at DanceHouse for the next five years !

Maria has always initiated explorative learning environments.   Her creativity is limitless and her capacity to refine and deepen the simplicity of learning unparalleled in the teaching of dance and movement” Jane Refshauge, Teacher of the Alexander Technique

‘There are three points I would like to make about Maria.

1. I trust her and I know that she won’t push me further than I need to be.
2. She teaches from a functional, pure and practical point of view. Because I she from this place it has the greatest impact on your dance with the least stress on the body so you are not putting the body in stress at all
3. The classes are fun.’

Wendy Mc Queen 2004

Maria is also a Certified Dance Movement Therapist and apart from teaching Embodied bellydance she also facilitates dance movement Journey that she calls Dance Journey for the Awakening Heart.

Maria is also a part of Melbourne’s will known and loved Middle Eastern Music and Dance group. In the past 12 years they have performed at most major festivals around Australia and Victoria. Maria and some of the members of Yalla also form The Sanctuary Ensemble.

Contact Maria