Concord belly dancing class teaches self love and connectedness: ‘I am enough’

Student Deandra Perruccio uses her arms during the belly dancing class at the Concord Community Center on Wednesday, July 9, 2025.

Student Deandra Perruccio uses her arms during the belly dancing class at the Concord Community Center on Wednesday, July 9, 2025. GEOFF FORESTER—Monitor staff

Belly dancing instructor Dawn Higgins shows how a veil can enhance the movements of the dance as she teaches at the Concord Community Center on Wednesday, July 9, 2025.

Belly dancing instructor Dawn Higgins shows how a veil can enhance the movements of the dance as she teaches at the Concord Community Center on Wednesday, July 9, 2025. GEOFF FORESTER—Monitor staff

Belly dancing instructor Dawn Higgins teaches arm movements in her classroom as she teaches at the Concord Community Center on Wednesday, July 9, 2025.

Belly dancing instructor Dawn Higgins teaches arm movements in her classroom as she teaches at the Concord Community Center on Wednesday, July 9, 2025. GEOFF FORESTER—Monitor staff

Belly dancing instructor Dawn Higgins uses the mirror in her classroom as she teaches at the Concord Community Center on Wednesday, July 9, 2025.

Belly dancing instructor Dawn Higgins uses the mirror in her classroom as she teaches at the Concord Community Center on Wednesday, July 9, 2025. GEOFF FORESTER—Monitor staff

Belly dancing instructor Dawn Higgins teaches arm movements in her classroom as she teaches at the Concord Community Center on Wednesday, July 9, 2025.

Belly dancing instructor Dawn Higgins teaches arm movements in her classroom as she teaches at the Concord Community Center on Wednesday, July 9, 2025. GEOFF FORESTER—Monitor staff

Belly dancing instructor Dawn Higgins teaches arm movements in her classroom as she teaches at the Concord Community Center on Wednesday, July 9, 2025.

Belly dancing instructor Dawn Higgins teaches arm movements in her classroom as she teaches at the Concord Community Center on Wednesday, July 9, 2025. GEOFF FORESTER—Monitor staff

Student Deandra Perruccio uses a veil to enhance the movements of the dance as she teaches at the Concord Community Center on Wednesday, July 9, 2025.

Student Deandra Perruccio uses a veil to enhance the movements of the dance as she teaches at the Concord Community Center on Wednesday, July 9, 2025. GEOFF FORESTER—Monitor staff

A flier for the belly dancing class hosted through Concord Parks and Rec at the Community Center.

A flier for the belly dancing class hosted through Concord Parks and Rec at the Community Center. Concord Parks and Rec—Courtesy

By JANE MILLER

Monitor staff

Published: 07-15-2025 2:57 PM

Modified: 07-15-2025 3:46 PM


At the beginning of her belly dancing class, Dawn Higgins asks her participants to recite two mantras: “I am beautiful” and “I am enough.”

She gifts students “coin skirts,” pieces of silk fabric of varying colors and lengths decorated with dangling gold coins. The more coins, the more jingling. All of the students remove their shoes. Against the ambiance of soothing Middle Eastern music, Higgins leads her class in some warmup exercises like rotating their wrists in circles, rocking back and forth on their feet and moving their hips.

At a class at the Concord Community Center on Wednesday, Higgins instructed her class to strike a pose, “as sassy or shy as you want,” and to use their fingers to trace their bodies to the sound of an Egyptian song.

Those beginning moments, she said, are an opportunity for participants to relax and “love ourselves.”

“We’re always going fast,” Higgins said, “and it can make life feel really hectic and uncomfortable.”

For Higgins, the slow pace of belly dancing offers an opportunity to reconnect with her body and the class provides a space for dancers to break away from the stressful demands of everyday life. Her weekly classes are special because belly dancing is “by the feminine, for the feminine,” she said.

Student Deandra Perruccio was drawn to Higgins’ class for similar reasons. Although she had never tried belly dancing before, she had been reading a lot about the “the divine feminine” before she joined.

“It seemed like a great way to kind of get in touch with moving my body.” Perruccio said. “It feels like a really powerful piece of ourselves as women that I think Western culture doesn’t necessarily encourage us to be in touch with, except as a way to connect with men.”

Article continues after...

Yesterday's Most Read Articles

Sudden pile of trash near Exit 13 on Manchester Street in Concord considered ‘illegal dumping’
With Steeplegate still held up in court, city privately debates public investment
Merrimack Valley schools to consider eliminating most Penacook bus routes
Blueberries, honey, flowers and more: Dunbarton gets a new farmers’ market
OSHA investigates Pittsfield partial building collapse
Traffic declined at Manchester Airport last year, making it the only major airport in New England that failed to grow

Higgins began belly dancing when she was pregnant with her son. She had been tap dancing at the time, but as she grew bigger and bigger, she felt less and less connected with the dance. On a night out with her friends 21 years ago, she tried belly dancing by chance.

“When I started to shimmy for the first time, my baby kicked.” Higgins said, referring to the classic hip-undulating move. She took this message to be a sign from her son, who has grown up to be a fiddle player and enjoy music and performance as much as his mother.

When she first started her job teaching English at NHTI, she was shocked to find that there was no belly dancing locally. Confident that a belly dancing class could only benefit the city, she emailed the Department of Parks and Rec and began teaching classes in Concord.

She credits her own belly dancing teacher, Tiati, for strengthening her confidence in herself and introducing her to a community of women with the same mindset. It was this confidence that empowered her to advocate for a belly dancing class in Concord in the first place.

As her class went on, Higgins showed her students how to shimmy; it’s like using your hip to shut a car door, she told them. The students moved together in a circle, practicing the foot work “step together step” while they moved their hips from side to side.

“If this is uncomfortable, don’t do it.” Higgins reminded them. “This is your class, and it’s really intended to give you a nice kind of body feeling at the end of a long day.”

Then, she introduced them to their veils, another piece of silk fabric students were instructed to treat as their dance partner.

“Have a little love affair with your veil,” Higgins said to a response of giggles. She told students to throw their veils in the air, and they watched as the silks fell to the floor making beautiful shapes.

Lynn Wright also had never tried belly dancing before the class at the Community Center. She’s taken many classes through Concord Parks and Rec, and belly dancing seemed like it would be out of her comfort zone, a fun challenge.

“I just turned 70,” she said, “I decided I’m going to try to do fun things that I never did before.”

Higgins believes that many dances in the world share the ability to make people feel good, and that when performed, they have the potential to make an audience experience that feeling, too.

“I just think that live entertainment can be lost if we don’t take care of it and participate in it,” Higgins said. “If you never perform for anyone, they can’t enjoy what you’re doing and how you’re growing.”

Higgins will be teaching another six-week belly dancing class this fall through the Parks and Rec, and then a longer-running class through Kimball Jenkins. Her current class runs from 6 to 7 p.m. every Wednesday from July 9 to August 13. For more information, visit www.concordparksandrec.com.

Jane Miller can be reached at jmiller@cmonitor.com