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Presenting: Maya Zahira - An Oasis for Healing

Belly dancing began a journey.

Hidden in the suburbs of North Kansas City is an oasis that gives women a chance to explore another culture through belly dancing. Maya Zahira owns and operates Maya’s Oasis, a belly dancing studio that is also her home. 

Zahira’s private studio resembles more of a log cabin than a chic dance studio – and Zahira wants to keep it that way. Her private studio only holds eight students at a time but she regularly travels around Kansas City to teach belly dancing at various recreation centers and churches. Students can chose between beginner, immediate/advanced, and fitness belly dancing classes.

Image courtesy of Maya Zahira.

Her journey started thirteen years ago after a life-changing event. Zahira discovered she had a new lease on life and took her first belly dancing lesson. Her instructor was a native of the Middle East and shared her cultural dance with women in Manhattan, Kansas. Soon after her first lesson, Zahira gained not only a new found respect for the art of belly dancing but also a new understanding of the female form. 

“Looking at my instructor, I noticed that I looked like her, and I found her beautiful and that is when I started to make the connection that I was beautiful,” says Zahira.

Zahira wants to teach women that we come in all shapes and sizes, and that we need to start to alter the way that our society considers what is the norm. She would like to see society shift its views on how women are presented and seen, and that means moving away from the ‘model’ body type. 

“Women are supposed to have curves, and belly dancing accentuates the female form, and can be quite a workout,” she says. 

Zahira went through a transformation upon her divorce. She was learning her self-worth and lost weight because of this new style of dancing. Zahira was even featured on the Health Discovery channel five years ago. The show featured alternative ways to lose weight. 

Image courtesy of Maya Zahira.

With a new body and more self-esteem, Zahira decided to learn more about this dance and traveled to New York City to take classes from professional belly dancers. She immersed herself into this new dance and culture and started her transition into a more positive person. 

“Belly dancing healed me both emotionally and physically and that’s what I want to do, heal women and open their minds to another cultural,” Zahira says. 

Zahira was soon tailoring her craft as well as teaching students how to instruct others in this ancient form of dancing. 

In addition to her private sessions at her studio, Zahira also has women’s circles called Lodge of the Butterfly Goddess. Once a month, she gathers her students to learn more about the sacred women, holistic health, and nutrition. 

Her future business plans are to keep contracting out to various places around Kansas City. However, her long-term goals include moving farther from the city and having her clients and students re-connect with nature through weekend retreats. 

“That’s in the future, but I would to have something that was far out in the country, enough for people to be close to nature without the disruptions of modern life, but also be conveniently located,” Zahira says. 

Zahira has created an oasis for herself as well as her students through the teaching of belly dance. Find her schedule of classes on her website at www.mayazahira.com and let your healing and fun begin. 

www.mayazahira.com

Laci Wright is a freelance writer and interactive marketer. She has a background in television journalism, worked as a morning producer for KMBC and as an interactive content developer for PlattForm Ad, a Kansas City-based advertising firm specializing in higher education.

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Thanks, Laci, for the great article!  I'd like to make a few clarifications here.  

First, in paragraphy 1, Maya's Oasis is not only a belly dance studio.  :-)  It also serves as a studio for my thriving Reiki practice as well as my ongoing holistic health classes, monthly women's circle and drum circles.

In paragraph 6, the quote says that women are meant to have curves.  I'd like to correct that to say that we as women naturally come in all different shapes and sizes and that we were never intended to all look the same.  Some of us are thin, some of us are curvy, and some of us are somewhere in between.  We are all beautiful in our uniqueness and diversity!  :-)

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