June’s meeting was filled with energetic fun. Joanna Dowey from the Northern Belly Company visited and taught us some bellydancing.

Joanna brought an exciting suitcase full of spangles, sequins and wafty scarves that we raided with great glee. It was a good ice-breaker and got us all in the mood.

In the first half of the meeting we warmed up and learnt the basic bellydancing moves like the hip drop and shimmy.

Joanna leading the troops…

Hands up!

The traditional WI tea break was particularly welcome after all that exertion and Karen’s splendid meringues didn’t last long.

We even found time to work on our peg dolls for the Hebden Bridge Arts Festival.

There was plenty of giggling throughout but by the end of the evening we were rather amazed to discover that we’d learnt an entire dance routine.

Joanna was an excellent teacher and got us all shaking our stuff and discovering muscles we didn’t even know we had – several of us were rather sore the next day – but we had great fun, thanks Joanna!

Written and posted by Kirsty