American Tribal Style® bellydance (ATS®) was developed by Carolena Nericcio and her troupe FatChanceBellyDance® of San Francisco, California. It’s a group style of bellydance in which dancers use a set vocabulary of movements, cues, and formations to create a spontaneous improvised choreography. With the focus on the group rather than the individual, ATS® is like a team sport – without the competition and with the addition of fabulous music and costumes! Costuming tends towards a Silk Road fusionary aesthetic, which mirrors the diverse influences on this dance style: Middle Eastern, North African, Indian, and Spanish, to name the more prominent.

ATS® bellydance can be a captivating performance, an exhilarating teambuilding exercise, and a fun way to work out! Explore the instruction and performance sections of this site to bring some of this unique art form into your life.

Image: syncretismassociates.com

Ziva (Sylvia Edge-Perkins) is an ATS® teacher/performer and bellydance costumer based in Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand. Ziva directs ATS® performance group Zilzal Tribal Bellydance.

Image: Gerry Keating

FatChanceBellyDance®, FCBD®, ATS® and American Tribal Style®, are federally registered trademarks of FatChanceBellyDance, Inc. For more information, please visit www.fcbd.com/about/legal.shtml.