About

Sharita: Artist Bio

Known for her avant-garde sense of adventure, Sharita is a producer, director, choreographer and sought-after teacher based in Portland, Ore., who performs throughout the United States. The wide range of her belly dance repertory encompasses Classical Egyptian, Cabaret, Turkish Rom, Folkloric Tradition, Interpretive Choreography, Tribal Form, Lebanese Dance and Improvisational Freestyle.

Sharita’s large-scale 1999 production, “Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring Performed as a Belly Dance,” featured a full cast of belly dancers and was hailed by the Portland Observer as “Primal, powerful, earthy and elegant.” Sharita followed her success by combining belly dance with live jazz in the 2001 production, “Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue Performed as a Belly Dance,” acclaimed in the Willamette Week as “bold new choreography,” and in the Portland Tribune as “sexy and fun.” That same year, Sharita was awarded first place in the Middle Eastern Dance and Culture Association Competition. Two years later, Sharita presented the legendary Elena Lentini in a gala performance, decribed by the Portland Mercury as “passionate” and by the Willamette Week as a “lyrical blend of Eastern mystique and fluid movement.” In 2006, Sharita was invited by NPR’s “Selected Shorts” host, Isaiah Sheffer, to perform her original choreography of “The Dance of the Chosen One” at Symphony Space’s 2006 “Wall-to-Wall Stravinsky” in New York City, for which The New York Times wrote, “As Sharita swiveled her hips in sync with the violently slashing orchestra chords and the spangles on her skirt jangled, adding delicate new sounds to the battery of percussion, you could imagine Stravinsky being keenly impressed.”

Sharita, who earned her B.A. in music at Reed College, where she began belly dance instruction with Patricia Azzone, often returns to her native New York City, where she graduated from the renowned LaGuardia High Shool of Music and the Arts. Sharita appears regularly in the Portland area, and teaches belly dance at Reed College and Portland State University.