Monica Berini

Monica Berini is a San Francisco based performer, instructor, and musician who has been studying dances, songs, instruments, languages and percussion of the Arab world, North Africa, southern Italy, Sicily, and the Mediterranean since her teens, with training in San Francisco, New York and Cairo. Monica has an extensive performance history that includes solo and company experience. Her soulful, musically-driven, baladi style is rooted in 1960s through 1990s Cairo raqs sharqi, 20th-century Arab-, Turkish-, and Armenian-American diasporic "belly dance", raqs baladi, and Firqa Reda technique, with a strong foundation of folk dance roots. She likes to keep it of the people. Monica teaches weekly classes at LINES Dance Center and is a longtime performing member of Aswat, the Bay Area's premier Arab music ensemble. She also is a social practitioner of Italian folk dance and drumming, intent on nurturing a scene in the bay area. More information about Monica's current projects can be found at www.monicadance.com.