Dance Biography
Mary Snow is an experienced and widely-trained dancer, known for her versatility, engaging personality, and professionalism. She is proficient in the styles of Raqs Sharqi (classical Egyptian), folkloric belly dance, and a number of fusion styles.
She is a member of the award-winning Invoketress Dance Troupe where she is currently the Managing Director, senior dancer, instructor, and choreographer.
DANCE TRAINING:
Mary discovered belly dance in 2003 with Ishra Blanco and instantly fell in love. She is currently studying advanced fusion dance classes with Ishra and advanced Raqs Sharqi with Melissa Gamal and Florence LeClerc. For many years, she concurrently studied FCBD® (formerly ATS®) classes with Valizan, most recently at the Advanced level. She was a founding member of Tribe Aurealis, a troupe who focused on group improvisational style and fusion dance. She regularly takes workshops with specialty instructors as much as she can in a variety of topics and genres. Notable instructors include Zara and Sahar Samara (of Cairo) Rachel Brice, Kami Liddle, Zoe Jakes, Yasmina Ramzy, Michelle Sorensen, Silvia Salamanca, Sahira, Henna, Nada El Masriya, Badia Star, Nawal Doucette, Audra Simmons, Inga Petermann, Heather Marie, Esmeralda Enrique (Flamenco), and Neefa from Khafif (Romany). Other styles she has studied are Bollywood, modern belly dance, Irish, Flamenco, Turkish Romany, hula, Polynesian, hip hop, and more.
She further informs her dance training with studies in Arabic music with training from Melissa Gamal (finger cymbals), Dr. George Sawa (Arabic music appreciation, Arabic drumming rhythms); Karim Nagi (finger cymbals, performing with live musicians); Roula Said (Arabic Musicology and singing); Khizmet (Arabic drumming), and Arabic percussion with Sheldon Valeda at Haft Vadi Belly Dance Studio.
PERFORMANCE EXPERIENCE:
Mary is a frequent performer, both as a soloist and with the Invoketress Dance troupe. She loves connecting with an audience and has extensive experience performing at shows, weddings, parties, corporate events, community and cultural festivals, charity events and fundraisers. She is the resident belly dancer at Retour Bistro, a Guelph Lebanese restaurant who she has partnered with to offer regular belly dance nights that are usually sold out. She also performs regularly at drag, burlesque, and variety shows.
She has danced at many small and large-scale belly dance events including at the International Belly Dance Conference of Canada (Toronto), Fusion Evolution (formerly Tribal Revolution)(Illinois), Momentumfest MTL(Montreal), Detroit Raqs, Sparkle Motion (Kalamazoo), and the Great Lakes Belly Dance Convention (Ann Arbor, Michigan). In 2017, she was part of the Invoketress ensemble who won 1st place in the Hamilton International Belly Dance Competition. In April 2021, she was selected by the Canadian Dance Assembly as one of 12 dancers to kick-start National Dance Week celebrations across Canada.
PERFORMING TO LIVE MUSIC:
Mary loves to improvise and collaborate with musicians. She has had the pleasure to dance live with some amazing musical talent such as twice Juno-nominated Eccodek; world-renowned The Lemon Bucket Orkestra; internationally-acclaimed Adrian Raso; nuevo-Flamenco guitarist Juneyt; award-winning The Light of East Ensemble, Roula Said and Nomadica, the Guelph Concert Band, respected and accomplished local musicians Gary Diggins, Brent Rowan, “The Naked Harpist” Leslie Shapiro, hip hop artist 6K, and the Bhadra Collective.
INSTRUCTION & CHOREOGRAPHY:
Mary is a regular workshop instructor at parties, dance studios, and events such as the Flying Dance Festival, the Guelph and District Multicultural Festival, Hillside Festival, The Pirate Festival, and various renaissance festivals. For a number of years she formed, taught and directed the performance group “Invoketribe” in improvisational group synchronous dance. She provides private belly dance instruction as well as coaching and mentoring in choreography and performance. She has choreographed a number of Invoketress’ large troupe pieces in a variety of styles as well as works in collaboration with other dancers to create duets and her own solo work.
For Mary, dance has become an intrinsic part of her life. She loves learning, collaborating, and connecting with audiences and other creatives alike through the expression of dance.