Innovative and captivating, Brittney Laleh Banaei is breaking down barriers and surprising audiences with her thought-provoking, engaging dancing.
Of Persian heritage, Brittney Laleh grew up surrounded by the rich history of the Fertile Crescent and its beautiful culture, arts and music. This early exposure, combined with her family’s overall dedication to the arts – music and dance in particular – endowed Brittney Laleh with a lifelong devotion to creating. A consummate artist from an early age, Brittney Laleh immersed herself in the study of piano, bass guitar and a variety of percussion instruments, including Persian-style hand drums. She developed a thorough understanding and appreciation for Middle Eastern rhythms and that early devotion continues to inform her art.
As her passion for music grew, another interest developed – dance. She began studying classical ballet at age four, and a lifelong love affair began. This passion merged with her cultural heritage, and by the tender age of 14, she was publicly performing Persian and Arabic style dance. She studied with local teachers in her hometown of Springfield, Missouri, and was invited to dance in several area arts festivals, as well as at a variety of dance festivals throughout the Midwest. It was during this time that Brittney Laleh’s zeal for learning dance really took hold, and she soon discovered a course of study that would push her toward her first major dance milestone. She was able to study with the famous Yasmina Ramzy of Toronto, Canada, and, at the age of 17, completed Ms. Ramzy’s prestigious Professional Course, which honed Brittney Laleh’s innate ability to respond to live music. This skill has continued to grow and she has become a true master of interacting with live musicians, in part because of her musical background and profound love of music in all its forms.

By the time she was 18, Brittney Laleh was teaching classes of her own, but she had noticed a void in the Springfield arts community. She wanted belly dancers in the area – whatever their particular style or interest – to have a place to learn and grow. Keeping this in mind, she developed her first studio, Beledi Bellydance and Ancient Arts, which offered belly dancers from a variety of backgrounds to come together and sharpen their technique. The studio also offered beginning dancers a safe environment in which to learn to dance. The studio produced some of the best belly dancers in the Midwest, many of whom have gone on to become teachers and cele brated performers themselves.
But Brittney Laleh was never content to rest on her laurels, and had become a lifelong student of dance and related arts. She was seeking the training that would take her dancing to the next level, and found that with master dancer Suhaila Salimpour of northern California. Suhaila, also of Persian heritage, and Brittney formed an immediate bond, and Suhaila’s legendary format was the perfect vehicle to advance Brittney Laleh’s already impressive dance skill. Brittney is currently seeking her Level III certification in the Salimpour format, and Suhaila has become Brittney Laleh’s mentor, teacher and friend. She makes frequent trips to northern California to further her study with Suhaila.
Though the Salimpour method informs Brittney Laleh’s performances, it is only one part of a rich fabric of influences Brittney Laleh calls upon. Calling her style “belly dance Infusion,” Brittney Laleh calls upon every piece of her training, her education, her heritage and her interests to create her one-of-a-kind dances. You might see her perform a classical Egyptian piece one month, and then a sassy jazz-influenced dance using a chair and a saucy hat the next. She might dance to traditional Arabic or Persian music, or she might choose a hip-hop or rock song. Everything inspires her, and if it inspires her, she is immediately fired up to dance to it. Watch her listen to a song and you’ll see the light in her eyes and she hears its potential. Though belly dance is her “home base,” she is constantly pushing the boundaries of this rich art, discovering and re-discovering its amazing potential.
It is from this mindset that Brittney Laleh and her dance partner Karen Elizabeth Culp have developed Springfield Bellydance Academy and the Evolution Dance Company. SBDA was formed along the lines of Beledi Bellydance, as a place for experienced and beginning dancers to come and hone their technique. Working from a “style neutral” position, the academy asks dancers to push their physical limits and train their bodies to master the intricacies of dance. Evolution Dance Company, an elite group of four seasoned dancers, operates under the motto “this ain’t your momma’s bellydance” and seeks to push the limits of what is traditionally considered belly dance. Fusing influences from Western styles such as ballet, jazz, hip hop and modern dance, as well as traditional Oriental style dances and newer style Tribal and Gothic fusion dance, the troupe performs dynamic, awe-inspiring dances that receive accolades from all types of dancers.
And even though she spends a great deal of time teaching dance to students in her hometown, Brittney Laleh also finds time to travel and give workshops. She has been invited to teach in a variety of places in the Midwest, as well as on the West Coast. She was the festival manager for Gothla: the Conjuring, the first ever gothic belly dance festival in the United States. She has been invited to participate in prestigious performances , including the revival of Bal Anat, Jamila and Suhaila Salimpour’s well-known stage show, for the show’s first performance in the Midwestern United States. She has also been invited several times to perform at the Velvet Rope, an elite dance opportunity in Kansas City, proceeds from which help victims of domestic violence. She has been one of the organizers of annual Persian New Year celebrations in her hometown, the only celebrations of their kind in the Midwest. She also produced a stage show, Nefertiti’s Night Out, which showcased dances from all over the Middle East through a unique, storytelling format. About two dozen dancers came together to put on this acclaimed showcase, which played to a sold-out crowd.
Brittney Laleh is currently working toward a degree in dance ethnology with a shared focus on physiology in order to further assist her students and herself in dance development. She is a cherished friend, adored daughter and granddaughter, and enjoys spending her free time with her beloved Pomeranian, aptly named Shimmy. She is also a student of various types of yoga, including Bikram Yoga, a particularly challenging form which Brittney Laleh says changed her life.

Karen Elizabeth Culp is known for her vivacious onstage personality and her overwhelming passion for dance. She enchants audiences with her captivating smile and enthralls them with her creative performances.
Karen has danced since childhood and first developed a passion for dance when just a toddler. “I would hop around the house and make up little movements with my hands and feet. Because I was constantly in motion, my aunts nicknamed me ‘The Hoppin’ Chicken.’ It was a nickname that would follow me into adulthood, because I’ve always liked to move around,” Karen says. “Sometimes I’ll get weird looks at the grocery store and realize I’ve been doing a straight-leg shimmy or a little chassez as I push my cart. If I’m standing up, I’m usually dancing ... .”
Karen was the lead choreographer for her high school and college cheerleading squads, at a time when cheerleading was much more dance-oriented and didn’t have as much of the gymnastic, toss-and-tumble focus you see today. At that time, cheerleading was a good outlet for Karen’s facility toward dance. As a youngster, Karen also studied piano for a number of years and developed a lifelong love of and appreciation for good musicianship. It was also through music study that Karen gained a strong understanding of rhythm and began to distinguish straight beats from syncopation, four-four from six-eight time and so forth.
Karen discovered belly dance in her mid-20’s and started taking from Yasmine, a veteran Springfield belly dancer, around that time. She was a principal dancer for Yasmine’s performing troupe, Sarrab Middle Eastern Dance, and it was during this time that Karen began traveling to study with other teachers. She would also brush up on her classical technique through private ballet lessons.

Almost from the very beginning, she was taking workshops with noted belly dancers, including Elena Lentini, Yousry and Nourhan Sharif, Zaina Ali, Sahra Saeeda, Conchi, Jasmin Jahal, Zahra Zuhair, Suhaila Salimpour and others.
Eventually, Karen discovered Egypt, or it discovered her, she says. Yousry was her first native Egyptian teacher and it was with him that Karen learned there was a distinctive “dance language” among the Egyptians. Karen started absorbing every grainy, badly shot Egyptian belly dance video she could get her hands on. Around this time, DeeDee and her late husband, Ahmed, in Dallas, Texas, started bringing Egyptian dancers to the United States to offer workshops. Dallas was within driving distance, so Karen took off to the Big D to study with Raqia Hassan. She went back to Dallas four more times to see Mona el Said, Nagwa Fouad and, finally, her very favorite Egyptian dancer, Fifi Abdo.
“Mona and Fifi were the dancers who first taught me about my heart,” Karen says. “I was so focused on learning belly dance movements that I’d neglected to pick up on one of its fundamentals: It is a dance that tells a story, YOUR story. I knew I needed to start telling my story with my dance, but didn’t quite know how.”
Enter Karen’s friend Brittney Laleh and Beledi Bellydance and Ancient Arts, the studio Brittney and her family started. Karen would become an instructor there and a performer in its professional troupe, the Ladies of Beledi, as well as its interim director and choreographer when Brittney left for two years to study with Suhaila Salimpour.
But more importantly, at Beledi Karen would start to see how this dance affects women’s lives and how it takes them on a personal journey. It was during the Beledi days that belly dance went from being her hobby to becoming her art.
Karen’s partner and mentor in this process was Brittney Laleh, who started to gently edge her toward becoming a true artist of the dance. She also showed Karen that she didn’t need to leave her love of R&B, funk, hip-hop and rap music at the door when she entered the belly dance studio. Every type of music Karen loves is a potential belly dance routine; that includes her wonderful Arabic music library as well as the rest of her vast and varied music collection.
When Karen dragged Brittney, kicking and screaming, back from Northern California, the two of them began to form Springfield Bellydance Academy, which is now the city’s premier bellydance school.
“And we’re not stopping till we take over the world,” Karen says. “Together we bring our experience, our artistry, and our ‘anything goes on the dance stage as long as you work hard at it and take it seriously’ attitude. We hope students can come and learn about their bodies and develop their dance the way they want to, and that we can give them the fundamentals to do so.”
Karen is proud to be a director of the academy as well as a member of Evolution Dance Company and a choreographer for Pacha Mamma Dance Company.