Tribal Thursday – Continuing on from The Tribal Bible… “The next step towards today’s interpretation of American Tribal Style Belly Dance came from one of Jamila Salimpour’s students Masha Archer. Synchronized group improvisational choreography in the belly dance world began it’s development in SanFrancisco =, California, in the 197os when Masha Archer left Jamila Salimpour’s tutelage and began her own classes. This occured before Masha had spent much time with Jamila, and she hadn’t had experience in designing choreographies. Masha went on to found her own group, the San Francisco Classic Dance Troupe and her own classes. She developed her own interpretation of belly dance, partly as a means to take the dance out of the cabaret, restaurant and night club environs that were about the only outlet for an Oriental dancer in San Francisco at that time. Her style was focused more on the artistic side of a group presentation, and less towards an attempt towards recreating a traditional MidEastern Dance group than Jamila’s was. She “added more uniformity to the new style by not distinguishing between the regions and simply identifying it as belly dance” – from “The lineage of American Tribal Style” by Rina Rall. Tribal Talk Vol. 2 #3. As she and her students continued to evolve, their approach shifted more towards American and European aesthetics and ideas, including the use of non-Middle Eastern music, costume, and styles of dance.”