Jennifer Secrist Goran
Jennifer is the lead instructor and director of The Nawaar Dance Company and currently teaches 6 classes a week in Boulder, Colorado. She has also been the featured guest instructor for workshops in Florida, California, Washington & Arizona.
Jennifer began her belly dance training in San Francisco in 1989 with world famous American Tribal Style (aka ATS or FCBDStyle®) founder Carolena Nericcio, director of FatChanceBellyDance®. She was immediately impressed by the presence and poise of the instructor and by the powerful, organic feel of the dance. To this day Jennifer remains a loyal student of Carolena’s and still enjoys studying with her when in the Bay Area.
In addition to the ATS dance form, Jennifer spent several years training and performing classical belly dance styles. She draws on this experience to help guide belly dancers from other styles (classical Egyptian, American cabaret, Persian, Tunisian & Turkish) to quickly and easily distinguish the nuances and inflections that are so important to creating the distinct look of ATS/FCBDStyle®.
Jennifer is known for her long term experience with ATS as well as her strong movement technique, focused arm work, isolations, creating dynamic movement dialect & performance sets. She is often praised as a passionate teacher who strives to help each student she works with reach their fullest potential.
During 2001-2004 Jennifer and her family resided in Tallahassee, Florida. While there she studied and performed more traditional belly dance styles with InStep Studio whose lineage can be traced back to Morocco in New York. In addition to honing her classical dance studies, Jennifer also established the region’s first ATS® belly dance program.
After moving to Boulder in 2004 she joined Desert Rain, Colorado’s very first tribal belly dance troupe, and enjoyed the dancing and camaraderie of these talented ladies. In June 2007, Jennifer, her Desert Rain troupemates, Lisa Goodrich & Anita Kear, along with former TribalTique founders Molly McClellan (current director of Vespertina) & Julia DiVerdi (current director of Sumatra), traveled to San Francisco to complete their GS Certification in ATS/FCBDStyle® with Carolena Nericcio. They were among some of the first dancers in Colorado to have been honored with this certification.
After 4 years of simultaneously performing professionally with Desert Rain and overseeing and occasionally performing with her own student troupes, she decided to devote herself full time to The Nawaar Dance Company. Jennifer & Lisa both still have a great time dancing with each other and can be seen eating cheesy pizza together and guest appearing with each other’s troupes from time to time. Jennifer currently directs and works full time running Tribe Nawaar LLC.
See what people are saying about studying with Jennifer…
Merav
Merav’s middle name is Salome… for reals! We think she was born to be a belly dancer. Born in Miami from Cuban-Israeli descent, she always admired Middle Eastern culture and wanted to keep a connection to it. She decided one night to be brave and try a belly dance class. The class proved life changing and now she is embarking a lifelong serious study of belly dance.
Belly dance helped her become more in tune with her body & serves as a way to balance out her spinal disorder. She hopes to share her personal experiences and knowledge with others who are also going through the same thing. Merav has been dancing since 2010. She has so far danced for 3 troupes & performed solos on stage and in restaurants. She joined The Nawaar Dance Company in 2013 as part of her pursuit to study transnational fusion. She feels that Fat Chance Belly Dance Style® is the root and history of what has become American belly dance! Merav hopes that one day she can take constant trips to the Middle East to learn more. When she is not obsessed with belly dance, she is writing, playing video games, eating cupcakes and learning how to sew and how to speak Arabic and Hebrew.
Steph Maes
Steph was fascinated by Belly Dance since she was 12 years old. She tried to teach herself, along with following VHS tapes (that used to be a thing) that her mom bought her. When she went to college, Belly Dance was offered as a credit. So she signed up immediately. The teacher would bring in videos every few weeks, showing the different styles of Belly Dance. One day she brought in Belly Dance Super Stars Tribal Fusion. As soon as Rachel Brice, Zoe Jakes, and Mardi Love came on, Steph knew exactly what style of dance she wanted to learn. She researched the biographies of the women who inspired her, and noticed that the all had a background in ATS. She looked for the closest teacher and found Jennifer in Golden.
After building coordination, she took a 200 hour Yoga teacher training in 2011. She has since then taken a 200 hour Gymnastics Teacher Training, and is now certified in Barre and Indoor Cycle. She is now a 900 hour Licensed Massage Therapist, and is now going back to school for a Year 2 Program to specialize in Medical Massage and the 10 Series of Structural Integration (just another 504 hours). She is also working on completing the 8 Elements with Rachel Brice and has completed the first two phases and will finish the last two in the very near future.
In the little free time Steph has, she enjoys taking dance classes, hitting the gym, hiking, getting outside when possible, traveling, and fighting zombies 😉
Kristin Bruce
Back in 2008, Kristin’s roommate, Lena, decided she wanted to learn to belly dance. And Kristin, being a very good friend, went with her in a show of solidarity. After several classes of feeling like fools, they both decided they really liked it and should probably stick with it. Thus began her love of belly dance.
Kristin joined The Nawaar Dance Company in late 2012 to continue her practice and to try something new. She’s been dancing with the group ever since! She loves the dance form and often tells others that “these are my people.” She is so proud and honored to be part of the Nawaar team!
In addition to being a fabulous dancer, Kristin is also a talented photographer.