Junkeri Belly Dance
Junkeri is a belly dance school based out of Mumbai, India. What started off as a small belly dance performance troupe is now a celebrated belly dance school worldwide. In less than a year of classes, we have worked with passion and love and have been blessed with nearly 1000 students all across the world. Junkeri is proud to be a sister unit of one of the finest and oldest belly dance schools of India, Banjara School of Dance. At the school, which for us is more a state of mind than just a physical school, we hope that dancers find quality training in belly dance and allied arts which helps them to emerge as stronger dancers and human beings. At the school, we value and prioritize mindfulness, inclusivity, self-love along with soulful dancing.
At Junkeri, we see belly dance as an inner light that always guides people to find their true, beautiful, expressive, free selves; and so we say:
"Bring Forth Your Light..."
Junkeri recently completed its first Bellydance Production Badr Ul Badour which became India’s first belly dance musical production. Top belly dance schools of India from across the country performed with their proteges and the audience was left spellbound with applause, standing ovation and requests for an encore. The production will soon travel around the county.
Junkeri Founder: Damini Sahay
"I didn't choose belly dance, belly dance chose me. It is what makes me a better human every single day of my life."
Damini Sahay, our founder and artistic director is a professional bellydancer, performer, teacher and heads Junkeri with all her love. She is trained in multiple dance styles since a very young age and sharing the joy and freedom of belly dance is her purpose in life. She is a company member of Banjara School of Dance (led by Meher Malik), a Dance Movement Therapy (DMT) practitioner and also owns her own Dance Movement Therapy Organisation The MoveVent project.
She found belly dance saving her life at a very tough stage in her life and since then it hasn't failed to lift her life and make her a better woman every single day of her life. Thus for her, with Junkeri, the aim is to help dancers find that inner light through the beautiful art of belly dance.
She has been teaching bellydance since 2012, has performed in Berlin, Cairo, Paris, Sri Lanka, Lisbon and in various cities inside India. She won the group competition in the folklore category at the prestigious Nile Festival Cairo one year into her belly dancing with Banjara School of Dance. She has trained under nearly all the leading master teachers in the community of belly dance including Oriental and fusion styles.
Above laurels, Damini values qualitative measures of life and dance such as depth, honesty, freedom and expression without undermining for herself or her students the importance of discipline, aesthetics, cultural context, musicality, cross-training, and body awareness and hard work.
"I welcome you with open arms to my school Junkeri and hope you discover the beauty of belly dance while discovering yourself."