Memoir Table of Contents
Pronounced "Heart: a beast"
Isidora Hart:
Writey, fighty dancer nerd.
Isidora Hart
Isidora has been a dancer, writer, musician and actress all her life, and she is a longterm martial artist. Her degrees through the University of Minnesota are in History and Dance. In 1992, she tumbled down the belly dance rabbit hole, prompting the metamorphosis of one of her many nicknames, Bella, into BellaDancer. (Her friends are as punny as she is.)
In her three decades as a professional dancer and eternal student of movement, she has voraciously gobbled up a cornucopia of styles from around the world including stage and folk dances of the Middle East, Europe, North Africa, India and the Pacific Islands. She has also studied Flamenco, Mexican Folklorico, ecstatic dance, meditative movement, and martial arts.
Her dances are always a blend of these studies with a focus on storytelling, inspiration, and innovation.
Isidora means "the gift of Isis.” Hart is...well, that's a multilayered punny name, too. ✨💖✨ Although the hartebeest is an animal similar to a wildebeest, this wilde HarteBeastie is quite a different creature. ✨😈✨
BellaDancer
Isidora began her professional dance career as a premier belly dancer in Greek and Moroccan restaurants. But she is a fusion artist at heart, so she could never stay away from the stage.
This career has taken her around the United States and internationally to teach and perform, and she has danced for the International Academy of Middle Eastern Dance. She was one of the stars of Temptation of Belly Dance and Fantasy Belly Dance, both creative DVDs designed to raise the level of belly dance to a high art of theater and film.
During the 17 years she lived in Colorado, Isidora taught local classes in multiple cities and was the Artistic Director of several troupes, as well as the Tejedora Dance Company.
She has dedicated her life to The Dance and to sharing it with others. It is her profession, her principle, and her pastime, but most of all, it is her passion.
Fighter
Isidora has been whapping her friends with weapons since 1993. She holds a second-degree black belt in Kenpo and continues to explore as wide a range of martial styles as she does in dance. She is also obsessed with the Gladiatrix.
After being hit by a drunk driver in 2000, she slowly began teaching and performing dance again, sharing with her students what she learned in recovery, like body alignment, natural movement, tenacity, and soul searching.
Her martial training influenced the format of the dance drills she created for herself during physical therapy, as well as her Elements System which explores the spiritual and expressive depths of movement. These form the basis of her teaching technique.
In 2013, she moved to NW Arkansas to be near her family while healing from a second TBI and another car wreck, which renewed her seizures. The combination of longterm injury and martial study gives her a unique perspective regarding patience, discipline, creative solutions, endurance, and the ability to--not merely take a punch & get back up--but redirect Life's blows into fuel. Being a lifelong dancer gives her a unique perspective on martial arts.
Writer
As a blogger and memoir writer, Isidora is a regular rager against drunk driving, domestic violence, sexual assault, and a host of other abuses. She is equally vocal about the realities of living with Traumatic Brain Injury and navigating disability.
The inspiration for the blog is how Dance, Writing, Martial Arts, and Nature have seen her through these dark adventures. Amidst rainclouds, she has experienced eternal silver linings she would never give back, and she's discovered that the Underworld has beautiful, eerie flowers, as well as the delectable juice of pomegranates.
As such, nonfiction alone cannot suffice. Oh, no, she must also obsessively fingerbang her keyboard, pumping out Fiction like her hair is on fire. (Which it is, even when it's blue. She's a Fire Sign, yo.) She writes in a style her readers call Twisted History & Myth (or just "craic")--gutsy, steamy tales, set in fantastical locales about soul-searching quests, liberation & love.
Dain Bramage did in her adventures in publishing through a traditional house or any standard indie methods, so her main fiction goals (besides all the word vomit and editing) now focus on hacking the Matrix so she can get her stories into the hands of people who yearn for them.
If you couldn't tell, her writing is NSFW and 18+.
Bella & The Beast
Due to her brain traumas, Isidora rarely travels or performs onstage anymore. Rather, she has focused all her creative energy into writing, training in softer martial styles, and making dances for video. In light of this second life reboot, compounded by the isolation and stillness of a pandemic, the Muses have made two things clear:
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Her dance and martial arts MUST be officially married.
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Cultural-based Belly Dance Fusion has given way to Fantasy Fusion, a comprehensive melding of her studies, with no emphasis upon any flavor or culture. Rather, her devotion to character, theater, & storytelling has taken center stage.
And in her heart, it always has.
Thus, has BellaDancer returned full circle to the wide-open canvas of creation she started out with in her youngest years. This adventure has given birth to her labors of love: The Hartebeast System with its Dance of Elemental Alchemy and her blog named--you guessed it: Bella & The Beast.
(See why clones are necessary?)
Welcome aboard the
Good Ship Hartebeast!