A group of 30 women dressed in purple T-shirts squeezed in between desks and chairs in an Eppley Center lecture hall for their first belly dancing lesson.
The lesson was one of the workshops offered at Every Woman’s Weekend, an event revived after two decades by the Women’s Council Saturday.
No-preference sophomore and Women’s Council member Ana Williams said belly dancing is harder than it looks.
“I felt like a Middle Eastern goddess,” she said. “It combined booty dancing with something Middle Eastern.”
Williams said it was interesting to learn that belly dancing was not always used for entertaining men.
“It’s a form of women expressing their art,” she said. “I’m definitely going to practice it.”
Dancing was not the only form of art expressed at the weekend. A room filled with free art supplies was available for attendants of the weekend to use at their leisure. At any given time about 50 women were in attendance, Women’s Council President Laura Sorensen said.
“We were really happy with the turnout,” she said. “It was pretty intimate. We had some really meaningful conversation.”
Humanities and pre-law sophomore Lynne Gardiner gathered beads as part of the arts and crafts portion of the event.
“I didn’t know there was anything like this on campus,” she said.
Gardiner said she learned about Every Woman’s Weekend from an advertisement in Phillips Hall.
Zoology senior and Women’s Council member Allyson Modra said the event was intended to promote both fun and serious issues women face.
“Belly dancing was so much fun,” she said. “It’s time for women to get together and have fun.”
Ann Arbor musician Lisa Hunter presented some of the more serious issues in a body image workshop at the weekend event.
“Body image is not so much about my body as the concept of self-acceptance,” she told the crowd of about 20 girls gathered around her. “Even if women are tons of things I want to change about myself, I want to accept myself just as I am.”
Hunter also performed her songs at a concert later in the evening.
Human biology sophomore Eric Kumor was one of the handful of men who attended the weekend event - and said he enjoyed making a beaded necklace in the art room.
“It’s very welcoming,” he said. “It’s peaceful.”
