With elaborate costumes in brilliant shades of purple, red and gold flowing around them, women of the Habibi Dancers swirled and shimmied across the stage.

Their movements told the story of "The Resurrection of Osiris," the lover of the goddess Isis. In the story, Isis and Osiris overcome darkness and the message is that of good and evil and love and sacrifice.

The dancers graced the stage at Hannah Community Center in their 20th anniversary celebration of the Habibi Dancers' performances.

The Lansing-based group of 17 professional and avid female dancers performs in outdoor and ethnic festivals throughout Michigan and the Midwest. The Habibi Dancers were formed in 1983 as a nonprofit organization to carry on the tradition of authentic Middle Eastern dance.

Saturday's performance included both traditional and modern music to tell the story. Some songs used basic drum beats, while others sounded more like hip-hop songs on the radio.

Dancer Donna Chattulani has been ballroom dancing for more than a decade and joined the Habibi Dancers group after hearing about it from a friend three years ago. Her dance name, Maya, means illusion in Indian.

"To me, dancing is an illusion," she said. "It's significant to me on a personal level."

She said she relishes the beauty of the art form and the stories told within the movement.

Garnett Kepler, director for the show, wrote in the program that she thought the legends of ancient Egypt were references to the life and death cycles humans play out every day.

"As the seasons are again changing," she wrote, "and our lives are slowly graced with more sun and warmer temperatures, we again witness this never ending cycle of birth, maturation, death and rebirth.

"I wanted to pay homage to this spectacle of change that modern life so often fails to recognize."