Heather D. Ward

Heather D. Ward is a Middle Eastern dance instructor, performer, and researcher based in St. Louis, Missouri, USA. As an instructor and performer, Ms. Ward specializes in Egyptian raqs sharqi. Her repertoire also includes Egyptian folkloric dance, including baladi, ghawazi, and sa’idi dance styles, as well as folkloric styles from the Levant and the Persian Gulf. As a researcher, Ms. Ward’s primary area of concentration is the transition from awalim and ghawazi dance styles to classical raqs sharqi at the turn of the 19th/20th centuries in Egypt, and she has written a book on this subject: Egyptian Belly Dance in Transition: The Raqs Sharqi Revolution, 1890-1930.