Born in Irvington and raised in Newark, Sandra Catena grew up in some of the roughest neighborhoods in the country. Yet strangely enough, a belly dancing fad in the 1970s became her vehicle out.
A successful teacher and performer, Catena thought she had escaped such violence when two men attacked her in Jersey City. Though she managed to fight off her attackers, the incident became the motivation to finish a novel she was working on, The African Belly Dance.
“I was almost finished with the book,” she said, “but this made me want to get it published.”
Currently a resident of Bayonne, Catena will be doing a book signing at Unique Books on Broadway near 22nd Street in Bayonne on June 7 from 1 to 4 p.m.
Catena’s new novel, The African Belly Dance, isn’t just a tale involving the exotic dance. It’s a murder mystery with a belly dancer who is drawn into the investigation, finding herself at the scene of the crime, a nightclub in West Africa.
What’s the appeal of moving and shaking in exotic belly dancing style?
“It’s very sensual,” she said. “It’s muscle dancing, it’s not just linear, and it’s also very passionate dancing. You can express your feelings while you’re dancing. You can shimmy, you can shake. It’s a sexy way to dance and total fun.”
And if that isn’t cause enough to take interest, she added, “It’s an excellent way to get fit. It’s an excellent cardiovascular and flexibility workout.”
A mover and a shaker
“I love belly dancing more than I love anything in this world,” Catena proclaimed. “This is the one thing [interest of hers] that is a true passion. I’m inspired every day that I wake up and every day that I dance.”
A teacher at Yamuna in the West Village in New York City, where she also produces belly dancing concerts, Catena is equally inspired by her students, and she takes pride in seeing some go on to become belly dancers in New York or even Egypt.
Starting with ballet and tap, Catena began learning to dance at the early age of three. At 11, she took up modern jazz, and at 17, she developed an interest in belly dancing and started taking lessons. The style has since become her unchallenged favorite.
“Belly dancing is a very ancient and much loved Middle Eastern art form,” said Catena. “However, a good girl does not become a belly dancer.”
Though Catena says that belly dancers are revered in many cultures, she admits there’s a certain stigma attached to it.
“You can compare it to some parents not wanting their daughters to be an actress,” she explained.
Her parents were less than thrilled.
“When I first started at age 17, it was something ‘cute’ and they thought I’d grow out of it,” she said. “Unfortunately, I didn’t. When I started working, I trained very intensively. Work supported my dance habit. Every night, I’d be at a different dance class.”
Catena didn’t “forget this silliness” as her parents might have hoped, though. “I think they would have preferred that I led a more traditional life,” she said.
Just as she paid her own way for her jazz lessons with money from her first job – babysitting at 11 years old – she paid for her belly dancing classes working as a secretary.
Growing up in Irvington and the Ironbound section of Newark, Catena came from a blue collar family, and couldn’t afford to go to college. She said her parents figured she would just get married. Yet belly dancing gave her a living, as well as an informal education.
“I’m an expert on Middle Eastern culture,” she said, adding that she’s constantly learning.
Her profession has also allowed her to travel at home and abroad to places such as Montreal in Canada, the Spanish Riviera, West Africa, San Francisco, and all over the Metropolitan area. She also danced in New Orleans before Katrina.
The African Belly Dance
With the help of a well-known columnist from a New York daily newspaper, Catena was inspired to begin the first of what she hopes will be a series of books.
She had previously written an autobiographical play about her experiences as a belly dancer, which ran off Broadway for several months. Her first novel is a work of fiction, even though it has biographical elements.
“The second you walk into an Arabic nightclub, whether it’s in West Africa or Europe or Newark, you’re walking into a different country.”
Catena’s experience dancing in nightclubs far and wide set the stage for her novel, The African Belly Dance.
Catena and the fictional heroine of the book, Santina Cole, have a lot in common. They’re both Italian-American Catholic girls from blue collar families, and they were both born and raised in the same acre. Catena and Santina also both danced in nightclubs in Abidjan, the capital of the Ivory Coast in West Africa.
But that’s where their similarities end. While Catena admits that there are some similarities, she maintains that the book is a work of fiction.
The book is actually separated into two parts. Book I of the novel explores belly dancing through the character’s experience and movements, and Book II is the meat of a murder mystery that Santina must help solve.
“This book relates to women,” explained Catena. “Santina Cole is an ‘every woman.’ There’s nothing special about her. She grew up poor, she’s ordinary, but this everyday gal goes on to create an unusual and exotic life for herself. And despite her exotic life, at her core, she’s still an everyday girl that everyone can relate to … It’s a book that I think any woman can relate to.”
Believing the book will appeal to men and women from ages 20 to 70, Catena describes writing the novel as “a total love affair” that was a lot of fun.
“I want to share belly dancing with the whole world,” she said.
Catena has five more novels planned, which will possibly be about belly dancing, yet set in different locations.