Creaking leather, the rustle of crisp lace, the assured stride of steel heels coming down the hall. The door opens with a reverberating crash, drawing all eyes. Her red streaks, heavy make-up and wild costume don’t disguise the feminine curves she keeps under wraps. Akasha leans into the room, hand on her hip, as if listening to something. Then she looks out at you from beneath a heavy black fringe of lashes, all at once seducing you and studying you. Suddenly you hear a thumping bass intertwined with classical music and electronic beats. It’s quite nouveau, yet old world circus.

Akasha begins to dance. It feels familiar to you, yet unknown at the same time. The intrigue titillates and draws you in. Akasha smiles, she has seen this before. She opens her bag of tricks. Looking in, her eyes glitter knowingly with satisfaction. What is old is new and what is new is old. Tribal…Victorian…Industrial…Fusion. What does it all mean? How do you define what cannot be defined?


Here you see my interpretation of these words. www.akashawear.com

Akasha Afsana grew up dancing, literally. She took tap, ballet, and jazz starting at 3. Her advantage was that her parents had their own dance studio. Ballroom, Disco, Asian, and Latin were some of the styles they taught. Teaching her all the forms of dance they knew, she performed regularly with them and on her own. She loved it, and was very comfortable in front of an audience! Her first bellydance lesson was from her mother when she was just 7 years old. Outfitted in homemade Paisley harem pants and a scarf artfully tied around her chest, she was exuberant to learn. It was her favorite style of dance!

Akasha took up bellydancing full-time in 2002, studying at Cassandra Shore’s Cassandra School, Ammala Middle Eastern School of Dance, Sahar School of Middle Eastern Dance, and Al-Bahira Middle Eastern School of Dance. She has also studied under Moria Chappell, Sharon Kihara, Kami Liddle, Ariellah, Darshan (Cammi Vance), Urban Gypsy, Frederique, and Silvia Salamanca.

Having grown up performing so many forms of dance, it’s natural that Akasha would fuse many styles together. This is the foundation for her world-fusion dance troupe, Afsana, based in Minneapolis, MN. As Creative Director of Afsana, started in the Spring of 2006, Akasha performs many styles of dance, including Tribal Fusion, Dark Fusion, Folkloric, Bollywood, Balinese, Asian, and Steampunk.

In the fall of 2006, Akasha quit her corporate day job to pursue dance full-time and start up her costume dance wear company, Akashawear. She caters to the Tribal Fusion genre, and has recently started designing Steampunk clothing and accessories.

In addition to all this, Akasha is also part of TC Tribal, a website dedicated to all things fusion in the Twin City (Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN) area. This website features local artists and teachers, upcoming workshops and shows (TC Tribal sponsored and local artist sponsored), and local bellydance goods purveyors.