About Janelle

Janelle Rodriguez is a belly dance performer, choreographer and musician who has trained in many styles of dance since the age of 5. Based in Santa Cruz, California, Janelle teaches classes and serves as artistic director/choreographer of Desert Dream Dance Company. She also directs Desert Dream Music Ensemble. With Desert Dream Dance Company and as a solo artist, Janelle gives workshops and performs across the US, inspiring audiences with her musical interpretation and creative expression of belly dance. Janelle’s early background includes ballet, jazz, tap, modern dance, gymnastics, hip-hop and Mexican Folklore. In 1995, she began studying Middle Eastern dance with Cory Zamora in Fresno, California. Immediately enamored by the isolated movements and unique rhythms, the dance form felt familiar to Janelle, and thus began her lifelong passion of study and personal growth.

Belly dance performer, choreographer and musician

Janelle Rodriguez is a belly dance performer, choreographer and musician who has trained in many styles of dance since the age of 5. Based in Santa Cruz, California, Janelle teaches classes and serves as artistic director/choreographer of Desert Dream Dance Company and leads the local Salimpour Dance Collective. She also directs the Desert Dream Music Ensemble (has been on hiatus since 2020). With Desert Dream Dance Company and as a solo artist, Janelle gives workshops and performs across the US, inspiring audiences with her musical interpretation and creative expression of belly dance. Janelle’s early background includes ballet, jazz, tap, modern dance, gymnastics, hip-hop and Mexican Folklore. In 1995, she began studying Middle Eastern dance with Cory Zamora in Fresno, California. Immediately enamored by the isolated movements and unique rhythms, the dance form felt familiar to Janelle, and thus began her lifelong passion of study and personal growth.

About Janelle Dance

Janelle moved to Santa Cruz in 1997 and began studying with Beth Frue, a founding member of Fat Chance Belly Dance. Deeply rooted in modern and classical Arabic dance, Beth’s supportive mentoring motivated Janelle to choreograph and teach a belly dance piece for Cabrillo College’s 1998 spring dance concert. A year later, Desert Dream Dance debuted in Santa Cruz, with a duet performance by Beth and Janelle, followed by student and professional troupe appearances at festivals. Today, Beth’s legacy lives on in Desert Dream Dance Company. (More about Beth Frue and Desert Dream coming)

Janelle started teaching small classes for friends and fellow dancers in 2002 before opening Pleasure Point Fitness & Dance Center in 2008. In 2015, she found a new home base for dancers and musicians with the opening of Desert Dream Dance Company studio. Understanding muscle use and development plays a primary role in all of Janelle’s classes, which integrate Suhaila and Jamila Salimpour technique and Step Vocabulary. A prominent and respected instructor throughout the San Francisco Bay Area and Central Coast of California, Janelle enjoys sharing her knowledge and love of Middle Eastern and Arabic dance through teaching, which further encourages her to improve and grow in her own dance training and artistry.

Pioneering dancers and teachers Jamila and Suhaila Salimpour have also played pivotal roles in Janelle’s journey. Like Suhaila, Janelle studied ballet, tap and jazz from an early age, and integrates her classical training with Middle Eastern and Arabic dance. Suhaila serves as a mentor to Janelle, and the Salimpour theory and technique strongly influences her teaching style, which incorporates the history, culture and teaching methods handed down by the Salimpour legacy. A long-time student of Suhaila, Janelle finished her level 500 teaching courses (formerly Level 5 Suhaila and Jamila formats) in 2023 and is now licensed to teach both Salimpour Core Technique and Salimpour Step Vocabulary as well as hold Level 101-102 certifications (formerly Suhaila L1 & Jamila L1) intensives and courses at her home studio in Santa Cruz, Ca. She performs with Bal Anat, founded by Jamila in 1968 and rekindled by Suhaila in 1999. Janelle is now Group leader and Choreography captain for the Santa Cruz Salimpour Collective.

Janelle is currently working on her Pilates teacher training as well as continuing her education on Middle Eastern and Arabic dance, music and arts. Janelle’s main focus is to bring educational dance training to her students as well as continue to support and learn from artists and educators of Middle Eastern and Arab descent from which she draws her inspiration for her dance and artistic expression.