"Funkaerobics," Belly Dancing Get Beaver Hills Fest Shaking

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Nicole Allan Photo

"You want every extra bit of flesh to be shaking around!" Amanda "Muneerah" Hilton shouted over her shoulder, wiggling her hips. "American culture tells you that's bad, but in belly dancing, it's good!" A group of disciples imitated her actions, learning how to do "snake arms" -- raise your arm from elbow to wrist to fingers and then let it drop -- at a wellness festival hosted by business owners in the Edge of the Wood plaza on Whalley.

The festival Sunday afternoon was organized by Mubarakah Ibrahim, owner of Balance Fitness and nine-year resident of Beaver Hills. "I keep seeing on the news lots of negative reports about Beaver Hills," Ibrahim said, explaining why she decided to organize the festival. One day, while driving past Norton Parkway, she'd seen an Orthodox Jew talking to a black couple and an Asian man, and she thought: "This is what New Haven is all about."

Ibrahim is proud of the diversity of her neighborhood and wants to share it with Greater New Haven. "I don't want people to be scared to come to Beaver Hills," she said. So she teamed with the owners of Edge of the Woods, Shang Hai Chinese restaurant, Sylvan Cleaners, Custom Tees, and Jackson Hewitt Tax Service to organize a community-building event in their shared parking lot.

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Edge of the Woods provided fresh apple cider, fruit, and a big basket of chocolate chip cookies, while Shang Hai set out a sampling of some of its more popular items, including fried balls of dough known to customers as the traditional Chinese delicacy of sugar donuts. Sylvan, Custom Tees, and Jackson Hewitt together provided a table full of crayons and paper for the kids, and Balance Fitness blasted music for the belly dance class as well as a "Funkaerobics" demonstration.

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Sheila Masterson, director of Whalley Avenue Special Services District, introduced Rob Smuts, City Hall's chief administrative officer, at the kick-off of the afternoon event. "It's great to see a positive business like [Balance Fitness] opening up on Whalley. I live a couple of blocks up on Whalley so I really appreciate it," Smuts said. Balance has been around for almost two years now; Ibrahim's presence adds frequent jolts of energy to the area. Edge of the Woods owner Peter Dodge described her as "a high energy girl," and Masterson called her "dynamite."

(Click here to read a previous Independent article about Ibrahim.)

Ibrahim hopes to bring business opportunity and visibility to the Whalley neighborhood, a goal Masterson shares. When she moved to the area in 1996, Masterson explained, there were 11 foreclosed properties on Whalley, all of which have since been developed. "I've seen huge positive change in the neighborhood," she attested.

Asked about the area's recent crime-ridden reputation --click here to read about community policing controversies in response to an upswing in crime -- Masterson made eye contact and said, "You want to know something? I live up the street half a mile. I've worked in this district for 11 years. I've worked in New Haven since 1979, and I've never once had a problem."

City officials are responding to these developments -- and Whalley's old reputation as a dingy strip of auto repair shops and fast food drive-throughs -- with targeted marketing efforts to attract new business and make the area more walkable with events like Sunday's festival.

Thought quiet at first, the festival attracted a crowd of about 40 as the day wore on. Mothers belly danced, business owners chatted, and kids dashed about with crayons and balloons and handfuls of cookies.

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Ibrahim's children (her daughter, Salwa, is pictured) clutched as many cookies and sugar donuts as they could hold. Their mother firmly instructed them to wait a few more hours. An observant Muslim family, the Ibrahims are currently fasting for Ramadan. "We'll have a big feast with all this food at 6:30 on the dot," Ibrahim said.

By injecting music and food and dancing and laughter into her diverse business environment, Ibrahim hopes to create waves of change throughout Beaver Hills. "Crime is just the absence of opportunity," she stated firmly, "and bad is just the absence of good."

http://www.newhavenindependent.org/archives/2007/10/beaver_hills_fe.php