Spotlight Dancer/Troupe
Epona - The Warrior Belly Dancer

Epona has been an Artist and connoisseur of fantasy since she could first hold a pencil. Originally a native of Detroit, Mi, she moved to the Phoenix area in 1998 to pursue a career in the Arts. Her adventure in belly dance began in Tempe, in 2001, when she signed up to take her very first class. She immediately fell in love with the sensual and mysterious snake like movements that were taught within Belly Dance. It took Epona back to an ancient place, being the oldest known dance in history, and empowered her creativity unlike anything had done before. 

Early within Epona's belly dance training, she met a local teacher named Morgiana, who taught and performed a sword dance unlike no other she had ever seen. Morgiana reminded Epona of the television show character Xena Warrior Princess, which she adored, so Epona, there upon, began taking classes with her. Throughout her lessons with Morgiana, Epona learned how to perform the art of balancing a sword. She was then totally hooked on belly dance! Epona felt like a warrior during her first sword dance performance and was truly enthralled with the empowerment and confidence it gave her. Epona then pursued the art of costume design, for she needed something to give her the "look" of a warrior woman. Her imagination began to run wild. Creating the costumes put forth the colors onto the painting that told the entire story within Epona's dance performances.

Epona's love and passion for fantasy costumes and women empowerment brought her to Los Angeles from 2005-2009 to the annual Xena Convention. She loved having a place to go where her love for Xena and passion for her costume creations were truly appreciated. In 2005 and 2007 she decided to show off her talent of belly sword dancing for the costume and talent contests. It landed her second place both years and put her in the archives of Creation Entertainment and the Xenaverse for eternity.

In 2004, Epona decided to take her dance style further by creating a very unique performance troupe honoring the spirit of the warrior woman. She had a vision of a culture that existed thousands of years ago called the Amazons. The Amazons were tribes of warrior women that lived in many different regions, including ancient Anatolia, which is now Turkey. Turkey is a place commonly known to be famous for belly dance. The Amazons were said to be very artistic themselves and also loved to dance. Epona could see the Amazons belly dancing, in her vision, knowing that belly dance was created by women for women. Epona then built a website honoring this idea and called it Aretias. The term Aretias is the name of an island that still exists today on the coast of the Black Sea in Giresun, Turkey. It is said to be an ancient place where the Amazon warrior women would meet. 

Aretias, now known as Aretias Warrior Women, took an extreme amount of dedication and hard work for Epona to find the right dancers, being such a unique endeavor. Once she found the right dancers to launch such a project, Epona choreographed the dance pieces and recorded her voice in between the music to tell the story of those brave ancient warrior women known as the Amazons. With all of the hard work and persistence it took to complete, Eponas dream came true! Aretias Warrior Women turned into a full production, or performance play, through the art of dance. 

Since then, Epona and Aretias Warrior Women have performed at Art Galleries around the Phoenix area, as well as restaurants, nightclubs and festivals. Eponas most recent production of Aretias Warrior Women was at the second annual Phoenix Faerie Festival in Goodyear, AZ this past November. This particular piece was entitled Goddess Revenge. Goddess Revenge had a different take on Eponas original vision of the ancient Amazons or Warrior Women, to a theme of Warrior Goddesses. Epona feels very strongly about the environment and the needed healing of the planet today. This is what this particular production was about. Goddess Revenge told a story of the ancient Goddess of old waking up from a deep sleep to find the modern world of today in a state of dismay and destruction. The story was a message of empowerment to create an intense feeling of hopelessness, to then be shifted into a feeling of courage, in order to begin the process of healing. Epona was so very pleased with the show Goddess Revenge that she posted the entire production onto You Tube in a six part series for world viewing.

For more info on Epona or Aretias - Warrior Women please visit:
website: www.aretiastribe.com
email: aretiastribe@hotmail.com

Photo credits:
Photo 1 by D. Carrier
Photo 2 by Xena Chicks
Photo 3 by Robert Buhrman

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