I believe Maria Aya once said she preferred to keep younger girls in the folkdance classes, saving belly dance for a more mature period in their lives (correct me if I am wrong, Saint-Sin!) There was a ten year old girl in one of my first dance classes. She came with her mother and was very good, but she caught all sorts of flack after she performed in Stars of Tomorrow. People were genuinely shocked. She was so upset and embarrassed by the reactions that she quit bellydance all together, which was a crying shame. I don't believe it would've happened had she been wearing a baladi dress with a hip sash and pretty headcover instead of a beaded bedlah with a chiffon skirt slit to there. It wasn't the dance that appalled people as much as it was how the dance looked on a child dressed as an adult.
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