Sha'vei
Sha'vei
Biography
BIRTH NAME: Juliette Marie
BIRTH DATE: April 21st
BIRTH PLACE: Wash, DC
MANTRA: "If it jiggles, it's supposed to!" and "For the love of glitter"
Sha'vei began dancing before she could stand. Her mother, Cricket Butler, was a hula dancer who studied modern hula with the late Peggy Holt in Arlington, VA. Later, Cricket began her own circuit of performing hula in restaurants along with fellow dancers in the late 1960s-early 1970s in Eastern Maryland. The story goes that one night a sitter had to meet Cricket at a restaurant to pick up Sha'vei. The sitter however did not realize that the baby girl was an escape artist and the tot crawled out to the dance floor where her mother was opening her set. Sha'vei began to diaper waddle, making hula hands, laughing and waving at the audience. The restaurant owner raced across the patrons and scooped up the baby girl. Her mother immediately felt that she was about to get the axe from the boss in front of a crowded room. But the owner was enamoured and coddled the child. So the running joke was that she charmed the boss and everyone asked if the baby was coming to dance.
By the time Sha'vei was 4, her mother became a hula dance teacher at a small dance studio in Elkton, Maryland which is still in business today. The dance mistress didn't want to take her because she was so young however, her mother's campaigns finally got her an audience. Again, she charmed "the boss" and was enrolled in steady classes of ballet, tap, jazz, acrobatics, baton, and of course hula, regularly performing with her mother's troupe, until her mother's passing in 1980. By the time Sha'vei was 6, her mother went on a trade with a Turkish dancer who taught bellydance at a local college. Sha'vei was the "barefoot brat " in the middle, learning Turkish folk, Egyptian and also began learning zills.
Sha'vei continues to perform at DC area haflas, salons, festivals, and charity events. In 2013, this performer stepped up to the plate as Team Leader for the inaugural team of 24 dancers of Shimmy Mob - Washington, DC. Shimmy Mob is a global flash mob charity effort to raise money and awareness for local crisis centers.
In 2015, she graduated Foundations Teacher Training, a comprehensive course from Masala Movements, directed by Wendy "Bhagwati" Broadway.
Sha'vei regularly trains in dance and frequents master classes with legendaries such as Sahra Saeeda, Bozenka, Jillina, Amar Gamal, Rachel Brice, Issam Houshan, and Karim Nagi.