Between the swirls of her colorful gypsy-style skirt, belly dancing instructor Terry Zwetsloot makes the decorative coin belt around her hips dance.

The sound of the coins and the ethnic beats and rhythms playing on the studio’s sound system run together. Zwetsloot’s movements are fluid from the twists of her wrists to the serpentine winding of her abdomen and hips.

“My style is a little bit different than what you would consider a night-club-style cabaret act,” she said. “We have pretty much an ethnic to a gypsy style.”

In her 30 years of experience in belly and ethnic-style dancing, 27-year Oak Harbor resident Zwetsloot said many of the people have a preconceived idea of what belly dancing is; an idea which is usually based on the more exotic dance styles portrayed in movies and music videos.

Zwetsloot’s style, however, is derived from the more historic and traditional dances done by belly dancers throughout the ancient and modern world. And in a small studio in Oak Harbor, she teaches others how to master this art of belly dancing.

Offering dance lessons to all experience levels in private or group sessions, Zwetsloot gets students of all ages coming for all reasons.

“I would have to say, for every person who takes a belly dancing class there is a different reason — exercise, connecting with other women or a chance to get out of the house,” she said.

Zwetsloot said currently all her students are women who hold professional jobs during the day.

“We’re just normal women by day and belly dancers by night,” said Oak Harbor resident Bianca Terado, a five-year student of Zwetsloot’s, as she joked with the other dance students.

Oak Harbor resident Dureen Gibson, who has danced with Zwetsloot for the past four years, said belly dancing is not something for only the young. She said women and girls of all ages can dance this genre.

“I think every woman deep inside would love to belly dance,” she said.

Zwetsloot said anyone can learn to belly dance. She said it is a style of dance that is more freeing than other styles because it is part improvisation and the rest is simply keeping a beat.

After her students have reached a level of dance proficiency, they are invited to join Zwetsloot’s dance troupe.

Currently she has several of her students dancing with her at art festivals and dance programs throughout the area.

“These girls have been coming for about five years,” she said. “they’ve been with me a long time.”

For her troupe’s performances and for dance students, Zwetsloot has part of her studio full of handmade costumes, ethnic clothing, traditional dance garb and colorful scarves and cloths. She also allows her students to wear pieces of her Middle Eastern and ethnic jewelry collection and wide array of gypsy bangles, beads, belts and fabrics.

She said a great deal of dance is playing dress-up and getting into the spirit of the dance’s origin and history.

As Zwetsloot leads one of her weekly classes, she instructs her students in the ethnic dance choreography they are learning and helps them refine their dancing styles and techniques.

“Keep your knees bent. If you’re not bouncing it’s because your knees aren’t bent,” she said.

Her students follow along and between spells of quiet concentration and peals of laughter when the body doesn’t move just right, they loosen up and begin moving in smoother motion.

“Forward, side, back and around,” Zwetsloot says, keeping time with the beat of the music. “Now do a figure eight.”

By the end of the class session, the dance students have done quite a work out, rehearsed a dance they will perform and had lots of laughs.

“Dance is amazing,” Zwetsloot said. “Throughout all cultures it is very diverse, but yet there is a universal connectivity.”

And above all, she adds, it’s all for fun.