The History of Meira Nawal 

When Apryl retired from the troupe in 2000,  Ngaio and Bahijah Rashid took over the direction of the troupe by maintaining the tradition of sharing the dance with all who are interested, performing original choreography, and encouraging students to pursue choreographing for themselves.    See our repertoire list to learn about the variety of music we use in our routines.

The troupe name reflects the diversity and the unity of the ladies who are members of the troupe.  Meira is a Hebrew name that means "light, as in sharing one's light with others" and Nawal is an Muslim name that means "gift or attainment."  It is fitting that we chose these as the name of our troupe, because even though our members are as diverse as the Hebrew and Muslim cultures we are united in sharing our gifts of dance and the beauty of the art.

Over the years the troupe has made is presence felt in the Northwest Arkansas area by performing at many annual community events, such as Springfest and Autumnfest in Fayetteville, International Night at The Jones Center for Families in Springdale and events at the Northwest Arkansas Community College in Rogers.  The troupe has also sponsored workshops on making costumes and stage make-up.

.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License.