nilay bio

Nilay Engin

2014 Michigan Middle Eastern Dance Championships, Grand Rapids, MI: 1st Place Oriental

2014 Michigan Middle Eastern Dance Championships, Grand Rapids, MI: 1st Place Drum Solo Improv

2014 Michigan Middle Eastern Dance Championships, Grand Rapids, MI: 1st Place Fusion

2014 Michigan Middle Eastern Dance Championships, Grand Rapids, MI: 1st Place Taksim Improv

2015 Belly Dancer of the Universe, Long Beach, CA: Taksim Champion

2015 La Danse Oriental, Seattle, WA: 1st Place Alternative-Themed Solo

2015 Belly Dancer of the Universe Westcoast Regionals, Glendale, CA: Champion

2015 Belly Dancer of the Universe Westcoast Regionals, Glendale, CA: People's Choice

2016 Belly Dancer of the Universe, Long Beach, CA: Universal Champion

2016 Belly Dancer of USA, Canyonville, OR: 1st Place Pro Alternative Music Category, People's Choice

Nilay (pronounced Knee-lie) is Turkish born and raised belly dancer who has studied the art of belly dance for several years with many highly accredited dancers in US and Turkey. She moved to US for further studies in 2001 and started to develop her belly dance technique.

Today she is based in Bakersfield, CA but performs all throughout California and US; internationally starting this year. Upon developing her style, she has been performing, teaching, choreographing, producing workshops and short videos.

Her style is a lively, joyous and energetic mixture of excitement from modern Turkish oriental belly dance. She has extensive prop usage of, but not limited to tambourine, fans, fan veils, veils, isis wings and sword. Her dance has been expressed to contain fierce, feisty, and fiery quality which makes it unique in the sensuous world of belly dance.

website link : http://www.nilay.rocks/ and https://www.facebook.com/www.nilay.rocks

My most favorite German word is 'wunderbar"! So, I want to say:"Hallo
Deutschland, ist es wunderbar, hier zu sein " (Hello Germany, it is wonderful to be here!)