Demonstrating belly dance moves to her students, Hannan Sultan's hands become sly animals curling above her head. Her head stays still while her hips pop and drop, and when she dips forward, her long, dark hair reveals the white nape of her neck for just a moment before she uncurls herself and starts all over again.

Sultan, 29, is an internationally acclaimed belly dancer, and after just seven weeks in Durham she had already taught six Tuesday night classes at the Triangle Dance Studio on Miami Boulevard. She just moved here from Toronto -- "I couldn't take the weather," she said, and her husband got a job in the area. In Canada she opened three successful belly dance studios, and her hopes are high for the already blossoming local belly dance scene.

"I think that every woman should belly dance at least once in her life," Sultan said. "The Triangle already has great teachers here, so I want to help raise awareness of this beautiful ancient art form."

She's not Arabic, but that means little in terms of her ability. She won the Ms. Bellydance USA competition in 2003 and has traveled to Egypt and Morocco, as well as Japan, Mexico and the Netherlands to teach, learn and compete.

Originally from Johnston City, Tenn., and of Russian descent, she fell in love with belly dance during a family vacation at the Moroccan Pavilion resort at Disney World.

"I can still remember her costume," she said of that first belly dancer.

Belly dance classes were unavailable to her as a child, though now her hometown has a studio. She was a "ballet dropout" by age six, and didn't take another dance class until she was doing post-graduate work in the Netherlands (she was a German major at Eastern Tennessee State University) and got the chance to take classes with Moroccan women. She joined their troupe, and her childhood passion was suddenly a grownup reality.

Though Sultan has no plans to open her own studio here, she wasted no time in establishing some classes thanks to the local online dance community.

"I'm also planning to create some productions that will draw more of the non-belly dance crowd and put belly dance higher on the local arts radar," she said.

Most of her students Tuesday night wore a hip scarf, and many had on one decorated with tiny medallions that jangled with their every move. It was a mixed-level class, and many were women who had been dancing for years. The music they moved to was heavy with string instruments that slurred between minor notes, a weighty rhythm ever present.

Though all of her Tuesday night students were women, men can belly dance too, she said.

Erika DePaz has taken belly dance in the Triangle since 2002, and was at her sixth class with Sultan.

"I don't like to exercise," she joked. "I like to dance." She took it up in part because she could do it without a partner, and it was something she could express herself through. "I like to take it and make it my own," she said.

DePaz emphasized that belly dance is sensual, not sexual as it is commonly considered. Sultan echoed this, reminding all that it is a social dance. Moves like the "maya," a figure eight from top to bottom, and the "omi," a circling of the hips, might be tantalizing but are not meant to be seductive.

The class was definitely a workout. At one point, Sultan was teaching the women Arabesques -- a graceful pivot that keeps the back leg suspended and the arms sweeping.

"Oh wait!" she said, clapping. "I remember what I did to my Toronto students that make them hate me but it works really well."

She then had them hold their back leg an extra three seconds between each transition to help with balance and strength. Much of her technique, she said, infuses ballet. She continues to improve upon her own skills by taking jazz and ballet classes.