Village Plains Tribal Fusion, a five member belly dancing troupe, will host Beans and Bellies on Friday, Sept. 4 from 6-9 p.m. at Coffee Cat.
Alex "Arianna" Johnson, troupe director, graduated from Auburn in 2010.
She said the group will perform two sets of 20-25 minute dances and will teach a mini dance lesson. Johnson also said Carmen "Nashiz" Wallace will be performing a sword dance solo at the showcase Friday.
There will also be live music from John "Doctor Pogo" and Maria "Anita Cheesegrater" Phillips, friends of Johnson. John said they will play the ukulele, banjo and clarinet for 30 minutes.
He said he and his wife, Maria, met at Columbus State University in music school. They have been playing music together for about 20 years.
"I hope a lot of people will be there," John said. "It's a pretty intimate venue. It's a pretty small space, so everybody will be really close in, and I'll expect it'll be very interactive with the audience. Maria and I play some songs that have some humor in them and have a little bit of banter and back and forth with the people in the front rows."
The troupe performs tribal-style belly dancing, which fuses together American, North African and Middle Eastern styles, according to Johnson.
She said the group recently danced to "Uptown Funk," and may incorporate 1920s-style dancing into its performances.
"Really we take a variety of belly dance styles and create our own attitude kind of around it, while we try to stay true to belly dance, but that's where the fusion aspect comes into play," Johnson said.
The group performs in Auburn, Opelika, Columbus and sometimes Lagrange, according to Johnson.
Coffee Cat and Village Plains Tribal Fusion will also sell art at the event, which serves as a fundraiser for the dancing troupe. A $10 cover donation is encouraged.
Johnson said the money Village Plains Tribal Fusion makes will go toward making its theatrical show, "Into the Pages: Dancing through the Fairy's Tales," which will debut in 2016. The performance will incorporate different fairytales by the Brother's Grimm.
Village Plains Tribal Fusion has danced at other events, such as a world flash mob, Shimmy Mob, in May 2014, according to Arianna. She said different groups of women across the world were dancing with them at the same time.
Johnson said the flash mob raises money for battered women shelters and happens every May. She said she would like for the troupe to try to do it again next year.
Johnson also said the group is still new to the area.
"We are gaining momentum," Johnson said. "I'm hoping a lot of people show up. Since we were in Young Frankenstein, we started getting a lot of feedback for just the troupe and also for Beans and Bellies. I'm expecting it to be a fairly good crowd."
Beans and Bellies is open to all ages.
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