Rain Coast Raqs is Rahel and Tamara, two Vancouver based raqs sharqi dancers who love to work together to bring you fabulous workshops and shows. Rain Coast Raqs began in 2017 when an idea was born to bring Mohamed Salah to Vancouver for a weekend of workshops and shows. Since then, Rahel and Tamara have not looked back and endeavor to make each workshop weekend bigger and better. Rain Coast Raqs is dedicated to supporting representation in our bellydance community and exclusively bring in dancers who are either MENAT, POC or live and work in Egypt.

Rahel Claman
Co-Creator/director of Rain Coast Raqs
Rahel is a Vancouver based Movement Arts teacher, mentor and performer, specialising in Raqs Sharqi (Bellydance) as well as fitness and yoga. She is the director of The Helwa Dancers, her advanced student performance troupe and the co-founder/director of RainCoast Raqs.
Rahel believes in empowerment, embodiment, and self acceptance through mindful movement and wants all movement spaces to be safe, inclusive and healing!.
Rahel is currently teaching bellydance, yoga and fitness classes either online or person, but hopes to offer hybrid (physi-digital) classes in the near future. She will be launching her on demand pre-recorded digital material soon.

Tamara Dewar
Co-Creator /director of Rain Coast Raqs
Tamara caught the raqs sharqi bug in 1998 and has never looked back. Teacher, choreographer, performer and forever student, Tamara is known for her silky, creamy gooey technique, approachable teaching style and thunderous shimmies.
Over the years Tamara has coached dancers for competitions, directed multiple dance troupes, and performed throughout the lower mainland and PW coast. Mostly retired from performaces, Tamara now focuses her bellydance energy on producing events and Rain Coast Raqs.
When she isn’t dancing, you can find Tamara in front of a computer gaming, in a cosy nook reading a book or working as a project manager for an architectural technology firm.