With eyes closed, one could almost visualize an aerobics class.

“Tummies tight, bend those knees,” the teacher says. “Really watch your posture. Work on those abs.”

But the sharp clink of finger cymbals, and the soft cascading tinkle of the metallic fringe wrapped around instructor Claudine Yue-McCormick’s hips hint at a more exotic form of exercise.

The young women in Yue-McCormick’s teen belly dance troupe move their hips sinuously in what Yue-McCormick calls “the basic figure-eight” as they turn in tight concentric circles.

It’s a mesmerizing sight, and, despite the Bainbridge setting, one that does not seem out-of-place within the mauve and lavender walls of Mandala Studio, where Yue-McCormick rents space for her business, The Dance Within.

The pace quickens and the dancers double their shimmy.

The drums throb an invitation to join the dance.

Yue-McCormick passes down the line of young women, speaking to each.

“Make an offering of your hands,” she says. “Find your feet, find the beat.”

She moves in close and models the dance for them, drawing it out of each girl.

Yue-McCormick defines belly dancing as a “woman-calling” dance that was created for and by women.

In Middle Eastern cultures, where the sexes are segregated, Yue-McCormick says, the women dance for each other – something she encourages in the“Wild Women” belly-dance parties and henna body decoration classes she organizes.

Belly dancing, thought to have roots in fertility dances millennia old and later merged with dance spread by gypsies who emigrated from northern India, rocked the Western world when the form was imported to Europe and the United States in the 19th century.

The sensuality of the dance was unmistakable and, to the Victorian sensibility, scandalous.

Traditional forms were soon re-invented for Western audiences, derived from a dance Yue-McCormick calls “Egyptian Cabaret” – a form that brings to mind sequins and solo dances.

“‘Egyptian Cabaret’ can be beautiful, but we’ve trashed it,” Yue-McCormick said. “We depicted what we wanted to see. I’m fighting that stereotype.”

Yue-McCormick has eschewed the more florid versions of belly dancing for more tradition-based forms, from the ultra-authentic folkloric dances to gypsy and tribal belly dance. Yue-McCormick has also developed her own unique fusion of belly dancing with Western music.

When Yue-McCormick puts on “Ice Ice Baby” by Vanilla Ice, the beat of the music feels surprisingly right for finger-cymbal work and belly dancing.

“I could find the belly-dance beat in any music,” Yue-McCormick said.

Yue-McCormick, who graduated in sociology from the University of California at Santa Cruz, brought belly dance to Bainbridge when she moved here a decade ago.

She found work at Helpline House and, with her boat-builder husband Brady McCormick, built their island home through Kitsap Consolidated Housing Authority’s Sweat Equity program.

“I was building our house, and I would dance, using the tool belt I had on to do the ‘basic figure-eight,’” Yue-McCormick said. “This one single mom was just mesmerized. I started trading her lessons for food.”

Since then, Yue-McCormick has taught for the Bainbridge and Poulsbo park departments, New Motion Studios, Studio Mandala, Sequoia Center, the Boys and Girls Clubs and at Bainbridge High.

It was a ropes course with the high schoolers that inspired Yue-McCormick to teach young women.

“I discovered I loved the energy of those girls,” she said. “They’re just at that point where they’re trying to figure out who their real selves are.”

In contrast to Western dance forms that emphasize bony angularity, belly dancing celebrates female flesh and honors all body types, says Yue McCormick.

“The real Middle Eastern dancers – they are not thin,” Yue-McCormick said. “I want each girl to feel beautiful.”

“Through the dance, the young women come to own their own bodies. There’s a transformation that takes place.”

* * * * *

The Dance Within belly dancing classes for teens and for adults begin in September. Information: 335-8345.