Already a hit in the United States, CHARLES HUTCHINSON finds out more about a belly dancing show which is being called the new Riverdance.

MILES Copeland managed Sting and The Police to global stardom. Now he is cutting a dash in the dance world with Bellydance Superstars & The Desert Roses, a dance show that is being called the new Riverdance.

Already a hit in the United States, the show arrives in Britain next week for a 25-date tour with performances on the Glastonbury Festival main stage to follow. On Wednesday night, York will have its first bellyful at the Grand Opera House.

"We did a warm-up show in Bali, and then did our first show at Lollapolooza festival a couple of years ago, and we've been building the show ever since," recalls Miles. "Perry Farrell, the organiser, always likes to do something a little different at Lollapolooza, and they put us on in the heat of the afternoon on the smaller stage, but then in the evening we did a 15-minute show on the main stage, when everyone was waiting for Audioslave, and on we came and for the first minute everyone had their mouth open!"

Copeland's timing has been spot-on too. "When we went out on our first tour we did very well because belly dancing turns out to have been very big underground. It's booming as a way of keeping fit," he says. "We felt belly dancing was something that would work on stage and we were right; there's an impression that belly dancing is just for restaurants but now our competitors are Riverdance and the Bolshoi Ballet."

The more the Bellydance Superstars show is performed, the better it will become, Miles reckons. "We have the luxury of performing at beautiful theatres every night, and the dancers have to work at that level consistently and you can see the difference it makes. Like The Police went out on the road as a good group but came back as hot as a firecracker after all those shows, our touring makes the dancing tight and together," he says.

Where a restaurant may have only one belly dancer, Copeland's show has 13 to 16 dancers in his Desert Roses troupe performing tribal, Egyptian and cabaret routines. "We have solos as they do in restaurants but we have moments where 16 dancers are on stage and that's saying 'we're taking belly dancing to another level; this is what we can do," he says.

Should anyone accuse him of giving an American spin to an Arabic artform, he says: "Belly dancing is an American expression invented by a Jewish gentleman Sol Bloom at a Chicago World Fair.

"The Police weren't a reggae band and they weren't a punk band, but that's what I liked about them, because I'm not a purist. Belly dancing is the fastest growing artform in America, and we can't do everything to represent it but we do it to the best of our ability. We're just one show; if we succeed, other will follow."

Bellydance Superstars & The Desert Roses, Grand Opera House, York, Wednesday, 8pm. Tickets: £25, £18.50; ring 0870 606 3590.

Updated: 16:30 Thursday, April 14, 2005