Ziah Ali McKinney-Taylor began studying dance in 1991 with Shakira-Masood Ali at the Sirrom School of Dance in Houston, Texas. From 1992 to 1997 she took the opportunity to study in many cities across the country while she traveled the Renaissance Festival circuit with her husband as a manager for Ballena Bay Pewter. She settled in Atlanta in December 1997 to begin teaching classes full time and formed the Awalim Dance Company in September 1999. In addition to directing Awalim and teaching five belly dance classes a week, Ziah directs a student troupe called Banat Ziah, teaches workshops throughout the East Coast and produces the Red Light Cafe Middle Eastern Extravaganza Shows which showcase all the top talent in Atlanta and the Southeast. She also produced the critically acclaimed video of Awalim's show at the Georgia Renaissance Festival titled "Yalla! Yalla!". Ziah's new venture is a sci fi con type bellydance festival called TribalCon! Ziah is also the new mom to Ava Alexandra, born 11/04.

Her extensive background in bellydance includes Egyptian, Tribal and Turkish. She has a broad base of folkloric dance study including Kurdish, Persian, Rajisthani, North African, Israeli, Turkish Rom, and Egyptian.

Ziah is also a member of Tribe Zareefat, a Middle Eastern household in the Society of Creative Anachronism www.sca.org where she feeds her thirst for the study of history. As Tshaya in the SCA she was one of the early organizers of the Middle Eastern encampment, al-Mahala, at Gulf Wars and can be found teaching and dancing the night away at Pennsic each year.