Annie Agnone / For The Post / sa750605@ohiou.edu

Marta Mari-Crocker of Atsagani Caravan of Gypsy Wagon provide entertainment at Shishah Café last week Tuesday. From Amesville, Ohio, Mari-Crocker perform belly dancing with others at Shishah Café on Tuesday nights from 8 p.m. to 11 p.m.

Gypsies and belly dancers use their gyrating hips, pounding bongos and quivering tambourines to hypnotize hookah smokers every Tuesday night at Shishah Café, 33 N. Court St.

The authenticity of Gypsy Wagon’s Middle Eastern music and artfulness of Atsagani Caravan’s belly dancing adds to the one-room café’s Arabian-inspired décor and bohemian atmosphere.

“It transports you into another realm,” belly dancer Marta Mari-Crocker said. “It makes you more of not being where you are and enjoying the evening.”

Patrons sit on plush couches and piles of golden pillows as Mari-Crocker and Sara Wreath weave among them, making eye contact and inviting the audience members to dance with them. Shouts of “Opa!” ring through the room at the end of a song.

Brock Bronson, a sophomore biology major, called the belly dancers’ movements “simply stunning” and “intriguing.”

Belly dancing is an art form and a sport, Mari-Crocker said. Forcing stomach muscles to move and shake for belly dancing takes a lot of training, but it also is very beautiful, she said.

In the past, women in labor performed the dance to loosen stomach muscles and help push the child out, Mari-Crocker said. It then evolved into a folk dance, and eventually men, dressed in drag, participated.

“Anybody of any age and any size who wants to can (belly dance),” Mari-Crocker said.

Atsagani Caravan provides visual stimulation for the crowd — which usually numbers 40 — but Gypsy Wagon’s fast-paced yet calming music is the soul of Shishah Café, said singer and tambourine player Barbiel Matthews-Saunders.

“It has a lot of psychological push to get you into that mood to really relax and feel like you’re with friends,” Matthews-Saunders said.

Mandolin player John Saunders, drummer Billy Crocker and Matthews-Saunders teach the audience the chorus of a song, singing together and clapping their hands to the beat.

Gypsy Wagon plays a mix of Italian, Spanish, French and Middle Eastern music, said Matthews-Saunders, who always has shared her zest for exotic music with her husband, John. The couple also tour together performing medieval music as Silent Lion.

The café and the music add variety to Athens’ many bars and coffee houses, said Tristan Dupler, a sophomore sociology major, who was watching the show.

Gypsy Wagon and Atsagani Caravan perform from 8 p.m. to 11 p.m. tonight at Shishah Café.