Despair is often the engine for creativity. So it was with colonialism and the transatlantic slave trade, which generated dance forms including dabke, salsa, samba and even tap. What we now call tap dancing arose when slaves in America combined beloved West African rhythms with Irish jig.

Carol Thuy Bui is on a mission to educate us by using the most effective method possible: entertainment. Spice! Dances of the African and Arab Diaspora, Saturday at 5:30 p.m. at Tacoma's Cultura Event Center, will be her vehicle.  She performs as Carol the Belly Dancer, and she's studied and performed in Egypt. "Since my background is belly dance," she said, her contributions "lean rather heavily on Arab styles," but she's also featuring African-American and Afro-Latin styles. Representing the former are such talents as tapper La'twon Allen, krump dancer Charles Leo Carson, dancehall performer Alia Lux and the hip-hop of NoDacity. The Afro-Latin ensemble includes flamenco artist Cuadro Azahares, salsa dancers Eduardo and Vanessa of BALORICO and the samba of Tudo Belezo's Camille. The program adds such exotic entertainments as an Egyptian candelabra dance, a Turkish belly dance and a live snake dance by Kat Ross, to name just a few. Live music will be performed by Azahares and an Arab world-fusion band, Anubis Project. It's a whopper of a lineup.

"Belly dance didn't necessarily come out of slavery, but it was popularized by colonialism," said Bui. "Belly dance is a big umbrella term, but its roots are in Asian folkloric dance, indigenous forms women do at home primarily for celebration. During colonial times in Egypt in the late 19th and early 20th century, it became popular entertainment for public consumption in Egyptian nightclubs. That movement vocabulary got fused with Western influences like Russian ballet." She noted the evolution of the form is "complicated" and, in some ways, controversial. Consider, for example, the origin of the two-piece belly-dance costume: "The most popular rumors are the ones that come from the (1893) Chicago World Fair, from which the term ‘belly dance' is rumored to come as well ... and the influence of Hollywood," which sexualized a dance form traditionally performed by women for each other.

As for the Spice! show, its "dancers are all professional-caliber," said Bui. "The salsa duet is amazing. The dancehall performer studies in Jamaica and has been in videos there. We have a Chicago-style step group. We have a Palestinian dabke performance by Jafra Dabke Team. It's kind of a line dance done for parties and weddings, all through the Levant. Each region has its own signature style. We'll have Palestinian style, which is influenced by the politics of the region. Everything is about politics and race and what's going on in the community, so that of course shapes the arts ... I'm doing an Iraqi gypsy performance with the live band. The event is all-ages, so we hope everyone will get curious about the art forms and the people who produced them. We want to get people thinking. It's gonna be amazing."

SPICE! DANCES OF THE AFRICAN AND ARAB DIASPORA, 5:30 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 24, Cultura Event Center, 5602 S. Washington St., Tacoma, $26.87-$280, 253.778.6375