Teaching

In a fit of ambition, I have signed myself up for teaching an 8-week class on basic belly dance drills. Come check it out! :D

Here's the blurb from the flyer:

Third Life Studios
33 Union Sq. (Somerville Ave)
Somerville, MA


Saturdays, June 16 -- August 11, 10 - 11:30 AM
(No class on June 23rd)


$80 for 8-week session or
$12 / class drop-in


Discover your body!
Learn to belly dance!
Get a great workout!
Have fun!


This class will focus on discovering your body, how its different parts are connected, and how to use those connections to achieve the basic movements of belly dance. We will emphasize technique and precision, and gradually build up to choreographies using the movements we learn.

Lisa Zahiya Workshops

OMG Lisa Zahiya is amazing. She's beautiful, passionate, and incredibly skilled. I learned so much, my brain hurts. Here's hoping I can remember it all for future use.

Belly Funk

Lisa described this as her personal bellydance style. It's a fusion of popping, locking, old school hip hop, bhangra, and whatever else catches her fancy. We worked on how to pop and lock our bellydance moves, decomposing fluid motion into stutter-stop points. Her decomposition of basic 3- and 4-point motions into 6 stop points simply blew my mind. She also taught and drilled us on waving through our arms, and a little bit on tutting as well.

Drum Solo

We drilled shimmies so much. Lisa went around the room banging on people's knees to see whether we had good strength and balance in both legs. There was also a really fun combination, which had a lot of interesting Lisa-touches like the Michael Jackson hop-skip.

Bollywood

This session focused a lot on precise hand movements. We went through several mudra, including the flag, the lotus, and the thing that always reminds me of a peacock. Then she taught us two short combinations, which were surprisingly difficult for all their apparent simplicity.

Hip Hop Fusion

By the time we got to this workshop, my feet were killing me. We did two short combinations, to different pieces of music, and she asked us how they felt. It really underscored the different attitudes that hip hop can carry, everything from happy-bouncy to grungy-angry. At the end, we put the two combos together and did the whole thing through a couple of times.

Stage Space

The first choreo I did, I was dancing in my living room. At the time, I thought it was a terribly cramped tiny space, because I was unable to take real steps in any direction. After doing this choreo in the ludicrously small cranny of the mudroom, I realized just how much of a luxury being able to take steps, however stunted, really was.

I drilled my new choreo in a large space for the first time tonight, and I had so many problems with stage space usage. I stuck mostly to the middle, was unable to spread out to give the left and right any love, and had a terrible time not crowding the front of the room. It's better now, and I'm glad I had the time and opportunity to fix it before performing it. Tripping over the audience would have been awful.

I also made a few last minute tweaks to the movements. Hopefully I can remember them, and they won't backfire on me or look weird or anything like that. We shall see!

A fit of pique

I performed my very first self-choreographed solo almost a year ago, and still haven't received the video for it yet. In a fit of pique, I wondered if I could create, and perform, a second choreography before I receive the first one. I vaguely felt that maybe it would compel the videographer to "get a move on" and motivate him to get me that video.

While I don't seem to be having a whole lot of luck with the video for my first solo -- he's found the raw vids, and is now working on them, but it's still not done yet -- I did manage to finish a second choreography. Admittedly I've only done two now, but at 2 weeks and change, this is the fastest I've ever finished a choreography. Now I just have to drill, drill, drill until I get all my transitions down pat.

The show is coming up in just 10 days, and I'm all a-jitter with nerves and anticipation. It's a little out of my range of expertise, but I'm hoping I can pull it off and make it work. Tell your friends, and come see me dance!

I dream of Manson

Choreography for this has been really slow -- I started working on it months ago, and it's still not done yet -- but I showed what I had to my current dance instructor and one of the girls in class, and they both seemed to like it. My instructor has threatened motivated me with doing this solo at the upcoming studio recital in mid-June. *laugh* I hope I can finish it, polish it, and groove to it all in the next 6 weeks or so. This is gonna be interesting. :3

Experimenting with Choreography

I've wanted to do this for a while now, and I finally have a little time and support for it! My plan is to make a choreography to Marilyn Manson's version of "Sweet Dreams". For a costume, I'm thinking light hand and arm bondage, and possibly some lower leg rope work as well. Not sure what I want to do for the body. *grin!*

First Solo Video

I've been super lame, but I've finally posted the video from my first solo. Enjoy!

Winter Recital

I found a new teacher! Her name is Melina, and she is a belly dance and aerials instructor (among other things). So far I'm really enjoying it, but the 2 classes I attended before the holidays were mostly concentrating on preparing the choreography for the recital. After the long break, I'm eager to go back and see what classes are like when we're not preparing for a show.

The recital was nice. I managed to get through our piece with only very minor errors which, I was told afterward, were not even noticeable. Our choreo was simple, but it was fun, well-matched to the music, and had enough variety that I didn't feel like we were just doing the usual "do this for x beats, do that for y beats" thing that I've been seeing altogether too much of lately. I'm hoping to see photos or videos from this -- there was definitely someone taking footage, but I don't know who it was, nor how to get to it.

Changes

The problem with starting off with an amazing teacher is that all subsequent teachers, hardly ever through any fault of their own, always and reliably fail to measure up. So it is now, I found, after moving from sunny California to dreary Massachusetts. The crisp autumn air and beautiful foliage are very uplifting, but the dancing scene here is depressing.

However, I have been sent here on a mission! :) And so I will continue to dance my way through the various studios here and check out everyone I can find.

Johara teaches in the Dance Complex, located smack in the middle of Cambridge's Central Square. I was told she was partially blind in one eye, which I suppose accounts for the awkward lack of actual eye contact, but I don't think that excuses her dancing. Perhaps I went on an off day, but suffice it to say that I was not impressed with her class.

Classes attended:

1

Class level attended:

Beginner

Duration:

1 hour

Cost:

$13 drop in

Other Information:

A friend attended her intermediate class, and thought the price was right. It's unclear to me what she thought of the dancing and teaching quality.

Najmat is a lovely dancer with a unique style, beautiful lines, and mind-boggling shimmies. I'm in my second month of classes with her, and slowly starting to adapt to her teaching style. She teaches at Green St. Studio, conveniently also in the heart of Central Square in Cambridge.

Classes attended:

more than 10

Class level attended:

Beginner; Intermediate / Advanced

Duration:

1 hour (beginner); 1.5 hour (intermediate / advanced)

Cost:

$15 drop in, $12 6-week bulk rate (beginner); $20 drop in, $18 monthly bulk rate (intermediate / advanced)

Other Information:

Najmat runs beginner classes in 6 week sessions. Currently class is not in session. Intermediate / Advanced classes are ongoing. There is not very much stretching and warming up at the beginning of class, but there is a nice cool-down stretch at the end.

I was going to check out Meiver, but I just heard that she was temporarily moving to Chicago, IL for her research program, or something. I might look into it more later, but right now I'm pretty swamped with life, work, dance, and kittens.

I also found Nadira Jamal's videos pretty interesting, but they are several years old, which makes me highly suspicious. Also her studio is very far away from my house.

I've had a few other people pointed out to me, but none of them are in convenient locations nor teach at accessible hours either. Sadface!

Open Mic Night -- Unexpectedly Dancing

On my first visit to the Middle East Restaurant and Club (the Corner), we saw a troop of dancers who were, in a word, disappointing. As we were leaving, I stopped to talk to the MC, who told us that while they did have "house" dancers, the club also interspersed these sets with "open mic night" dancers. In short, anyone can dance. I also met another girl, Alayisha, who had just moved into town, and was interested in dancing.

Fast forward two weeks. I get an email from Alayisha saying that she would be dancing at the Middle East, and would I like to come and be moral support. Of course I would. The evening began with a dancer who had a lovely smile, but not so much in the way of isolations or technique. Next was Mahsati, a better dancer with a gorgeous shimmy. Finally -- after the MC harangued me into dancing with her a few times, just for kicks -- my friend Alayisha came out and danced. It was quite lovely, and I was well pleased with my evening.

After that, we all gathered around to chit chat. When I saw the second dancer hanging out with the MC, I sat down next to her and asked her if she had any thoughts on local belly dance teachers. One thing led to another, and before I knew it, the two of them had conspired together, tied a hip scarf around my jeans, and were creating a playlist for me to dance to.

The MC gave me a brief introduction, explaining how she'd just hauled me up from my dinner table and thrown me out on the dance floor, put on (a different version of) Aziza (because of course there are about a zillion of them) and off I went!

After I stumbled through Aziza, the MC dragged me back onto the floor to improvise a drum solo. It was one that I recognized, but had never learned choreography to, so um..... I shimmied a lot. A LOT.

Mahsati, Alayisha, and various members of the audience (including J) gave me lots of smiles and encouragement, two $1 tips, and a decent amount of cheering and whistling. I'm still kind of in a daze of "What did I just do?" but I had a good time, and I hope the audience enjoyed it too. (I mean, I'm assuming they did, 'cos one random elderly couple slipped a dollar into my pants, and a cluster of young men were all making ogly eyes.) Woot!

First solo!

Today, I danced my first solo piece at a restaurant full of strangers. :) It was a lot of fun!

The evening began with group pieces. I was in 2 groups, performing a total of 4 pieces. Our teacher Maria made a surprise last-minute appearance, and we all had a lot of fun. Then it was time for the quick-change.

I started trembling halfway through the first soloist's piece. I admit, I spazzed out before I went on stage. Maria came and comforted me, telling me good luck, and relax. Sandra came over to hug me and give me some last-minute advice, for which I was very grateful: camera's over there, and try to stay in the spotlight.

When Sandra announced my introduction, I eased out into the ready area. The sound guy looked over at me. We exchanged solemn nods and the music began.

Sure, I made a few mistakes, but who cares? I had a blast. The audience was super, they cheered, they clapped, they whistled. It was awesome!

When the music ended, the adrenaline hit hard, and it was all I could do to keep my balance while bowing. After I made it safely out of sight of the audience, I clung desperately to the wall to stay upright. My hands shook. My legs shook. Even my face was quivering.

Then suddenly Maria was there with her arms around me, hugging me and rubbing my back and telling me how proud she was of me -- her very first beginner-to-soloist student, who was hers and only hers. I was so happy that I'd made her proud, I nearly started to cry.

When I could stand again, I changed out of my jingly outfit and snuck out to join the audience. The rest of the evening was filled with amazing dancers, and I -- having faithfully discharged my duty -- had a great time watching the show. :D

Weekend with Mohamed El Hosseny

I went to this weekend workshop taught by Mohamed El Hosseny when it came through my town. :)

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/event.php?eid=237399078291

I pre-paid for the whole weekend, but had to miss the Friday evening technique class due to a family emergency. In retrospect, that wasn't such a terrible thing. I was totally wiped out after just 2 sessions, and I think 3 would have been too much for me to handle.

Saturday we spent learning an intense fakarouni choreography. By the end of the class, I was sore and aching, breathless and pouring sweat. It felt really good! His dance style is so powerful and passionate! It's especially difficult for me because in general I dance very softly, with gentle fluid movements. Infusing my dancing with that much strength and emotion was really hard for me (in part because I am weak).

We didn't finish the choreography -- the song was 6 minutes long -- but he did show us the rest of it. It looked so incredible! Someday, maybe I will get a chance to finish that song.

On Sunday, I was still sore and stiff from Saturday's exertions, but no less excited for the workshop. We learned pieces of 3 separate choreographies. My favorite was the Saidi, which was amazingly sexy and liberating, and no less powerful for being joyous. We also spent some time doing haggala and baladi. I really enjoyed the music for the baladi, which was Pink Floyd's The Wall, as covered (really, reinvented) by some very talented Egyptian musicians.

I got Hosseny to sign my CD, and also received a signed certificate of completion for doing at least 2 out of 3 of the weekend intensive workshops. Yay! :D

Overall, the weekend was so intense and inspiring. I saw so many beautiful dancers, and Hosseny himself was absolutely incredible. I fell a little bit in love that weekend. :) I want to dance forever, and never stop.

Craziness

It's been a crazy quarter. The little February show got pushed back to early May due to lack of performers, so I caught a little break there. I skipped the Student Night at Chatanoga Restaurant to go see the circus with my friends from college. OVO!!! <3

Then the big March show happened, which was full of insanity. I spent 12 hours running around in the same theater (with almost no sunlight) on the day of the performance. This made me angry and depressed. Three days running, I danced until 11pm, and got home around midnight. This is not my style. Cramming at the last minute may be okay for exams, but this is not how I operate for performances. Either I've got the muscle memory down, or I don't, and the extra hours of rehearsal mere days before a show just makes me pissed off. Oh well.

There are three more shows coming up, but I don't think I can go to any of them. The next one I'll be missing 'cos I'm visiting my cousins in the mountains. After that, it's the little May show right before I go on a long trip, during which time I expect I'll be stressed and pretty busy planning the trip. The third one is in the middle of my trip, so that's right out too. I'm a little sad that I won't be performing, but just learning the choreography is super fun, so that's all right. :)

Speaking of which, I've uploaded a video of the choreography that we're learning at the moment. The song is Studio Ayoub's "Tabla Sukkarah". It's a lot of fun. :)

Performance Overload

I have a lot of upcoming performances. It's sort of overwhelming.

• 2010-02-05 2145 - Alberto's - Ana Fi Intizarak; Taxim / Solo Tabla


• 2010-02-27 2000 - Ariel Dance Productions - Daret Al Ayam


• 2010-03-?? ???? - Chatanoga Restaurant (Student Night) - Aziza? Maybe some other stuff?


• 2010-03-27 1700, 2000 - The King's Academy Theater - Daret Al Ayam

Might be one or two more in April, then I'll get a break in May, then who knows!

Dance Recital

It went well. I made a little bitty mistake at the end, but asking around, nobody seemed to notice. I definitely flirted with the camera throughout the piece, hehe. Hopefully the photos will come out well. :D

Grinning Uncontrollably

M complimented me on my wonderful expressions when I dance. Little does she know, the reason for my expressions is that knowing she's there, watching and smiling and enjoying herself, makes me grin so unbelievably much. Dancing on its own makes me grin a lot too. Hooray for grinning and dancing! :D

We're performing again on Dec. 12. I'm supposed to be front and center -- probably the only time I'll ever get to stand in front, due to my height -- because the piece is too free-form and non-rhythmical in parts, and someone needs to lead and set the pace. I'm kind of intimidated. Dancing in the back is kind of nice, because half the time, nobody can see you, and you can relax and just have fun. But front and center, that's everybody, audience -and- fellow dancers, all looking at you at least some of the time, wondering what's going to happen next. Skeery.

Wish me luck! :3

Disorganized Dance Discourse

So I've been slacking off about writing about dancing. At least I haven't been slacking off about actually dancing! :D

I'm now taking 3 classes in 2 evenings, so whenever I get home on Tuesdays, I promptly fall face-down on the ground, moan and groan and whine a lot, and generally refuse to move until it's bed time. Wednesdays I now spend wishing I were unconscious until dance class, whereupon I magically rediscover my ability to move sometime during warm-ups and drills... and promptly lose it again after class.

I wish I knew more girls in the South Bay whom I can drag to this new Wednesday class, since there are like, only 3 or 4 of us there, and it's all sad and lonely.

I found one of the songs that we use during warm-ups. This makes me more excited than words can convey. I guessed that maybe the song was at least partly in French, so I imitated some of the lyrics by ear to my hubby, who said, "Yeah, we can find that," and we did. I spent the next day listening to the song on repeat and singing along in my nonexistent French. It made me happy. :)

Dance Blog

Tuesday I was really out of it, and didn't feel like I got too much out of dance class. In my brain, I know that moving around is good for me, but in my body, I was tired and disoriented. balmy_fool had to drive me to and from class, because I was feeling so out of it.

Wednesday was much better. I was able to drive myself to and from class, for starters. There were a ton of new people at the class, so we had to switch places with the other class and move to the bigger studio to avoid collisions during class. After warm-ups, we shimmied again, for about 10-15 minutes. It was exceedingly painful, but I feel like maybe my shimmies are getting better. The new steps in the choreography are pretty hard, but only because they're so damn fast. Hopefully with repetition will come speed and precision. :)

Dance Blog

Last night, we started warm-ups not with a routine, but with .... miles and figure 8's. *dies* My back hadn't recovered from the previous week's drills, and starting right off with that was... singularly painful. After that, we went through the normal warm-up routine, stretching, isolations, etc. The instructor had been mugged by a sushi bar on her way to class, so every time we did ab exercises, she got this adorably pained look on her face and quit after just a few repetitions. It was terribly cute. XD

Since we had a new person in class, we did introductions again. When we got to the new person, she drew a breath, and very calmly stated that her name was "----". I blinked, parsed, and was happy, but the instructor had this hilarious blank look of astonishment. After staring at the new person for a few heartbeats, she very tentatively asked the new person how to spell the name. How is it that every face she makes is so darned cute? It's driving me to distraction.

When introductions were done, we drilled tiny hip circles. As the instructor put it, the difference between this and other dance styles is that in other dance styles, you want people to look at your hip circles, whereas in this style, you want to pretend to be shy, hide behind your hands, and be all like "Oh noes! Please don't look at my hip circles! *circle circle circle*". >.>;;;; Well, at least it was adorable when she demonstrated. ^_^

After drills, we moved on to choreography, by which I mean, we did shimmies for-fucking-ever, and then the instructor forgot about 4 measures of choreography in the middle of the dance. Tonight I think we'll "relearn" that part of the dance. Maybe we'll even get to move on. We're really close to the end, so I'm pretty excited for that. :)

All in all, I'm finding that doing the moves superficially is not too hard, but looking good while doing it is damnably challenging. I am having a fabulous time with this. :D

Dance Blog

Phew! Tonight was a hard night. In the first class, we did a really tiring arm drill, and a really challenging choreography. I felt like an uncoordinated and gawky kid again, which I haven't felt like in a few years. The moves are difficult, and need to be quick and precise to look good. I can do quick XOR precise, not both. :p Oh well, I hope in time I'll improve. :)

In the second class, we did the other kind of figure 8's (which are actually just called figure 8's, as opposed to the kind we did last night, which are called miles). Man. This stuff is really hard. I'm starting to appreciate its difficulty more after seeing some new girls really struggling to get the hang of the movements. I'm also extremely thankful that I seem to have some innate muscle control abilities to help me through. :D

The instructor ran off in a hurry at the end of the night to go perform at a 1-year-old's birthday party. I don't get the point of showing a beautiful dancer to a baby, but whatever. I guess the parents are super bored. XD Her costume, which she put on before she dashed away, was very pretty. <3