Bellydance: Experiences

I am a total bellydance trendsetter

Well, probably not really. But it's nice to think so.

I am stressing and anxious about tomorrow's exam, so I wandered out to get the mail, and the May/June Inside the Harem flyer from Dahlal was in my mailbox. I was flipping through it, idly daydreaming about costumes until I got to page 6... Where I see that Dahlal is now carrying Stephanie dance shoes... like the ones I wrote up a couple of months ago. (And they're calling the model I got the Fifi, after Fifi Abdo, how awesome is that?)

Of course, I'm sure that they came to their decision to carry them completely independent of me... but it's nice to pretend that I'm all influential and stuff.

Planning for future reviews

While my weekly reviews are on hiatus until after my exam (look forward to a new review Monday, May 19th) - studying has certainly not prevented me from buying CD's and DVD's to review!

I'm planning a couple of mini-series for the summer:

• I'm getting together a number of beginner's technique DVD's, so I will hopefully have some recommendations for readers who are new dancers.
• I've also had my eyes open for general drilling DVD's that are designed for intermediate and advanced dancers. So far, I've got Michell Joyce's Drills! Drills! Drills!, and Aziza's Ultimate Practice Companion (Look forward to in-depth reviews of both) I've been looking for more, but most instructionals out there are specific to single topics, or teach choreographies. Suggestions are welcome.
• More sha'abi music! I've been indulging in some more CD's. I've got some regular commercial ones, plus I've been sneaking peeks at Ebay looking for more unusual compilations.
• Finally, I've got some great odds and ends of music, special-topic instructionals and performance DVD's.

I'm always on the look out for off-the-beaten path DVD's being independently produced by great teachers. (Don't get me wrong, I love IAMED, Cheekygirls productions, World Dance New York, etc - but their stuff is easy to find!) Same with local musicians. If you have any great suggestions, please let me know!

I'll be back soon, promise

I'll be back on the blog after May 13th, promise. Until then, I am studying like a crazy person! Actuarial exams don't pass themselves, you know! ;)

But until then, I wanted to show off a couple pictures of how much weight I've lost. Here are some pictures of me opening for a show. The show was organized by a member of a local band who were headlining. They brought in 3 other bands, and asked me to open. It was at a fun local bar, with a great enthusiastic crowd.

I bought the bedlah on a whim second hand on Bhuz. (Possibly even 3rd or 4th hand!) It's an inexpensive Egyptian set to begin with, and buying it used... well, I payed more for the skirt and vest I'm wearing with it than the bedlah itself. When I bought it, it was *way* too small, but I had figured I might take it apart and re-construct it into something that works better, but I never got around to it. Good thing, too, since now it fits! (It's not super-well-fitting, because cheap bedlah almost always have fitting issues, but it looks good, and that's what matters.)

An awesome way to spend a spring afternoon

I won 5th row seats to a Cards game at my company's Christmas party this year. They were great seats - just to the 3rd base side of home  plate. Here's a picture from where I was sitting yesterday afternoon (se how close!) I got a lot of sun and ate a ton of food - it's a shame the Cardinals  lost. ;)

Step it Up and Shake it.

I was all excited last week that Bravo was not giving in to the whole, "I'm doing this competition for my family member with a terminal disease. I spoke too soon. Oscar is apparently doing this for his mother with liver cancer. Do contestants on non-dance competition shows do it all for their dying family members? I never noticed that on any of the other Bravo shows, but I don't watch American Idol, etc.

Woo hoo! (I originally typed, "Woo ho!" which kind-of works too) Burlesque! The whole prostitute/pimp thing bothered me a little, but it definitely gave them enough of a starting point to go out on a limb with it. I've never heard of this traditional "apache" dance that they were doing - they seemed to imply it was some kind of Parisian cabaret thing? I don't much care for the whole sex-and-violence is sexy thing. There are much cooler aspects of burlesque they could have chosen for the challenge.

I love that they had the groups choreograph their own dances.  I think a really good dancer has to understand how dances come together, and can do more than just follow someone else's direction. I enjoyed the first group's tableau, but the 2nd team - am I the only one who was waiting for the guys to bust out into, "When you're a Jet, You're a Jet all the way"?

I am disappointed that they gave James the boot this week. Based on his dancing last week, I had high hopes for him, though he did seem really lackluster tonight.

Testing - from my iPhone

I'm trying out posting this via email from my new iPhone. The little
touch screen keyboard is actually really easy to use.

While I'm at it though, I'm going to take a moment to complain about
last night's Dancing With the Stars. The Passo doble performances
drove me up a wall! Stomping around looking angry does not actually
evoke flamenco, no matter how much passion and commitment you put in
your stomping.

It's not just that these are amature dancers, either. Even many of the
pros look like maybe they took a weekend course in flamenco -maybe.
Then swish around the stage looking less like they're at a bullfight,
and more like they just stepped out of Disney's bizzare version of the
Hunchback of Notre Dame. Am I wrong to expect dancers to understand
and respect the culture their dance is supposed to represent?

On a lighter note, here are the first flowers blooming in my garden:

Last night's class was a major leg workout

Bellydance of course has a reputation for being a great way to strengthen the core muscles, but tonight's class just killed my legs!

We were working on shifting our weight wile doing hip drops and lifts. So we would start with "normal" hip drops with the right hip, then while keeping the drops going, pick up the right leg and continue dropping the hip with our foot held about 6 inches above the floor. This is a great exercise to be sure that the drop is coming from the obliques and not being created by pushing the foot into the floor. Then, continuing the hip drops on the right hip, put down the right foot, then put your weight on it, so the drop is now happening on the weighted leg. Finally pick up the left foot, so that not only is the drop happening on the weighted leg, but you have to also remain stable on that leg at the same time.

Ooof. Although the drops are all coming from the obliques, trying to stay lifted and looking pretty while moving my weight around like that really engaged my calves, hamstrings, and hip flexors. I was already a little sore last night, and this morning, I felt like I had really put those muscles through their paces last night. Controlling weight changes, and maintaining stability while isolating the hips is some serious isometric exercise for the rest of the leg.

Thankfully, the weather should be nice this afternoon, so I'll be able to take a nice jog to warm and loosen those muscles. The trail I've been running on is paved, so I won't have to deal with any muddy aftermath of this week's rain. I hope you all have had great classes this week as well!

Step it up and Dance - So far so good

I've not been watching all of the onslaught of dance-based competition shows on TV. I watch Dancing with the Stars, and love it - and I watch So You Think You Can Dance, and have always found it somewhat dissatisfying, not enough diversity of dance styles, and I hate all the frenetic 20 second solos.

I'm a huge fan of Bravo's competition show format, I love both Project Runway and Top Chef (and I even watched Top Design and Shear Genius) And seriously, tonight when the dancers got taken to a club and given free alcohol, did they not suspect that a challenge was going to get sprung on them? Anyone who has seen one season of any Bravo competition show should have seen it coming. Also, does anyone else think Snagglepuss every time she tells them to "exit stage right"?

Based on just one night, I like Step it up and Dance a *lot* more than So You think You Can Dance so far. I despised the "dancing for your life" solos on SYTYCD, I much prefer the judging based on the performance in the challenges. and since this is Bravo, hopefully they will come up with crazy and creative challenges that keep each week interesting. I keep expecting Christian from Project Runway to turn up declaring, "that's fierce!" My favorite so far is James. His freestyle caught my attention, he succeeded in becoming a visual representation of the  music. Though I like a lot of the dancers, and I look forward too seeing what they can do.

I have to give a big hooray!for the fact that this episode put so much emphasis on improvisation. That, to me, is where the magic happens. Choreography is great, but since improv is such a huge part of my own experience with dance, I am happy to see that being presented on TV. I don't think it's coincidence that two out of the 3 bottom dancers could not come up with anything better to do during their improv than a bunch of fouettes. The three in the bottom seemed to make it clear that they have no idea what to do with music if someone is not telling them what to do.

I'm looking forward to the rest of the season. :)

Paris Hilton finds a new use for a bellydance coin scarf

I'm sure she didn't intend it to be, but this was hillarious:

"The tanned tw-It girl, 27, didn't realise she was holding up a belly dancer's belt and not a veil at the Miss Turkey beauty contest."

I looked at Google this morning, and came across this article:
Paris Hilton attempts to belly dance at Turkish beauty contest

Go look at the article - it gets even funnier. They have video.

I have to hand it to Paris, she didn't get up there and do anything crude or offensive. She didn't do any of the ridiculous things people sometimes do to "mimic" bellydancers. And it's really not her fault if she has no sense of rhythm. Middle Eastern dance takes time and dedication to learn, and no one could expect her to look like she knew what she was doing on the spot like that. In fact, I think she seemed to be a good sport about it. But the hip scarf across the face? Good for a giggle.

Great hip circles in class last night.

I really love that my teacher has a real knack for helping her students develop their own personal style. There are people who, when you see their students dance, you know exactly who their teacher is. All of us in this class, though, we all are developing our own nuances and things. It's fantastic.

We were working on hip circles last night. Although we were working on technical things, like shifting our weight, and not bending the knees asymmetrically - when she encouraged us to work on the drill but "make it our own" the range of diversity in the room was fabulous. The music we were drilling to had a really heavy doum, so I found myself bouncing my heels (Saiidi-style), others were adding a shimmy, or playing with the tempo of their movement. It was fantastic!