Bellydance: Experiences

What I did when my music cut out

My friends took some pictures of me at this weekend's hafla, but I don't have my hands on them yet so unfortunately no pictures with this post. Look for them soon, I hope.

This weekend's hafla was a blast. It was hosted by Diana of Danse Orientale, and was held at the Ethical Society of St Louis. Turnout was great, the room was really packed. Standing room only. The food was tasty (What I had of it. I don't like to eat before I dance, and by the time I was done the buffet had been decimated)

With all those people in the room, it was crazy hot. Too hot for the audio equipment, it seems. We ended up frying something, the receiver, the amp, I'm not 100% sure. All I know is that the first time it went out... was during my set! (and I was glad that it happened to me instead of to a group of 3-month beginners who would have been much more discombobulated)

I had my set chosen: First, my "pretty song" to do my actual performance to, then a couple of Egyptian sha'abi pop songs for audience participation. My first song came on, and all was well. I danced fairly well, I think. My friends very kindly said that it was one of my best performances to date (I have been working hard to do less in my improv, to include more pauses, slower movements, and be less frantic-feeling - apparently it's paying off)

Things are going well, I'm feeling pretty good. The 2nd song comes on, "Bellydance" by Saad, and I start out with a little bit of dancing on my own, the audience is clapping along with the music, and am just about to start hauling people up with me - when my music drops from full volume, to a whisper barely heard by the front row. I was surprised for a moment, but what can you do? I certainly couldn't just stop dancing!

I decided to go with clapping my own hands to encourage the audience to keep clapping. Then, thankfully, a local dancer who also plays the tabla, picked up the drum she had with her (later in the evening, she gave a great performance dancing on top of the drum!) and played a simple rhythm for me. I danced through the rest of the song, and the audience was great! (Though my dancing was mostly hip drops and funny faces as my music would cut in for a few seconds and disappear again!)

The music continued to be  a challenge for the rest of the evening, but ultimately the solution ended up being to play the music on a little boom box, in front of a microphone running to the room's PA system. The quality was bad, but it was good enough to dance to, and that was the important part.

I'm glad I didn't stop dancing, walk off stage, or otherwise fall out of my "performer persona" - while I'm up on stage, I am the entertainer, whether I have music or not. Sometimes that means abandoning the plan and *really* improvising. In the end, it really was a fun challenge, and I feel like I really stepped up to meet it!

Workshop Review: Karim Nagi

November 7th and 8th, 2009 Nile Breeze Dance Company sponsored a workshop with Karim Nagi in Carbondale, IL.

I had never taken a workshop with Karim, and only decided to go to this one at the last minute, but I am so glad I did! I got a ton out of this workshop. Like after every workshop I take, I yet again have a great big teacher crush.

He holds the attention of the room well, without being stern or harsh. He has a great sense of humor, and really set everyone at ease.

This has nothing to do with anything, but he wore a belt buckle shaped like a flying monkey from the Wizard of Oz.

Organization

The workshop was held on the campus of SIU in Carbondale. Because of other events on campus the same weekend, different parts of the workshop were held in different rooms on campus. The organizers were good about helping make sure everyone ended up in the right place at the right time.

Lunch is "on your own", but there are a fair number of restaurants in the area. Bottled water and some fruit and chocolate were provided.

There was very little vending, a handful of CDs from Dahlal, and of course Karim's own vending. He was selling one of his own CDs and his two volumes of drum instructional DVDs.

Karim has prepared handouts for each of his classes. Instead of handing them out the day of the class, he asked us all to provide our email addresses, and sent them out a few days later. The notes are well organized and comprehensive, much better than any notes I would have taken myself.

Unfortunately, each topic was only covered for two hours, which was barely enough time to scratch the surface on each of these topics. It was a great overview of Karim's areas expertise, but I would gladly take a whole weekend workshop on most of these subjects.

Saturday Morning - Arab Folkdance

Karim covered two topics in this two hour class: Tahteeb and debke. 

He started us out with a history of tahteeb and raks assaya, as well as an introduction to Arabic pronunciation. He brought straight wooden dowels for us to use instead of the hooked canes most of us had brought. Using the straight sticks allowed us to hold the stick from either end, this was important since he taught us how to flip the cane, which I had never learned anywhere else.

He had us repeating his combinations over and over until we could get through the whole sequence without anybody dropping their cane. This sometimes meant many repetitions. I think it was a valuable teaching method, since it forced us to concentrate on getting it. While I was already familiar with spinning the cane, a lot of the other cane techniques he taught were new to me, and I really feel like they will add some new depth to my cane dancing.

He unfortunately only had about 45 minutes left to teach us to debke, which is a shame. I would have happily spent several days learning about it. It is really ridiculously fun.

He started us with some history and context of debke, as well as introducing us to the history and significance of the kafiya (the black and white or red and white scarves worn by men in the Levant and Arabian peninsula) It helped us get a feel for what we were learning.

He got us all in a circle to learn a handful of step patterns, then played music and had us actually dancing. There is no way to explain in this review how much fun it was to dance and stomp, especially when Karim got out his drum and played for us while we were dancing.

Saturday Afternoon - Musicality for Dancers

This workshop is a revelation! I already felt like I knew a fair amount about the structure of classical Egyptian music, learned through workshops with other instructors, as well as my own reading an research, but I still feel like I learned several of those important subtleties that are crucial to taking my dance to the next level.

Again, two hours was barely enough time to scratch the surface of the topic. He only covered two concepts: lawazim, the musical swells in between the singing in classical Arabic songs, and interpreting musical taqsims through the dancer's body.

This class also included an extremely memorable illustration of how changing a single note turns "Mary had a little lamb" from a song about a happy lamb, to a song about a suicidal lamb. (You had to be there.) Also, during breaks, Karim treated us to selections such as "Tequila" and "That's The Way (I Like It)" on the oud.

Karim encouraged us to interpret the music ourselves, instead of following along with his movements. He both drummed for us, and played the oud, and it's always wonderful to dance to live music. He had us dancing the whole time, guiding us to modify our movements to reflect the concepts he was teaching.

This workshop is a fantastic resource for anybody who dances solo Egyptian style, but I think it would be valuable for anybody who wants to expand their musical interpretation. As a musician, he brings a very different perspective to musical interpretation than most dance teachers.

Saturday Evening - Showcase Performance

The show was such a breath of fresh air. Every set was performed to Middle Eastern music, which is unfortunately rare among the shows I go to. Nile Dreams dance company is committed to presenting the dance in the context of music and Middle Eastern culture, and it shows. The auditorium where it was held was an older building, but it had a very nice stage. 

Karim ended the first half performing tahtib, and his performance was a joy to watch. He ended the 2nd half performing on the drum and dancing. This performance had the crowd, including myself, going crazy! He's an extraordinarily charismatic performer.

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Hafla this weekend, time for new CDs

Two of the CD's I ordered earlier this week have arrived, "Ruby" by Hossam Ramzy, and "The Dance of my Heart" by Saad. It turned out to be great timing, since I think I'll be dancing to a song from each of the two albums this weekend!

Diana's Danse Orientale is having a hafla on Saturday, and I only heard about it at the workshop last weekend. I talked to Diana, and have a spot in the lineup, and she asked me to add an audience participation song to my set.

How perfect is that? I have a new Golden-Age style costume that I have not debuted yet (in fact, I started altering it last night, the skirt needed shortening, the closures needed to be reinforced, and the top needed to have the hooks moved) and it really would only work for classical Egyptian music. I popped "Ruby" into my CD player last night - seriously everyone, it's a gorgeous album from beginning to end. Anybody who dances Egyptian style needs this album. Go order it right now, I'll wait. (Expect to see a track-by-track review from me just as soon as I finish writing up last weekend's workshop)

The new Saad album is great fun too! Egyptian sha'abi always gets people up and dancing, but the tracks on this album aren't as over-played and familiar as the ones on "Prince of Sha'abi". Any track off this album would be great for audience participation, and I love breaking out something new.

Bingeing on music

The sagat and drum classes I took this weekend reminded me that it has been a long time since the last time I bought new music, and I am hungry for some new inspiration. Mostly, I'm craving some new contemporary Egyptian Pop, Classic-style orchestral Egyptian, and some debke music to play around with. (also, it's nice that Hollywood Music Center has such a great sale section)

So far, I have ordered:

• Susu & the Cairo Cats - Dancing Drums - I have spoken to many dancers who love this CD, and I was long overdue to have it for my collection
• Naif Agby & Orchestra - Dabke - National Dance of Lebanon - To feed the debke obsession I developed after this past weekend's workshop
• Mohamed Iskandar - Al-Dabke - More debke-obsession-feeding.
• Various Artists - Kanoun Around the World - I got this one kind of on a lark, it was $5, and I'm curious how a "Swedish Folk Dance" song sounds on the kanoun. (also, "Hava Nagila" on the Kanoun? Too unusual to pass up)
• Salatin El Tarab Orchestra - Belly Dance With Hayat - The description on Holywood Music Center was, "Oud, Violin, Tabla, Kanoun and more" and I was sold, I love traditional instruments.
• Setrak Sarkissian - Zikrayat Ranine, Vol. 16 - This one jumped out at me because it has several classics on it, in versions I don't think I already have.
• Various Artists - Fairuziyat - Instrumental versions of classic Fairuz songs. I could listen to Fairuz all day long, but the instrumentals should be nice too.
• Naif Agby & Orchestra - Bedouin Sahda - I was in the mood to add some extra Lebanese music to the mix.
• Eddie "the Sheik" Kochak - Golden Hits - I don't care if he's cheesy or old-fashioned. I love his music! Plus, this CD has versions of both Zeina and Misirlou, and I always need new versions of the classics.
• Samir Srour & Souher Zaki - Cairo Plus - I couldn't resist a compilation with Souhair Zaki's name on it. Especially since it contains a track marked "accordion solo", and I love accordions in oriental music.
• Hamdi El-Khayyat - The Doom-Tek Project - The wide range of rhythms on this CD caught my eye, it seemed interesting for some diversity.
• Hossam Ramzy - Ruby - This one has gotten some high praise on Bhuz, and I'm curious to hear what's inspiring everybody about it.
• Saad - The Dance of My Heart - I seemed to have missed this one when it came out last year. I still listen to "Prince of Sha'abi" a lot, so I figured I'd enjoy picking up a little more of his stuff.
• Khalil Abboud & Leyla Lanty - Golden Days, Enchanting Nights - I ordered Leyla Lanty's Arabic for dancers DVD, and tossed in her CD to get to free shipping on Amazon.
• Also, I can't go to a workshop without buying a little something, so I came home with Everybody Yalla, a kind of Karim's "Greatest Hits". I have some of the songs on it already, but the rest of it is new to me.

I'm always open to suggestions, have any of you come across any great new CD's lately? 

We have pulled in to Carbondale

And this hotel has the hugest headboards either of us have seen. Also, the wardrobe has a light in it.

Karim Nagi in Carbondale, IL - I'll be there

I've been laying low on the dance front lately, but my good friend Andrea is getting me out into the dance world again!

Related to that, I have two important pieces of information to pass along:

1. I will be at the Karim Nagi workshop in Carbondale, IL this weekend (November 7-8, 2009 - Sponsored by Nile Breeze Dance Co) If you're reading this, and you'll be there, please come find me! On Saturday, I'll be wearing a black t-shirt with gold lettering, that says "Natalia" on the front, and has my website URL on the back. I plan to write up my workshop experience, so stay tuned! It has been a long time since my last workshop, so I am really looking forward to it!
2. Andrea, the wonderful friend who invited me to join her for the workshop this weekend, happens to be a costume importer, and goes to Egypt a couple of times a year to bring back fabulous costumes. Well, it just so happens that her website recently went live: Neenee's Imports. Take a look, I have bought some spectacularly beautiful pieces from her.

Hopefully, I will be seeing some of you this weekend, and stay tuned, you'll be seeing a little more of me around here.

I feel like a rock star

Yesterday evening, I had my first experience being recognized. :)

I stopped by the library after work yesterday, and while waiting in line to check out my books, the woman behind me strikes up a conversation, and tells me how she found Egyptian-themed paper to create a scrapbook page from the library Cultural Connections show. It was then that I realized that she and her children had been in the audience at a show I had been a part of at the library, and she recognized me. I was memorable. I feel pretty awesome right now.

Not so oud-y anymore

Aradia worked us much harder than I realized today! I felt good while we were in class and moving, but once I got home, I realized that choosing a song for tonight that involved shimmying for 4 minutes might be a bad choice considering how sore my legs already are. Oh well, it's a test of my performance skills, right?

Thankfully, my dress is heavily sequined, so even if my shimmies are fairly small, the stage lights reflecting off the sequins will make them visible.

Wish me luck!

Lunch break

We're on lunch break, the first two hours of the workshop just flew by. Aradia is as sweet as can be, and she keeps the class moving really quickly. Also, I was reminded what great handouts she prepares.

Look for me at the Aradia workshop

I'll be at the Aradia workshop today and tomorrow in St Louis. If you're there, come find me. I'll be easy to spot, I finally got myself a shirt to advertise myself at workshops. :) The shirt is black, with gold lettering and says "Natalia" on the front and "www.shimmyblog.org" on the back in pseudo-sanskrit lettering. It's silly, but it should make me easy to spot. :) Find me and say hello!