5 qualities of a great belly dancer

 

The five qualities of a great dancer are:

1. Stage Presence - Being able to "own" the stage - whether it's in a restaurant, community event, or a huge theatre stage. This is when people can't take their eyes off the dancer. Confidence is a MUST for stage presence to come through to the audience.
2. Emotion - Connecting to the music you are dancing to, becoming like another instrument in the band, a visual interpretation of the music by the dancer. Connecting to the audience is also very important. Making eye contact and communicating your dance to everyone watching you.
3. Technique - Practice, practice, practice. The only way to get "good," is to set aside the time to practice your technique, whether it is choreography or improvisation, you still need to practice.
4. Attention to Details - Are you wearing make up? Make up is a part of your "costume." Do you point your toe when you lift your foot? Do you have energy in your hands all the way to your fingertips? We dance with our whole bodies, from the eyes to the toes. These are the little things which make a performance better.
5. Commitment to the dance, the history and the culture - Some of the commitment is in your practice, but it should also be commitment to learning about the culture, heritage, and history of the dance and the dancers who came before us.
    
    

How I discovered the joys of dancing

 

I am a life-long dancer. I started dancing when I was 4. My Mom put me in ballet to help with my feet and posture. While those are practical reasons for dancing, something about moving to music would continue to appeal to me all my life.

When I started getting into pop and rock music, I wanted to move. It was something I had to do. I continued with ballet, but added jazz and tap, as well as some hula to my dance life. Jazz was especially appealing to me, and I would later learn that it helped me tremendously with my Raks Sharki (belly dance) because of the isolated movements we did in our bodies. Some of the same lines of movement, and moves themselves also translate over to raks sharki, such as arabesque, chassé, chaîne turns, and graceful arm positions.

I initially was interested in belly dance via the amazing costumes. Having a background in theatre and dance, that was already something that interested me. Beyond costuming, though, I enjoyed the soft movements and how belly dance really was for every person, not just "ballet" bodies. The moves are more gentle than ballet but you can still incorporate the fierceness from jazz.

The styles I have studied the most are traditional Raks Sharki (Egyptian) belly dance and American Cabaret (AmCab) style. I have also studied Fat Chance Belly Dance Style (formerly ATS), which is an improvisational style, but I prefer raks sharki and AmCab. I love the Golden Era of American Cabaret the most, but I also have incorporated some jazz and street/pop style fusion into some of my choreography work.

 

Rising from the Ashes?

Will things be returning to "normal" any time soon? For now, we have the rise of the dance film and continuation of online classes.

Things have started improving from the pandemic, but now we are in the middle of a new surge from Covid's next incarnation, Delta variant.  This is the one which ravaged India and is spreading faster than the first problematic version.  Unfortunately, this has stalled our "Rising from the Ashes" return to normal life.

 How has this affected classes?  Some classes have returned in some communities, but others have not.  I continued to teach online this year, taking a short break, but I am returning to online classes simply because the place I used to teach in person is not running community classes yet.  The dance studio I taught at is unfortunately, gone.

 I stacked up many projects before my break, including all my Shimmy Mob videos for my team, another Dance Film, and a bunch of online performances for me and my troupe.  I had to plan for my time off, by pre-taping online workshops, classes, and content for my Patreon dancers.  I recorded various workshops and on demand content to fill in for the time I was off.

We incorporated the theme from a Hafla which was supposed to be on our schedule, "Mardi Gras," into a new dance film, using two of my choreographies that were brand new, which people learned online with me.  "Pirates and Parties" was the result, our best dance film so far.  The story starts in New Orleans, during a parade, for our first dance, and then transforms into a pirate's dance with swords as a bellydance prop.

 

Pirates and Parties aired on various online Haflas and shows, including Cairo ShimmyQuake festival (in a shortened form), plus our dance film was viewed at an in person hafla at Tribal Beats Studio, and segments aired on "a Thousand Wishes Show" (one dance only) produced by Full Moon Dreams Performances, and our zoom version of our dances aired on several different a Night in the Global Village online haflas.  It was also viewable on my YouTube Channel.

 I also performed solos at Cairo ShimmyQuake, a Thousand Wishes Show and a Night in the Global Village.

Shimmy Mob was a large undertaking as well, with our own multi-camera Team West Covina dance film shot in a park of all three official May dances, plus an online zoom version of the same dances, and a more expanded group of Shimmy Mob participants (from Washington state, California, Missouri, Kentucky) for a Night in the Global Village with the Shimmy Sirens of Zoom troupe.

 I was hoping my in person classes would return by late summer, but it will depend on Delta and how aggressive it ends up being.  In fact, I was in the process of rescheduling my classes to return at the community center, but then the Delta variant started spreading and everything changed. The center backtracked on having any parks & recreation classes.  Masks have returned after only being "unmasked" for a number of weeks. I was thinking, what was the last pandemic and how long did it last, and it seems like the last comparable one was in 1918 and it lasted for 2 years.

There will be a September Shimmy Mob event (maybe virtual only now?), plus there are the bonus Shimmy Mob dances, and a few shows which are tentatively scheduled for the fall, including a couple of restaurant ones and a local festival. 

 In the meantime, I revamped/redid my website and I'm hoping to launch that with the return of my classes.  I have several sewing projects that I need to get back to, plus planning for the possibility of upcoming belly dance shows (?).

photos: Alex H