Thursday, November 19, 2009

The Bra is finished!

Well, sort-of finished. I will keep fussing with it, be sure.

bellydance bra

It's seriously Heavy Metal!

How I made it:

- Bought a strapless bra (i've never sewn a bra before, so I didn't even want to go there)

- Constructed two long ties out of sturdy stretchy velvety material. sewed those onto the bra as halter straps.

- Bought trim at fabric store, purchased coins and plackets from an Ebay seller, made the pleather flower out of some pleather scraps I had lying around, found the pendant at the Swap Meet (only paid $5! score!), and purchased chain at a bead shop.

- Sewed all the bits on, and TA DA! I have a sassy jingly belly dance bra to call my own.

Also, if you want to check out and more involved photo tutorial of how to make your very own bellydance bra, go HERE


xo

Friday, October 30, 2009

Honor your teachers

This post is dedicated to all of the beautiful, amazing people who have taught me this dance form.

Dilek, my first teacher:



The amazing Sabrina Fox:



Heather Stants, of Urban Tribal.

(a great modern dance fusion choreo)



My current teachers, with whom I am learning the amazing art of American Tribal Style, Wendy and Sandi of Fat Chance Bellydance (they are in the second duet):



Dancers I have had the pleasure to study with one or twice:

Rachel Brice (purrr):



Jill Parker, of the Foxglove Sweethearts:




Suhaila Salimpour:



Steven and Raine of Atash Maya (with Sabrina):



Kami Liddle:



Lots of love to all of them!



PS- I got the sword that is posted below!! It's amazing... sword dancing post to follow.

Thursday, October 8, 2009

Swords!

When shopping for the best belly dance sword, it is often difficult to assess the differences between brands. This is because, in most places, there is no bellymart where one can go and shop in person. The only other real live option is to wait for a large festival and go shopping there. Otherwise, you shop on the internet and take your chances.

I just discovered that some smart belly dancin' gals in Atlanta made the process a whole lot easier. They have made several youtube videos showcasing different swords. How awesome is that??

Based on their videos, I'm thinking about making this one my first sword:



(if you want to check out the other swords they review, look in the right hand scroll menu)

Thursday, September 24, 2009

Wish List!

I found my dream zils...
They're the 2nd ones down on the page, the Afghan Heavy Gauge Bronze Cymbals. I love this website because you can listen to MP3 files of the zils. These have such a lovely deep tone!

Saroyan

Next, I need my ATS costume basics, I have my eye on this skirt in teal:

25 yard skirt

Along with these bloomers in black:

Cotton Gauze Bloomer

And I love this head piece:

Mirror and Metal Head Piece

Ah, I wish I was not a broke student!!

Monday, September 21, 2009

more fav videos of late...



(wait for the sword work on this one... holy crap)



Sunday, September 20, 2009

"Raising the Art Form"

This is a post I saw on Tribe.net the other day that got me all fired-up. I think it's a really important issue that the belly dance community should have a broader dialouge about.

I'm posting the original post and my response to it.

New tribe "Higher Standards in Bellydance"
topic posted Wed, September 16, 2009 - 8:43 PM
by Nefabit

Hello!
I'd like to invite anyone who's interested to join our brand new tribe "Higher Standards in Bellydance", which you can join here!
tribes.tribe.net/highersta...ellydance#
Since this Tribe is about feedback, and furthering ourselves at an individual level, I thought it might be an appropriate place to mention this new tribe, since it's about furthering and improving the dance itself.
To give you an idea of what we're about, here's the introduction:
Welcome!
This tribe is for bellydancers who wish to work together to raise the standards in bellydance. Some of our goals include getting bellydance out of venues like nightclubs, separating burlesque influence from bellydance, discouraging skimpy costumes and provocative choreography, and increasing the overall image of bellydance.
If you are tired of being turned down for events or dealing with the stereotypes that belly dance is not family appropriate, or somehow lesser than arts like ballet and modern, this tribe is for you.
Why is it that the oldest dance in the world is also the most misunderstood? Ballet, for instance, is only 400 years old, whereas the roots of bellydance are estimated to have originated 6,000 to 8,000 years ago in Babylon and Egypt. Yet ballet is well known and highly respected all over the world. When the word ballet is mentioned, one envisions a highly trained dancer in a beautiful theatre. When one envisions bellydance, many different things come to mind, from ill-trained dancers in a in sleazy nightclubs, to some of the finer troupes in respected venues. We need to work together to raise the standards in bellydance, and escape the stereotypes and misconceptions that bellydance has acquired. It is time for bellydance to be portrayed and understood for what it really is. Every dancer is an ambassador to this art form, and it is every dancers responsibility to educate the public, and our students to the best of our ability.

____

And this was my response:

Re: New tribe "Higher Standards in Bellydance"
Today, 2:35 PM
by Dreacakes

I can't seem to find this new tribe though the search bar, so I'll just put my thoughts here.

To me, the concept of raising the social respectability and dance standards of the dance is both a positive and negative thing.

On the positive side, it would be nice to make it easier to find very skilled teachers who met a certain expectation at all times. Also, it would be nice to see belly dance in broader venues. The social stigma can be quite hindering, I know this well from personal experience. I was formerly a dance major in college, and was met with some very condescending attitudes from the dance department faculty regarding my studies. They tried their best to try to make me focus more on Modern dance, and I refused, instead changing my major to Womens Studies and focusing on my belly dance studies there. It would be nice if belly dance was taught on the college level and was respected alongside ballet and modern.
And goodness, wouldn't it be nice if men didn't get that sleazy hungry wolf look in their eyes and make suggestive comments when you mention that you're a belly dancer??

However, I think is problematic to use ballet and modern as a template for the dance's evolution. One of the main reasons it is exhaulted, and other dance forms like bellydance are looked down upon is multilayered. Much of it has to do with racist imperialist notions of middle east women that began hundreds of years ago. And today, the superior attitude of the Ballet and Modern dance world are also partially due to ethnocentrism.

Also, I don't wish for belly dance to be like modern and ballet. I studied both of those dance forms as a child and I did not emotionally connect with either of them. I love belly dance because it is more informal and community-based. Were it to transition into being the type of dance you only watch in stuffy, fancy theatres where the tickets cost $50, I think it would lose it's soul. When you exhault an art form to only the reach of the few, and make it's standards beyond the reach of the common person, it becomes like an antiseptic piece of art that hangs on a sterile white wall.
In ballet, only people with certain genetic features (like the shape of the bones in their legs give them amazing turn-out, and tall skinny bodies, etc..) are allowed to dance professionally, and those girls go under ridiculous pressure to conform to a certain beauty ideal and end-up starving themselves much of the time. Also, I don't believe that ballet is a very healthy dance form. It is rough on your body and causes injuries because of it's insane standards, and because of this ballet dancers only have a short career in performance. In this way, I think that belly dance is superior because it is on the whole very healthy for the body. Modern is a little better about this, but the professional modern dancers are still intensely limber and strong super-athletes, and since it is related to ballet, they share similar values. Also, the culture of modern and ballet encourages very bad dance habits, like dancing on injuries, rough stretching, and pushing the body beyond it's limits, and I don't support that. That kind of crazy competitive culture is not something I want to see in belly dance.

I, for one, am a 30-year-old woman who has short tendons, which even after years of dance practice has left me still very stiff. I also have tendonosis in several places, which could be the result of pushing my body to stretch beyond it's ability for years.
I love that even though I'm not a spring chicken, and I will never be able to a Rachel Brice style back bend, that I can still be a belly dancer for as long as I like.

I think this notion of "higher" art forms is something that we need to challenge, instead of just molding our dance to the dominant cultures notions of what is "real" art. We are just buying into the cultural stratification of art. Dance should be about community and connection. That's why I fell in love with belly dance. I love that any one can do it, and it's something you can see in a hall, a club, on the street, or in a theatre.

Also, I think we need to break out of this unhealthy virgin/whore view of women that our society as a whole has. Showing your stomach in public and moving your hips around is seen by dominant Judeo-Christian society as slutty and morally suspect. Again, this is their problem, that we need to challenge, not buy into. Women should not be harshly judged for shimmying their hips while wearing a coin bra. Nor should burlesque dancers be judged. Putting down burlesque to raise ourselves up is not a healthy strategy. And belly dance and burlesque *do* actually have some things in common. They are both dance forms that were used by women at different times to make a dime by exploiting the pockets of leering European and American men. The difference being that belly dance has a long history outside of that culture as well, where as I don't believe burlesque does? (I'm not an expert on burlesque dance, I admit- anyone is allowed to school me on this)
What I'm trying to get at is that I don't believe in promoting belly dance as this nice, squeaky clean conservative art form just so we'll get accepted by a culture that seems to have only two boxes for women's sexuality to fit into.

I am all for getting belly dance more widely recognized as the kick-ass art form that it is, and not one of the weird stereotypes that uninformed people have about it. I'd also like to see it taught on a college level (I'm working on that by aiming towards a PhD).
I just think we all as a community need to steer the dance form in a direction of healthy growth.

cheers!

___

I'd also like to share an amazing quote I recently discovered:


"The folk, or communal, dance is a dance to be done; a dance in which the joy lies in the doing; and a part of the joy is in the unified purpose that moves a group of persons intent on the same end....the folk dance you see on the stage has already made the transition into art dance, for it has become dance to be seen." -La Meri

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

The Punk Rock of Belly Dance

I attended a classic Fat Chance Belly Dance style class this evening taught by the lovely Wendy.
As I've mentioned before, FCBD are American Tribal Style belly dance, actually, they are the founders of that specific form of belly dance. It is an improvisational form that is done in groups (or "tribes") of women. Each women studies the language of movements and cues so that they can spontaneously dance with one another. So say one ATS dancer from Kansas meets an ATS gal from Melbourne, they can instantly dance with one another with this language.

I love the fact that this dance form is community based in that way. It isn't something that is just composed of solo dancers who focus on the ego-driven goal of stardom, it is all about interaction and connection with other dancers. It's earthy and informal, the type of dance you'd expect to see performed in a meadow, as opposed to a concert hall.

I've always had a bit of an issue with high-brow art forms. I can't stand sitting in a fancy theatre with a bunch of stuff-shirts watching a melodramatic Modern Dance, nor do I really love seeing visual art in the antiseptic setting of a museum. I think art is a spontaneous part of human expression, and it's function is supposed to be as something that is interwoven with the community, not put on a pedestal behind glass. I also don't like the concept of only the privileged and insanely talented being able to create and enjoy the art.

So I guess I like ATS because it's sort of like the punk rock of belly dance. It accepts all body types, skill levels, and abilities.
Yes, there are other dance forms that have more sophisticated choreography patterns and movements, it is very folk dance like and looks very simplistic at times (though that simplicity goes away when you actually try to learn it... belly dance is challenging) Even within belly dance there are more complex schools. But I think I love this one best simply for it's heart.

Also, I think my love for it lies somewhere deeper within my psyche as well.
When I was a teenager, I was really into reading about all things New Age. I used to put myself in trances and try to recall my past lives. Think what you will of it, what I saw could be valid or total silly teenage fantasy, but regardless, it came from within me, so it has some merit within my life.
One of the lives that I recalled in a trance was that of a young woman somewhere in Europe in the Middle Ages. One of her memories was of being in a meadow with several other women from her village. They were all dancing in a circle together, doing some sort of long lost folk dance. They wore peasant-like dresses and had wreaths of small flowers in their hair. I remember feeling an incredible sense of happiness and completeness as I danced.
The first time I danced in an ATS chorus was in Sabrina's class in San Diego. At one point we all got into a circle and danced around the room before getting into formation. As we went around in the circle I remembered the past life I'd seen as a child, and I had that same incredible sense of happiness and belonging. I almost came to tears.

Recently I was thinking about what direction I would like my senior thesis to go in. I decided I would like it to be centered around American Tribal Style, it's history and also it's practical application as a tool for building community and enriching people's lives. It is my ultimate goal to advance within the class levels at Fat Chance by then and get my teacher certification. Also, by the time of graduation I would also love to be in a troupe and be performing. Hopefully I can buckle down and make all of this manifest within the next year and a half.
I talked with Wendy after class tonight and she was really helpful and encouraging. I'm excited!

Yeeeeeip!

Since I'm such a video fan, lookie here for more ATS fabulousness:

Monday, July 27, 2009

No more bad dance habits!

So I have become rather frustrated with the lack of understanding about proper alignment, stretching, and warm-ups in the dance world.

This frustration stems from my own recent education into such matters, including a kick ass Kinesiology class that I took last spring. While enrolled in that class, I was also immersed in a very old school style mostly Ballet and Modern dance department that taught some unhealthy routines in it's classes, as well as belly dance classes outside of school that did the same thing (to a lesser degree).

It always strikes me as odd that dancers aren't more educated about physiology, because athletes seem way more in the know about proper stretching and physical therapy. On the school level athletes also have much greater access to resources, I assume because their departments are big money makers, while the artsy dance departments are not. For instance, at my college, the athletics department has an on-staff physical therapist and a clinic right in their building to aid them all daily. The dance department has no such thing, and if you are injured you have to make the trek all the way to the school doctor in the next city and get on a 2 week waiting list to see a physical therapist. Meanwhile, the culture within the dance department encourages you to dance while injured and not take proper care of the injury. They "dance through it". And you should not stretch a fresh injury!! Yet they advise you do so. It's insane.

Other bad habits I've noticed in dance classes are their stretching routines. I grew-up taking modern, jazz and ballet classes, and we all used a pretty set style of stretching that is still used today. There is some integration of yoga stretching in with traditional stretches, but it varies.

Here are a few examples of unhealthy stretches that dancers do:

- The "roll up through your spine, one vertebrae at a time" stretch. This is AWFUL for your back and over time can cause spinal damage. When you hinge over with a bent spine, you are putting the entire weight of your upper body on one half of your spinal collumn, causing massive compression of the discs. This causes stress fractures in the coating of the discs, and you can end-up with herniated or ruptured discs, among other issues. Whenever you bend over, engage your core muscles and have a flat back and an elongated spine, for goodness sake!
This also applies to the hamstring stretch done on the floor in a sitting position. That stretch crunches the heck out of your lower back.
A much better stretch to do is this one:



- You should only do deep stretching when your muscles are WARM and you need to hold the stretch for at least 30 seconds, or ideally a full minute!

I go to so many dance classes and use so many dance videos that do not warm you up sufficiently before dancing. The exception I've seen is Mira Betz, Lisa Fiera, and Darshan (her video is one of my favorites). Stretching cold muscles increases the likelihood of making micro tears in tendons and muscle tissue, which can lead to tendinitis and muscle strains. Also, if you do not hold a stretch long enough, it does little good to warm you up. I also encounter very few teachers that do a cool down stretch after a class. This is also really important! When you're all warm a sweaty after a class workout is the best time to stretch, you're going to get the most out of it in terms of increasing your muscle length, and you'll alleviate some of the muscle soreness post class.
Also, get a foam roller and roll those muscles! It feels amazing.

- Bouncing stretches! eek!

Again, being too rough on the muscles and tendons can damage them! I know from personal experience, since I have tendinitis. Tendon damage is permanent and no fun to deal with. Sorry Suhaila fans, I ain't doing the bouncing straddle squat thing!

Also, proper posture in everyday life is incredibly important. When mamma told you to sit up straight, you shouldda listened (I didn't used to... but now I wish I had).

Okay, so that's enough soap boxing for now.

Everybody go and be healthy happy dancers and love your bliss!

xo

Thursday, July 23, 2009

We got the beat

As of late I have been focusing on learning Middle Eastern Rhythms, and just finished an amazing 5 week class series on Rhythms with the fabulous Mira Betz and Lisa Fiera. Since I have a mostly Tribal Fusion background, I am lacking in my knowledge of Dombek rhythms and zill playing (but I can dance to French 60's pop and Balkan fusion jams like nobodies bizzness! :D ). But really, I have made myself hunker down and start studying the classics. And I have to say I am totally enjoying it.

Lisa Fiera turned me on to a fantastic online resource for learning the Rhythms.
This fellow named Jas has a webpage with a beat generator! Go to THIS webpage and scroll down to where it says "Q: So I want to learn some rhythms. Where do we start?" and below that is a whole list of common Mid East beats, just click on the links next to Saiidi or Baladii or whichever strikes your fancy and it will give you a few different version of the beat. How awesome!

I also found a kick ass looking DVD for zil playing. Previous to this I bought Jamilla Salimpour's zill CD, and though it is informative, I still felt a little lost. I've never taken classes with a teacher that taught basic zills on a regular basis. I've only had a smattering of ATS gallop cymbal training, and a couple of Suhaila classes with zills where I was totally over my head and lost for the entire class.
What I am really thirsting to learn is which zill rhythm to play along with which song beat. Also, I'm a visual person, so videos are better learning tools for me.

Check this out:



And the DVD is here: Zill Drills

And then I have to practice dancing while playing all of that. Yikes!

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Book Lust!

I can't wait till the new edition of this book comes out in the fall. It has been heralded by many as an amazing resource of belly dance history.
And to top it all of, on the cover is none other than the lovely Rachel Brice.

Serpent of the Nile



<3

Saturday, July 18, 2009

Let me explain....

When describing the kind of belly dance I do to friends or acquaintances, I sometimes feel like I hit a wall in trying to explain the differences between the types of belly dance. They are incredibly rich and varied, and often people have preconceived notions that do not fit in with the reality of the dance.
Then somewhere between explaining the difference between American Cabaret style, Modern Egyptian, and ATS... I feel like the other person's eyes glaze over a little bit. At those moments I always yearn for a visual aid.

So here it is folks, an explanation of variation in styles presented in visual video format.
(Note: These are just a smattering of videos I managed to think to dig-up... It should not be taken as an all-encompassing history of belly dance or whathaveyou. What we call belly dance is actually a conglomeration of many hundreds of years of dance evolution and cross-pollination between cultures.)

American Tribal Style, Fat Chance Belly Dance:



Jamilla Salimpour's Belly Dance Biography (a bit of a commerical, but very informative):



An example of Modern Lebanese Belly Dance:



A Turkish style:



Tribal Fusion:
(which this is just a couple examples. There are many fusion styles.)



and another tribal fusion example..




Vintage Egyptian:



American night club style:

A lovely Drum Solo:





Indian/ Romani "Gypsy" style dance:
(which I'm throwing in to illustrate the folk roots of belly dance)





and more randomness...

Dancing on water goblets!



Double Scimtars!!



What is American Tirbal Style Belly Dance? by Fat Chance Belly Dance



Well, geez, I think I went overboard on the number of videos there... ah well! Kudos to anyone who watches them all! :)


And which one do I study?... Well, kind of a smattering of all of that.

Belly Dance and Whiskey don't mix

As illustrated by the lovely Zoe Jakes:



Tequila, however, is an entirely different story...

Friday, July 17, 2009

costume fun!

Being a costume designer and fashion lover I of course am enamoured with the costume side of Belly Dance. However, I don't yet have a costume that I would call 100% "stage ready". My goal is to slowly work on this, so that when the time comes to perform, I am ready to go and looking stellar.

Also, I have a little pet dream of having my own Etsy store with Belly Dance costumes and accessories... and maybe one day to have enough of a store to set up shop at festivals.

I just sent away for a couple patterns from this site:

http://scheherezadeimports.com/items/atira~39-s-fashions~35-/list.htm

I'm getting Nagwa’s Bra-Tops and Alviyah’s Turkish-Macedonian Vest. My intention is to use these patterns as a base for my own designs, since I feel like I need a bit of help to jump start the patterns.

Also, in thinking about the kind of look that I am striving for with my costumes I am a bit torn. I love the look of the neo-Victorian/ Steam Punk/ floofy ruffles and bloomers and bustles that every other tribal belly dancer in the universe is wearing right now... But that's just it, EVERYONE is wearing the same thing. It has gotten old.

Instinctively I am leaning towards a look that reminds me of 60s/70s hippie belly dance style. I've been combing the Internet and books to try and find a photo of what I mean exactly, and I have come up with no web photos of the look, but I did find an old picture of Bou-Saada in the Tribal Bible book that is exactly what I mean.
The look is earthy, yet traditionally Middle Eastern looking, and a bit flowy . The style is minus the overdone caberet style glitz, and instead includes earth tones, eithnic prints, and long hippie hair, of course. (I'm working on the hair)

How I'm going to execute this look, I'm not exactly sure yet! But I'll figure it out.

And speaking of Bou-Saada, how amazing would it be to live on a traveling belly dance tour bus for 10 years??

Bou-Saada practicing outside their tour bus:


Anyone got a spare school bus? Let's run away!

Thursday, July 16, 2009

Intro

Hello!

I'm starting this blog as a personal sounding board for my thoughts/ feelings and generally my obsessive love of Belly Dancing.

I have been studying Belly Dance for three years now, and just recently moved up to the San Francisco Bay Area so that I might intensify my training.
I have a stylistically mixed background, my first teacher was a Turkish style dancer who was Suhaila Salimpour influenced. She is fantastic, she taught me all of the basics and broke the moves down into correct muscle groups, and pretty much gave me a kickass foundation. After I progressed too far for her beginning classes, I moved to taking Tribal Fusion classes with a couple of Teachers. Now I am studying primarily with a Tribal Fusion teacher, and an American Caberet with slight Tribal influence teacher. I'm delving more into the traditional background of the dance and loving every minute of it.

I am currently in college finally finishing my BA, and am majoring in Women's Studies. My focus is the Ethnology of Belly Dance and the social application of it; namely how to use Belly Dance as a tool to build community and improve the self esteem of women and girls. My goal is to get a PhD in Gender/Women's Studies.

I'll be blabbing a lot in this blog about music, classes, videos and more things related to my passion.

Enjoy!