Best. Party. Ever.

Tis the season for weddings, and I've been dancing at quite a few lately. Two this weekend alone. I love dancing at weddings, but this weekend I had the opportunity to dance with the coolest guests at the best wedding ever (from a bellydancer's perspective, of course!).

I drove all the way down to Pt. Pleasant on the Jersey shore (on a Friday night - talk about a stressful situation! I was petrified that I'd get stuck in shore traffic and miss the wedding!). My husband and I decided to make a mini-vacation and spend the night on the shore. I was hoping for a good party - a rockstar party, if you will - to make the long drive worth while. What I got was better than any rockstar party I've ever danced for.

The crowd was awesome. It was a mix of Arabs and Americans, but everyone was up and dancing. The groom and all his friends were Arabic, and they did not sit down the entire show. They were up and dancing with me, singing along to all my songs (I had added some new pop songs to my set, and I'm so glad I did - they knew all the words and obviously loved them!). There was an older man (very old....) who was dancing along the sidelines, so I pulled him out to the dance floor while I danced my slow and sexy almost-taksim to Jemileh. He was getting his groove on right along with me! And then he gave me the best compliment a bellydancer could ask for....he said "Are you an Arab?" Me: "No!" Him: "You're not??? What are you??" Me: "I'm Italian!". Then he started cracking up (this is all on the dance floor during my show, mind you) and said "But you are SO GOOD! How can you be this good and not be Arab??" I melted.

I seriously felt like a guest at this party, I was having so much fun. I couldn't believe that this was my JOB - I was being paid to get out there and party with everyone else! It was truly an amazing time and I wish every party I danced at could be that awesome (although I don't know if I'd have the energy to keep up if they were ALL that crazy!). It made my trip down to the Jersey shore totally worth every minute stuck in traffic (oh yeah, and my husband and I had a nice time on our mini-vacay, which made it worth it too....;-).

Good luck to the bride and groom (and to all my brides and grooms who have really all been wonderful people). May you have a lifetime of love, happiness, and dance.

The Show was a Success!

Our third annual student showcase was a success! This was certainly the best show yet - they just keep getting better!

All of the performers worked so hard perfecting their dances and preparing to dazzle the audience - and it worked, the audience was dazzled.

The Taiwan Center was a great location - big stage, lots of seats. We'll be back next year for sure!

Here are some pictures from the show, I'll be putting more on the website soon. Enjoy!

Awwwwwww!

Just had to share these....they are from a wedding I recently danced at. I love dancing when there are children in the audience, especially little girls. Little girls love the sparkle and the glitter and prettiness of it all. You can just tell that their new dream is to be a bellydancer when they grow up, which is an especially interesting observation in light of the post below...

Enjoy!

Choreography vs. Improvisation

I'm trying to work on my Solo for the upcoming showcase. I want to dance to Jemileh, by Pangia. I love that song. It's so beautiful, it puts me into that "magical dance place," where you can feel the music and forget about the audience - you can just dance.

I love impov-ing to that song. With it's predictable rythym, it's easy to make your improv look like a choreo, as long as you know the song. And I'm no stranger to improv - it's what I do. When I dance, 95% of my performance is improv. I really enjoy it - for parties. Not for stage shows.

For some reason, I feel as though standing on a stage means I must have a choreography prepared. I feel absolutely uncomfortable doing improv on stage. Maybe it's because I feel more comfortable improv-ing in an environment where I can interact with my audience, and where it is necessary for me to be able to change things up in response to the actions and emotions of the audience members. Maybe it's because when I'm on stage, I don't get that interaction - on stage, it's like I'm on display - no matter what the audience is doing, I just keep on truckin' with my dance, especially since I can't see the audience from stage half the time anyway, what with the glaring spotlights and all.

But I'm having a hard time with it here - I want to dance to Jemileh, a song I know like the back of my hand and that I am so used to improv-ing to. But, it's going to be on stage, so I want to choreograph something. But I'm finding that extremely difficult because I just want to improv.

Ugh. And so, two weeks before the show, I still have no solo.

How young is too young?

There have been some threads recently on bhuz.com talking about children bellydancing. It has gotten me thinking about the subject - how young is too young to start dancing?

I've always thought that - when I have children - if I have a girl, she will be dancing as soon as she can walk. Not just bellydance, all forms of dance. I started "ballet" and "tap" (if you can call it that!) when I was two, and never looked back. I envision signing my toddler up for dance classes, and dressing her up in sparkly costumes. I want us to dance together, and to perform together. Dance is such a huge part of my life, I can't imagine not sharing it as much as I can with my children.

Suhaila Salimpour and Isabella Khoury are a great example of a mother/daughter dance duo, where the daughter is a bit on the young side. Isabella is around 9 years old. Some people think that's too young. I say it depends - what kind of 'moves' is she doing? What is her costume? Is she trying to emulate and adult, or is she doing the dance in 'child-appropriate' manner? I think it is great to start a child young - especially in bellydance, where so many of us don't get our start until we are much, much older.

What do you think?

It's showtime!!

Well, almost....

My yearly student showcase is a little more than one month away. Practices are starting to get longer, and more frequent, and the stress levels are visibly up in class. Everyone is thinking show, show, show.

We have a lot to do and not much time to do it all! All of the students have learned their dances, now it is time to perfect them. Anyone thinking of doing a solo needs to be working on that now as well. Costumes are being bought and made, and tickets will start selling next week.

It's a crazy time of year, but we love it! If we didn't love it, we'd be crazy for doing it again and again!

Big Stage, Little Stage

I danced at a party the other day at a catering hall with a HUGE dance floor. The party had about 400-500 guests, so I'm sure they needed the space. But with just my tiny self on this ginormous (it's a word now, I swear. See?) dance floor, I spent half my time running around the dance floor trying to get to each side of the room. Very little time left for the moves that make bellydance what it is, in my opinion. And then, when I'd get to one side of the room, I'd do a vibration, or a shimmy, or some impressive ab-rolling that requires serious muscle control, and then realize that only 1/8 of the party could actually see me! The rest of the guests were scattered around the football-field dance floor - to them, it looked like I was just standing still!

And I was insanely out of breath, after only 20 minutes. I attribute that to the fact that I was running around a heck of a lot more than at a normal party, when I can stand still and do my "tricks" for a big chunk of the show.

I decided that a performance by a single bellydancer (I'm not talking about big, BDSS-type productions) is better suited for a smaller venue. While we might appreciate having enough room to actually move our isis wings around without impediment, our performance translates to the audience much better when they are up close and personal, and we don't need to run around the dance floor like track stars.

What do you think?