Review: Secrets of the Stage: Vol 3

Although it would’ve made more sense to start with Secrets of the Stage: Vol 1, I found  Secrets of the Stage Volume 3: A Performance Course for Belly Dancers by Michelle Joyce on the Bhuz Swap. The deal was good and it helped a lady out.

The Secrets of the Stage series is produced by Michelle Joyce, a dancer in the Bay-area. She has a very good company, dedicated to making quality DVDs for primarily Middle Eastern Dance. They’re a steal at about $20/DVD. She produced last week’s video, Fabulous 4 Yard Veils.

Secrets of the Stage is different from other DVDs or even classes, because the DVD is dedicated to performance, not dance technique. If you are a student of Middle Eastern dance and want to go professional, classes may not offer all the behind the scenes information it takes to be a professional dancer. Michelle uses real working dancers to help present topics that working dancers should know about. Most of the DVD is like watching a movie with the commentary turn on; there’s video in the background but a voiceover, discussing a topic. The topics for Vol 3 are “Dancing to Live Music,” “Inspiration and Creativity”, “Your Professional Image”, and an extra section on some Arabic that’s useful to know. Rather than discuss the DVD in bulk, I thought I’d go section by section.

• Dancing to Live Music. Like many dancers, I haven’t had the opportunity to work with live musicians. The dancers and the musician in this section gave hints and overall, encouragement, in dancing to live music. They all made very good points about how handle the situation so that everyone (musician, dancer, and audience) is happy. The only thing that would’ve made this section better is if the comments were more about what was going on on screen, rather than simply general comments about working with live music.
• Inspiration and Creativity. I liked this section a lot, since this is one of the many places I get stuck. I thought the tips were excellent, some new, some not new. Again, I would’ve really liked more comments on the actual performances of the dancers, rather than just general tips. I was hoping this would be more “Behind the Dance” type thing, where each dancer would explain her specific motivations and inspirations. I think my favorite part was when someone (I forget who) said that it’s important to create, even if it isn’t perfect. Being the kind of person who wants something perfect, I appreciate reminders that I should create, rather than wait and worry to make something perfect.
• Your Professional Image. This section contained info on makeup and photo shoots. The dancers narrated how she applies her stage makeup. The makeup section I thought I would be more helpful if they were more broad tips, like the difference between stage makeup and more up close work, like restaurants or how lights can affect how your makeup looks. The photo shoot advice was helpful for someone like me, who has never had a photo shoot. Michael Baxter (a photographer) provided information how to get the most out of your photo shoot, from setting the background to creating good poses. My only other comment on this section is I wish there had been more about creating a professional image. I thought the start was strong, but I would have liked to have seen some information on other professional aspects, like websites, business cards, ads, etc. Perhaps another DVD?
• Survival Arabic. Leyla Lanty is too cute! The survival Arabic is just a small taste of Arabic, to help dancers know a few words. I like languages and I like knowing what the lyrics are, so I wish that this section had been longer. Evidently, Leyla Lany teaches a longer survival Arabic workshop for dancers, so if you’re like me, strapped for cash and time, that may be a good supplement to this section. I found the section a little helpful; I know a few Arabic words, from teachers giving me a little crash course in words that frequently appear in lyrics. I didn’t know, however, the word structures or about the lyrics in general. Leyla Lanty seems to know a lot about it.

This DVD offers quite a bit. If you have no one around to help you with your budding professional career as a dancer, there is a great deal of information that is important and helpful. If you are more like me and have spent ample time on the Internet and learning these things via class and workshops, I don’t think it is as necessary but still has information to offer. I found the DVD very enjoyable to watch and liked hearing different dancers’ takes on their topics.

 

Review: Fabulous Four Yard Veil by Shoshanna

Needing to fill my need of veil work, I picked up Fabulous Four Yard Veils with Shoshanna – Belly Dance. Shoshanna is of Arcata, CA; she is involved heavily with L.Rose Designs, since her mother is in charge of that. When I saw her last year for the Aida Nour show, she was very captivating. She and her veil are really partners; it isn’t just some prop to look cool. One of the issues with props of any kind is if the dance becomes a bunch of prop tricks vs. dancing. Shoshanna is one of the best examples of someone who dances with veil, not shows off a bunch of tricks while standing there.

Onto the DVD. You don’t need a 4 yard veil for this DVD, although some of the moves would look better with one and the claim is that if you can do something with a 4 yard veil, 3 yards should be a snap. The DVD is moderately long, which is nice, and the price is very reasonable at $20. I’m not sure how easy this DVD is without veil training; I have a quite a bit at this point. I found the DVD easy to follow. Shoshanna has good technique and works through a move fairly quickly, but I don’t think it’s impossible to get the gist. Veil moves are often best practiced in combos, since they have to transition really well. Shoshanna does go over some combos at the end.

There are a good number of moves. The best thing about this DVD is Shoshanna really does give you more bang for your buck. She goes over numerous moves, both skinny edge and long edge. Even though I have a fair amount of veil experience, I learned some new moves on this one, too.

Shoshanna has two people behind her, doing the same move that she does. The only difference is that they use different types of veil (for instance, one may use a half-circle) which is interesting to see; different veils move differently.

I’ve heard some criticisms that she speaks very quickly at times on this DVD. I myself am considered a fast speaker by some (I think it’s the difference between growing up on the East coast and now residing in the MidWest), so I didn’t have a problem. I liked that her speech speed was a little uneven. Shoshanna came off very natural.

During the DVD, Shoshanna goes over one of the more useful ideas: covering up mistakes and going beyond them. From what I understand about veil, veils have mood swings during performances. Since many people do end performing at some level (amateur to pro), I think it’s valuable to discuss what to do when something bad happens.

One of the things I’d change about it were the veil discussion (which veil works well with what) was a little brief, and I thought it was odd to follow the warm up with that. If you’re warmed up, you should continue on with exercise, not break. There are a few parts in the beginning where she is bent over and speaks too closely into the microphone; the sound difference was jarring to me.

This is a good choice to learn some veil moves or to hone in on your practice. I have some new ideas of moves to practice that I hadn’t done in class. I would definitely purchase another DVD by Shoshanna.

 

Review: Ethnic Dance Academy Handbook

DaVid of Scandinavia suggested his book to me on Bhuz, when I wanted to come up with a means of cateogrizin my own moves. I like DaVid’s dancing, and he knows a lot of stuff. Besides, an ebook is only $15. Not too pricey. I did consider buying the print version, but at $40+shipping, I decided that the ebook was a better deal for me.

I started out with what’s called the EDA Handbook For Middle Eastern Dance. The EDA is the Ethnic Dance Academy, also known as DaVid’s dance school in San Diego. The book is full of goodies. It takes you through many aspects of Egyptian oriental, discussing history, technique, performance stuff (improv, how to choreograph), and professional career (teaching and/or dancing). It’s breadth is the best aspect of this book. It takes you through everything. Obviously, in 90some pages, the book isn’t an in-depth look at Egyptian Oriental, but the taste it gives is helpful. For newer dancers, I can see this book helping them understand what all is involved. The dance isn’t simply about wearing a costume and looking cute. I love how DaVid goes over the fact it’s important to practice, even the basics.

For dancers who are more well-seasoned, this book goes over nuances that can take you to the proverbial next level. DaVid writes very frankly about what it means to be a professional dancer and instructor. If you lack guidance in these areas, I’m sure the book would be helpful to read. Unless you spend a lot of time on message boards, I’m not sure where you would get this information, besides trial and error.

The only aspects of the book I would say were lacking are the technique explanations and this chart in the back. The technique explanations I found a little confusing. Perhaps it’s because I’m not familiar with DaVid’s teaching or that I don’t learn movement merely through reading. DaVid does provide some diagrams of the moves, but I’m not sure if I’d know what he was talking about if I didn’t know the move to begin with. I wouldn’t use this book to learn technique. I doubt DaVid intends for this book to be a means of learning technique.

The chart in the back was a very smart idea; it shows how everyone is interconnected. However, I found that confusing to read.

Despite those two issues, the wealth of information I got out of this book was worth it. I’m sure a print copy would be nice, but I’m squeezing pennies right now. David writes in an easy-going style. I hope he pens more books. I definitely recommend checking this one out to get an overall view of being a Middle Eastern dancer.

 

Review: Global Girlfriend yoga pants

I’ve been meaning to review these for awhile. I had gone on a revamping of my workout wear a bit ago; everything is rather worn out, and I figure if I get 5 years wear out of some $16 yoga pants, I think I can afford to get a new pair or two. After searching high and low for cool looking yoga pants and other types of pants, I couldn’t find anything, so I settled for basic pants. I searched high and low for good basic black pants and I stumbled upon the Global Girlfriend yoga pants.

The Global Girlfriend pants I bought off the Hunger Site. Global Girlfriend is an organization that deals with fair trade goods; the working people get paid and are treated decently. If you have never heard of The Hunger Site or its affiliated sites (causes include literacy, breast cancer, animal welfare, and the rain forest), it’s the easiest way to donate money. All you do is click once a day on a button and according to all the literature I read on it (I was very skeptical), it is legitimate. The Hunger Site and its affiliates have really good wares, at a very reasonable prices; I usually use them for gifts when I can’t figure out what to get a person.

The pants are as good as any other pair I’ve owned. They’re a little higher waisted than I like (I’m also very short, so it may not be an issue for you), but I think they’ll shrink in the wash. They’re comfortable. What more could you ask for in a pair of pants?

And even though they’re called Global Girlfriend, my SO (male) can almost fit my pair and wants to buy a pair for himself.

 

Review: Hadia Workshop

For personal reasons, I missed part of Day I of Hadia’s workshop but managed to catch some of it. Hadia, if you haven’t heard of her, is a Canadian dancer. Surprisingly, a lot of people have not heard of her (most of the people at the workshop confess they did not). I would say that she’s most famous for her teacher training. Her training, according to the people I know who have gone through parts of it, is about teaching instructors safe ways to dance.

Hadia was very nice to me, despite showing up for only half the first day.  I arrived just in time to learn what really interested me in the first day: Khaleegi. Khaleegi is dance done by people in the Gulf parts of the Middle East. Below is a clip of what Khaleegi looks like.

Hadia went over some brief information on Khaleegi before going into steps and what they signify. I thought this was very useful, since I’ve only seen on Khaleegi performance and know very little about the dance. What I think was highly useful was Hadia emphasized safety and demonstrated how to something safely. For instance, Khaleegi is known for the swinging hair. It would be very easy to injure your neck doing it by using your neck. She instead pointed out if you put your shoulder into the move, instead of making it about using your neck, that it’s much safer and still throws your hair.

I was there for all of Day II, with almost a completely fresh set of people. We went through her warm up, which was rather goofy. Just all sorts of random movements that seemed to not make any sense. It turned out that everything in our warm up was a goofy, silly way to do the dancing she wanted us to do later on. I thought that was very clever and intelligent. She did a lot of quizzing throughout the raqs sharqi portion of the workshop, making sure we knew rhythms and why she chose the combos she used in the music. She also taught us how to move simpler, like using our arms to help with a turn. A lot of her moves were very simple. The tricky part was not doing what you’ve practiced for so long.

The Turkish Rom section was probably my favorite. I’m starting to really warm up to Turkish dancing period, so this was a special treat for me. Again, there was review of history and explanation of the moves. I thought it was a good overview of it.

Although I recommend taking a workshop with Hadia, I will say that she is very opinionated and is not shy about sharing them. She is also very silly; she randomly sang twice to us on the second day and likes making random sounds to show where we are the music. She also does seem to have very little regard for personal space. Hadia danced in your space, very close, when she was dancing around all of us to demonstrate a move.

However, I think she has a lot of offer and has very intelligent thoughts, such as questioning who are your teachers’ teachers. I also appreciate that she cares truly about people’s safety; she saw someone do a stretch she thought they were not warmed up enough for and stopped them. Hadia is very friendly (ate lunch and talked with us) and gladly answers questions.

Before I end this review, I must give a positive review of Pineapple Dance Studio. It is a beautiful studio, and Erika is a fabulous host. I don’t mind big workshops, but I admit there is something nicer about attending a 20-30 person workshop over a 60 person one. She had the best spread of food at a workshop I’ve attended; she had Middle Eastern food! I know workshops aren’t required to have food, but when you aren’t familiar with an area or trying to save money, it is certainly more than welcome.

 

Review: Melodia Red Mini Pants

I got them yesterday, after a very look week. I was so excited to get them, because I had wanted a pair for a long time. $60 is a steal.

When I got home, I tried them on. They fit beautifully except for the upper hip/top of the pant area. I anticipated having to do some playing with the hem (someone online has shown that you can drawstring inside the legs to shorten them a little), but I never expected them to be way too big at the top. I know I’m small, but I didn’t expect them to be that big for a size small, when I don’t think there is anything smaller, like XS.

In short, as much as I love the look, I’m not going to deconstruct and reconstruct them to fit me. I’m currently trying to resell them, since I certainly can’t wear them.

 

Review: Fan Veils

I mentioned that one of the problems with taking a fan veil workshop was my fan veils. Because I didn’t know much about working with fan veils and didn’t know if they were my thing, I thought I’d go with a cheap option. I think these were about $60 for a pair, including shipping. This style of fan veil is sold a lot of places, I believe: they have multicolored glitter flowers on them and a long tail of silk attached to the fan part.

The most positive thing to mention about them is I think they’re pretty to look at. I really like the dye job on the veil part. They’re not visually ugly, with glue where the silk attaches to the fan. I’ve seen that on some fan veils. While that may not be seen from far away, I still want my props to look fairly nice up close, if only so that I can admire them.

That’s where my compliments for my fan veils end. The blades are not smooth; I think it’d be quite easy to get a splinter with them. Even if it isn’t, they just don’t feel nice to hold. The blades additionally don’t stay open well. They need to be held open, or the fan folds in on itself. I don’t know if this is common with fans in generally, but I am kind of doubtful that it is. I also found them difficult to crack open with one hand; I don’t know if it’s the nature of fan veils period or my lack of experience, but even Sonya didn’t have the easiest time getting them to open.

My other complaint about them is that I only used these once for about 2 hours, and the adorable little flowers have already started to fall off. I think I lost about 3; some other women had similar fans to mine and I could see their fans shedding the flowers as well. I’m doubtful that they’d hold up well for extended practice.

While I’m glad I was able to try fan veil, I wish these guys were better. Perhaps someone who is more patient with them will get better use, but I’m lazy. I don’t want my prop work to be as effortless as possible.

 

Review: Fan Veil Workshop and How To Choreograph 201 Workshop

This past Sunday I went to Arabesque to learn about fan veil and how to choreograph more.

I admittedly know very little about fan veil or fan dancing in Middle Eastern dance. I’ve never worked with a fan before, and I certainly have never worked with a fan veil. I’ve only seen a handful of YouTube clips, like the one below.

Sonya, as usual, had a good handout. I’m a fan of handouts, since I don’t normally write as fast I’d like or I occasionally don’t write everything down because I assume I’ll remember. I really like how Sonya emphasized again how it’s important to dance with the prop and not just do cool tricks while standing there. One of the things I like about learning props from Sonya is that they don’t seem like a cheap gimmick to cover up poor dancing; they are really an extension of the movement. I also like her frankness; she admitted she knew fan, she knew veil, and she taught herself based on that knowledge. Seeing that fan veil is quite new (I think the earliest dated clip I’ve seen is from a few years ago), I imagine it’s not too common to find a fan veil instructor.

Sonya also went over the element of surprise and being a good performer; sometimes, one should not reveal the prop at the first beat of the music but dance and then slowly show it. After her talk about fan veil, we got to use ours. Unfortunately, I went with the cheaper fan veils (they’re getting reviewed this weekend), and they aren’t very good. They’re very hard to open, the wood isn’t nicely sanded, the darling little glued on stars fell off. But back to the class, the fan veils I had made the workshop a lot harder. Had I splurged and bought better ones, I’m sure it wouldn’t have been as hard.

The only good thing I can say about having these fanveils for the workshop is Sonya was able to point out that they’re handed. I never knew dance fans were made for left or right hands. Luckily, because mine were almost impossible to work with, I was able to borrow another pair. Sonya assembled a few cute combos into a choreography. They were a lot of fun, once I got them. If you’re looking to take a fan veil intro workshop, I think it’s best to have experience with fan dancing and also not buy cheap fan veils. Sonya reminded us that better props make working with them easier; I can concur that.

Choreography 201 was fun as well. We were expected to bring in music that we wished to choreograph. Only one person really prepared that. However, we all had iPods, so we could select music on the fly. Unlike the first part of this workshop, we had less planning. We initially sat around, discussing choreographic choices we can make with the music or important aspects of the music. The second half involved looking at making combos for the music. I liked the fact that it wasn’t heavy dancing and more discussion; I was able to see how everyone else’s minds worked and to sit around, talking about dance. I love talking about dance, hence all the time I spend on Bhuz and writing this blog.

I think I would’ve liked a little more structure with this workshop, but if you are working with other people’s music that you haven’t prepared for, I imagine it is difficult to do that. I think the most interesting music we used was the person who actually had planned what music she wanted and had thought about choreographing that piece beforehand. I think it helped guide Sonya into knowing how to answer the questions. This workshop has a lot of potential, although it is highly reliant on the people who show up and how much homework they do ahead of time.

 

Mohamed Shahin Workshop

Mohamed Shahin was what I needed after my week. In case you were wondering about me attending the workshops I had planned on going to, I still am because I prepaid. I most likely can’t get a refund and I don’t know if I’d be allowed to sell my spot. But back to the original story.

The workshop was hosted by a dancer named Alexandria. I had only know of her loosely; she dances at quite a few restaurants around Chicago, and I think she may teach somewhere in the city. Pineapple Dance studio was the location, which was fairly easy to get to from Chicago, taking a little over an hour from train where I live (North Side). Forest Park, IL is pretty cute in an old-time town way. I was relieved, since I’ll make my trek out there again in a few weeks for the Hadia workshops.

The beginning of the workshop is genuinely the only bad thing I can say about it. People showed up late, about 20 minutes late. Alexandria is a really nice person, so she chose to delay the workshop. The other workshops I had attended in the city ran like clockwork. If you were late, you missed part of the workshop. The lateness cut into our break, which I had desperately needed. To be fair, there were maybe 20 people max there, so a good portion of the attendees were missing.

The workshop began with someone else leading us through warmup and stretches; I’m not quite sure why Mohamed Shahin did not. When Shahin began teaching, he was rather serious. Not mean, but he had a mission to teach us. He was concerned about whether we understood what we were doing with the saidi. He would dance a combo with us a few times, then step out to observe whether we had it. If we didn’t, he would explain very clearly what we were doing wrong. I was lucky to have had Najmat in Boston, because her teaching is very similar to Shahin’s. Neither of them used names for words; instead, a sound like “tock” would mean something and there’d be a bit of a demo. You wouldn’t get a name like “maya.” I think, even if I hadn’t been used to that kind of instruction, he was able to articulate what he meant and break things down a bit.

The first half of the workshop was saidi. As I said yesterday, it wasn’t too easy or too hard. Again, thanks to Najmat, I was fairly prepared to handle cane (we had done many months of it when I was her student). I felt somewhat challenged, but I didn’t think it was impossible. I liked seeing how his combos worked and learning the finishing touches. Quite a few people leave out the importance of your face when learning; Shahin would tell us where we should look at points during the choreography. Probably my favorite part of this half was he took time to answer questions. Shahin is not only an excellent dancer and movement teacher, but he is also an excellent history teacher. He talked about how beladi cane is different from Saidi and the development of Saidi cane dances as we know it today.

The second part of the workshop was supposed to be classic raqs sharqi, but they decided to do shaabi. I didn’t mind, because I am interested in shaabi, but I imagine it may have been a surprise for others. The shaabi portion was a little difficult for me, because I really threw myself into the saidi. Pineapple dance studio was also a bit warm and stuffy (the weather in Chicago was a bit humid), so it was harder to concentrate. Shahin really helped me understand shaabi. I liked how explained the gestures and the music.

I’d recommend taking a workshop with Mohamed Shahin in a heartbeat (and I plan on going to any of his I can attend). He is an excellent instructor and about business. What more can I say ? I’m definitely a fan now.

 

Improvisational Workshop

Last week I went to a workshop about improvisation dance. My first dalliance with improv was in NZ, when we had 5 minutes of “play time”, where the teacher would put on music for the last 5 minutes of class to let us jam. It was so difficult. My mind would freeze, and I would default to doing almost nothing. However, despite how terrifying this is, improv is so important. You can forget choreography, the song you want to play doesn’t play, or if you’re dancing to live music, anything can happen.

The improv workshop that Sonya ran at Arabesque helped make things better. I still obviously have work to do with improv to get my game up, but it’s was quite helpful. Firstly, I must say I love these workshops, because they’re intimate groups of about 10-15 people. Sonya has us introduce ourselves and tell the group why we’re interested in the workshop. Since I see some of these people weekly, it’s nice to know their names.

After learning about our hopes with the workshops and other issues with improv, Sonya went over a lot of information. She created workshops for us to fill out in our spare time. They were about writing down moves we know, favorite moves, building combos, etc. Very useful stuff so that you’re not creating a dance out of nothing. This weekend or over the holiday, I plan on working on this. I think it’s going to help me remember and feel like I know something. For me, the hardest things about dance are remembering I know moves and combos; I usually default to a down figure eight or maya or make pretty shapes with my arms.

Sonya also went over popular rhythms in Middle Eastern music and explained how important it is to count or know the “1″ in rhythms, so you know where you are in the music. Understanding and knowing the rhythms is important, because you know what it’s going to sound like. She also discussed moves that she liked to do with different instruments that are found in Middle Eastern music.

She ended the workshop with having us play with different music she selected and then discuss the issues that we found when we tried improv. That was surprisingly hard but got progressively easier. The key seemed to be some kind of familiarity. That little bit of practice helped get my mind working on improv and wanting to do it more.

I think this workshop was a great tool to help me grow as an improv dancer. Although I walked out of there having learned something, I still need to practice. One of the greatest points Sonya drives home is the idea of practice. I know I tend to see people and think they’re just born with some special talent and don’t practice. It seems like everyone believes strongly that the only way to truly develop yourself is through practice. I definitely will start including improv as part of my practice from now on.