|
I have always danced. It is part of who I am.
When I was four I began taking ballet lessons. All through my childhood I had lessons in ballet and jazz. At university I took ballet, modern dance, jazz and dance for musical theatre. However, practicality won out and my degree is in Information Systems Management.
In 1996 I began taking bellydance classes with Alcina through the Sunnyvale, California Parks and Recreation Department. The moment I heard the music I knew this was the dance form I’d been looking for all my adult life. Thanks to years of class work and private lessons I achieved an excellent foundation in the isolated technique of American-style bellydance, and began working as a dancer at Bay Area restaurants, in theatrical productions, with a World Music band and at private parties, weddings and corporate functions. I was a founding member of Bennu, a Sunnyvale-based troupe. I began to teach in 1999, passing along what I’d learned from Alcina and the many American, Canadian and European teachers from whom I had taken workshops and seminars. My style was eclectic, incorporating elements of the many different types of bellydance I had studied: American “cabaret”, tribal, Turkish, Roma (or “Gypsy”), Persian dance (often incorrectly labeled a bellydance) and all the various hybrids or “fusions” that America and Europe had created out of the original dance, Egyptian Raqs Sharki.
As I continued to grow and explore the dance I found myself drawn more and more to Egyptian music, with its complex rhythms and melodic structures. For Christmas 2000, my wonderful husband gave me Hossam Ramzy’s “Stars of Egypt” video series. Wow! What a revelation! I saw for the first time Samia Gamal, Taheyia Carioca, Na’eema Akef and the others who danced in Egyptian movies of the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s. Those videos started the process of turning me into an Egyptian-style dancer.
In January 2002 I attended (with my fabulous Mother, Didi) Morocco’s week-long seminar in New York. I learned an amazing amount during the workshop, and acquired Morocco’s wonderful videos which serve me well as a continual reference document. I encourage anyone who can make the trip to participate in one of Morocco’s workshops, as they are an incredible learning experience.
In June 2004 I attended Shareen el Safy’s amazing week-long seminar. Again I experienced a paradigm shift; Shareen’s style and understanding of the dance were so Egyptian in feeling. Shareen’s videos are also part of my reference collection. Shareen is a wonderful instructor and I highly recommend her workshops to serious dancers.
In October 2005, I took a short, two day seminar with Sausan, who had traveled to Seattle to present her groundbreaking theories of Egyptian dance, including the methodology for dancing with the whole body and musical interpretation. I found that with Sausan’s method I could understand how to move in an authentically Egyptian way. So in January, 2006, I took Sausan’s week-long seminar and found it to be an excellent method for understanding and transmitting the concepts that make Egyptian dance unique. If you can study with Sausan, by all means do so, either in her weekly classes (if you live in the Bay Area), or in a weeklong seminar. It will fundamentally change the way you see and perform the dance.
Sausan is producing a line of videos encompassing as many of the dancers of the “Golden Age” of Egyptian Bellydance as she can dredge up footage for...an incredible treasure trove of technical and cultural information.
I now specialize in the dances of Egypt: classical Oriental (raqs sharki) and “real people” dance (raqs baladi ). While I can admire and enjoy the many different styles of bellydance performed by Americans, what I love most is Egyptian dancing to Egyptian music -- and this is what I would like to see preserved and passed on.
|
