Now you see them, Now you don't

So "they" (mysterious powers that be) withdrew the video clips of bellydance performance I thought were wonderful and posted here. I get some mumbo jumbo reason as to why they are no longer available. So I searched again. And found these two clips, which I post here until "they" withdraw again for some other or maybe same mumbo jumbo reasons. Some bits in the videos cover the performances I thought were great. Of course, there are plenty I would have loved to share but are not in these clips. But there you are.

Fusion bellydance when it is good :)

Oops! The video clips have been withdrawn (August 4, 2011). I will repost if they show up again.

There were some happy and memorable moments during the Singapore Street Festival.

For fans of belly dance fusion, here are some of the really lovely performances:

1. Our very own Darren and Maia:


2. Another home team - Joey and the Jewelz:


3. The very impressive mother-and-daughters dance troupe from Vietnam


4. Bellydance-Indian fusion done right :)

The morning after

and I am still reeling from the upset win from last night's bellydance competition. (Click here for details.)

We just knew who the winners were. Too bad the judges didn't. And their decision sticks. Even when it sucks.

I retract my statement about Asia Global Bellydance being a respected competition. I think the quality of the judges is only marginally better than the lot on a recent local TV dance competition.

THE Bellydance Show of the Year

This is one of the most exciting weekends in the year!

I am looking at 3 nights of bellydance performance starting tonight.

The line-up of Singapore competitors this time is simply awesome!

It is good to see some of our strongest performers back in a competition that is suitably respected for this dance form.

Bellydance Night@Shiraz

I will remember this night for a long time to come. The reasons were many:

The place is Shiraz. They do decent, even good, middle-eastern food. The service staff are always willing to accommodate special requests.

My favourite people - bellydancers - perform every night of the week. I love that they do multiple sets throughout the night. I detest places where the dancer does a single set of 3-songs and immediately leaves for another gig elsewhere; there's no satisfaction from eating or entertainment, just interruptus of the most annoying sort.

The evening provided the rare opportunity to catch up with friends who I otherwise do not get to see.

This time, the limelight shone on Fatema and Katerina Shereen. Both performers saved the very best - the forkloric danceforms - for their last sets with Fatema ending with saidi and Shereen finishing with khaleegi.
I stayed to the very end. The reasons were many.

Katerina Shereen @ Shiraz

There are several exciting bellydance events in the second half of the year.

Starting with this at Shiraz this entire week.

And who is Katerina Shereen?

I am so there there already :)

A night@Shiraz with Angelina

They are new bellydance students looking for a chance to try out their newly acquired bellydance skills.

Because I really like these girls. Because I want them to stay interested and enthusiastic with the dance. Because I believe to grow in the love and learning of dance, it has to be experienced outside the confines of the dance studio.

I wanted to make it a girls' night of dinner and bellydance. I need food, drinks and a professional bellydancer.

The perfect restaurant is Shiraz - the women loved their dinner, desserts and drinks.

The perfect bellydance professional to show and lead them is Angelina Tay.
Thank you again, Angelina, for taking care of the girls and giving them so much of your time. Bringing hip scarves for all of them to get them into the mood was a particularly thoughtful gesture.

Everything went very well. The girls came away inspired and in awe of bellydance and the bellydancer :)

I know we will be back again very soon. And the group will be even bigger.

Weave the Ruby Mandala

I started bellydance lessons with Keti Sharif. I have moved on to other good and great teachers to whom I am grateful for their patience and generosity in imparting their skills and expertise.

I attended Keti's Ruby Mandala workshop - a
beautiful 2-hr session of smooth downtempo veil work of flowing pattern formation.

And as before, I find myself amazed at how this dancer-teacher manages to teach, inspire and challenge students at any level. I feel included, involved, and ultimately, I feel I am really dancing.

That is the strength of Keti Sharif the bellydance teacher. She manages the tricky balance of teaching while tapping into the student's level of individual ability so that at the end of the workshop, the student comes away with ownership of the dance.

I know I still love bellydance, I still dance today, I still think bellydance is relevant in the word of dance, because of having her as my first teacher.

Tito !!

For Tito fans among you:

Night of Bellydancers

The night is for the bellydancers.

They are students and teachers from Claribel's Raks Sharki Studio.

They are seasoned performers, on-going students and newbies; they danced their best for their fellow dancers, friends and family.

I have said it before, and I say it again - there is something honest and sincere about the dancers who perform on this platform.

And there is a lot to be said about the principal/owner of the dance studio who continues to provide this opportunity for the dancers and their fans.

The Belly Dance Hip Scarf

There are many reasons women are attracted to bellydance: the sensuous body movements, the intoxicating music, the middle-eastern environment.

I think it's a lot more basic than that. I think we just love the bellydance costume and all the accessories :)

It all starts with the hip scarf. It is the single item that separates the belly dancer from all other dancers no matter what exercise gear she wears to practice.

So when I noticed the only woman in practice class without a hip scarf, I lent her mine. And I watched with amazement how she kept looking herself in the mirror as she went through the paces, loving how the coins on the hip scarf went dingly-dangly jingly-jangly as she moved.

I don't know why she hasn't gotten herself a hip scarf by now. Maybe it's the money. Maybe she feels she's too old to be wearing something so showy. Whatever.

At the end of practice, I told her to please keep the scarf. She protested. Then she offered to buy it off me.

No, I insisted. I told her I wanted her to have it. That it would make me very happy to see her keep it and enjoy dance with it.

She finally accepted the offer. With the slightest of a shy smile, she said a soft "Thank you". Then she caressed the hip scarf one more time before carefully folding it and tucking it into her bag.

I have to admit I feel darn good seeing how much she loved the hip scarf. I hope she keeps dancing for a long, long time...

A hafla

There are dance parties.

And then there are haflas where belly dancers come together to celebrate music and dance middle-eastern style, complete with lots of food, drinks and merriment.

It mattered not that this was a community of dancers I was meeting for the first time. The music was infectious, the dancers were riveting and soon I was one with them.

Really, there are dance parties, and then there are haflas.

Asia Global Bellydance 2010

I have to give it to the contestants. They have the grit and the determination, as well as EQ and the skills to pull it off.

The competition was held in a public venue. Under less than flattering lighting. The contestants focused on dancing to the panel of judges, dance friends and supporters, but they also have to dance to a rudely gawping audience who happened to stumble upon the event on their afternoon stroll through the shopping malls.

traditional/fusion

The contestants are required to showcase one traditional and one fusion number. The traditional category is straightforward so it is comfortable segment for everyone - performers, learned audience and judges.

The fusion segment is another story. I don't think it has ever been adequately described or defined what this is. Maybe the very concept of fusion defies description and definition.

The contestants who came up with a modern take on bellydance by working in elements of jazz and salsa managed to combine everything beautifully into a coherent work of sass and eye-candy. Others played it safe by going "tribal", specifically American-Tribal Style.

Then there were the rest. I assert that mixing genres without a strong grasp of the cultural, historical or social roots of the dance(s) can only produce a messy end-product that is confused rather than fused. I just wish that the non-existent dance form loosely called fusion be dropped altogether. (I really really dislike fusion.)

Lastly, I wish the emcees would stop pounding the contestants with the same inane questions :
- How long have you been learning bellydance?
-Why did you take up bellydance?
- What is the difference betweeen traditional and fusion bellydance?

And the contestants handled every one of the silly questions with grace and charm.

Like I said, I have admiration for these contestants.

A weekend of Bellydance in June

The weekend of June 19th and 20th is taken up with bellydance activities.

On Saturday June 19th, there will be workshops by Sujee Choi (picture on left),of South Korea. Important details here.

The Asia Global Bellydance Competition (part of SSF10) takes place on Sunday 20th June afternoon. Details here.

Raqs and Goth

I love the point when raqs sharqi meets goth (at about 3.20 on left counter).

http://www.imdb.com/video/wab/vi3486319129/

(p.s. may take some time to load, but it's worth the wait.)

A beautiful dance

I remember again how beautiful the middle eastern dance is:


as I listened to the woman wax lyrical about the ballroom dances, which she now learns with a professional partner.

And I bit my tongue instead of giving in to the temptation of proffering my unsolicited opinion.

I admire my will power. LOL

Just like old times

She's one of the bellydance girls. Then as must happen, she got married and moved away. She's now back for a short visit and was just twitching for a girls' night in, just like old times.

I had the home to myself for the evening. A few quick phone calls and a dinner-party-hafla was good to go.

Women friendship never fails to amaze me. The company is always easy and amicable, the conversation is always frank and the sentiment is always supportive. Everyone has stories to share, and every story is poignant - things that happened, things about to happen.

And when filling in on each others' lives was fully explored and reached its natural denouement - at least for the time being - the dinner party dissolved into a bellydance hafla.
Just like old times.

Cairo! Cairo! 2010

Yes! she is finally coming to Singapore! and Yes! I am going!

It will also be a reunion of sorts with the belly dance friends I have not seen in a very long time.
Tickets for Cairo! Cairo! 2010 (March 2) are available at SISTIC.

Workshops by Dina, Doaa Sallam and Ibrahim El Suezi run 3 to 5 March. Please contact Claribel for details.

Belly dance bazaar by Mahmoud Abdel Ghaffar, owner of the biggest bellydance costume and accessory shop at Khan El Khalili will be set up at Claribel's studio February 27 to March 1, and at Victoria Theatre March 2 to 5.

Dancers and Dance on Us

The place is Azzucar. The school is Dance on Us.

The performers are students and instructors. Some are professional dancers. Most are still finding their place in the world of dance.

But for this one night, every dancer came together as equals to strut their stuff in front of their peers, friends and family.

I love dance school recitals. There is always the nervousness and excitement among the dancers. And after they finished their turn, there is the applause and approval from the crowd.

Above all, there is honesty and pride in their delivery that never fails to touch a special place in my soul.

An evening at Shiraz

It has been a while since I was at Shiraz.

The review about the food continues to be mixed. Diners tend to be hung up on whether the restaurant serves authentic Persian fare rather than Middle-Eastern. Does it truly matter? My input is that the food is definitely good, whether one thinks it's Persian or Middle-Eastern.

The review about the bellydance performance continues to be generally unkind. Similarly, comments tend to focus on whether the performers dance Arabic or Persian. Again, does it truly matter? The performers are entertainers, and they do the best they can with a less than ideal stage.
The bellydance show changes every few months.

The current dancers are Fatema (a winner of several bellydance competitions) and Angelina (a favourite with local media and events).

Shiraz is located at:
Blk3A, #01-06 Clarke Quay
Tel: 6334 2282