Workshop Review: Sahra Saeeda and Roxxanne

I admit that I have gotten out of the habit of doing workshop reviews. Why? Because every one I go to is awesome, and I feel like my readers will be bored hearing about another awesome thing I went to. But I realize even if the reviews are all "Loved All The Things", telling you what those things are might help you decide if you can't attend every workshop ever (and who can).

I have studied with both instructors twice now. I would study with either of them 100 thousand times, in fact I would move in with them and cook their meals in exchange for the knowledge (hint, hint).

If you pass on a chance to study with Sahra please send me your address so I can come to your house and SHAKE YOU! Talk about knowledge. If you want to know about Egyptian dance and particularly if you want historical and cultural insight, then this is the lady you need to see. Sahra applies here degrees and experience in cultural anthropology (that may not be her exact area of study but close) to really delve into the history of bellydance in Egypt. She takes you through all the famous dancers of Egypt from Reda to Dina, supplying you with not just their movements and styling but their motivation for choosing those movements. As in instructor, I find it invaluable to tell me students about Samia Gamal, show them how she danced and have the background to tell them where she came from and why she danced this way.
Sahra also shares with her students the stories and perspective that only someone who spent the time training and working in Egypt as she has can. My long term goal is to attend her entire Journey Through Egypt series. Location and timing wise, it has not her been in the cards for me. If I haven't found a way to attend in the next year then I will plan on going to one of her regularly scheduled classes in California. That will be the farthest I have ever traveled for a workshop.

I first met Roxxanne at last year's Camperet. She is just a really fun person. At Camparet, she taught classes on Debke and Khaleegi. I just want to give a shout out that those classes were awesome. I also took a private lesson with her on Lebanese style which was very insightful.
This past week-end her workshop focused on dancing for an Arab audience and putting together a traditional show/set. If you don't know about Roxxanne, her father was Lebanese and she grew up in his night club in California (where Sahra was a regular performer). The first part of her workshop was lecture and Q&A. She gave us all valuable tips including dos and no-nos. She was very open, honest and not afraid to hurt someone's feelings in they did not like what she said (luckily she didn't at this class). I even resigned myself to be more open to performing in shoes. We went through what sort of questions to ask of the people hiring you, how to work with a band/drummer, and a whole list of better safe than sorry plan ahead ideas.
In the second half we listened and dance to some traditional opening piece songs and talked about how to choose music that is right for you and how to set the tome of your show.
The workshop went well over time and no one cared. We have a 4.5 hour drive home and still would have stayed several more hours to pick Roxxanne's brain.

Both these women are amazing dancers, and amazing educators. If like me you are a nerd first and dancer second then I can't recommend enough that you get yourself to one of their workshop.

And finally - a shout out to Kira's Oasis. Located in Dayton, Ohio, Kira's Oasis is the nicest studio I have ever been in. Every time we took a break I fantasized about one dance owning my own studio. It is clean, gorgeous and just really perfect in every way. The location is also really nice. It is in a suburb near a large mall with plenty of places to stay and eat. I also think it is an easy part of town to get around and very close to the interstate. I think despite the long drive, I will keep an eye on her schedule and try to attend some more events up there.

Roxxanne, 'Azraa and Sahra

Revisiting: "Serious Bellydance with Tamalyn Dallal"

It seems like every day there is a new belly dancing DVD released, and like many of you, I collect as many of them as I can. But in the rush to collect all of the "new" stuff, we sometimes forget the oldies but goodies still sitting on our DVD shelf. I'm super excited to share with you reviews of some of my favorite "forgotten" DVDs.

So let's take another look at an older DVD that might already be in your library:
"Serious Bellydance with Tamalyn Dallal" from 2000.

TARGET AUDIENCE
This DVD is targeted to intermediate to advanced dancers, and I'd say that's about right. Although Tamalyn does give a short breakdown on some movements, it's assumed that you are familiar with the basic movement vocabulary and basic cymbal playing. The content of the DVD is drills, combinations drilling abdominal work, and later those combinations with cymbals added, so it's good for dancers who want to polish their movement technique and really work on generating movements from the abdominals. Also, if you're ready to move beyond walking with the "triple/gallop/longa" with your cymbals, you'll find the more exciting cymbal patterns added to the combinations to be a unique challenge.

HOW IT'S SET UP
With a camera at the front of the room, it's as if the cameraman was filming Tamalyn leading an actual class in her studio. No mirrors. Filming is always from the front of the room, so you have to mirror what Tamalyn does. For most of the DVD, she has a group of her students taking the class with you. For the cymbal section, it's just her.

TECHNICAL STUFF
The DVD is chaptered so you can skip directly to the combinations or the cymbals if you like. If there were individual sub-chapters, they didn't work on my computer.

It's produced on a DVD-R (with the purple back) and in my experience these are known for skipping and pixelating in my DVD player, so the first thing I did was make a back-up copy to practice from. Alternately I would recommend you rip it to your computer as a Quicktime video or something you can play on your computer or iPod. I've lost way too many DVDs over the years to faulty media, and this is one I did not want to lose!

QUALITY OF CAMERAWORK/SOUND
Let me begin by saying the camerawork and sound is less that stellar. It looks as if someone was just walking back and forth with a hand-held camera, and the sound is picked up through the camera's microphone. While this is really annoying when you're just sitting down and watching the DVD, if you're up practicing with it you don't notice. This was filmed back in the era before there were a lot of professionally produced DVD, and when "homemade" wasn't such a bad thing if you received good content.

The music used is a live musician playing oud (Doublecheck this) and what sounds like a generic rhythm CD. It's okay music, and she probably did this to avoid licensing fees, but I have to admit I actually prefer to take the drills and combinations and practice them to my favorite Hakim or Saad music. So if you can't stand the music, take notes and just practice what she teaches to other music.

CONTENT
After a gentle warmup, she moves into a short series of arm path drills which I think could be a separate practice session all on its own. As she demonstrates the movements, she gives imagery and technique tips.

A brief breakdown of the belly roll follows, which begins a series of basic movement drills layered with or combined with a belly roll. This was the hardest part of the dvd for me (since I'm not much of a belly roller.) Tamalyn's belly rolls are gentle and elegant and don't have the appearance of "alien preparing to burst out of stomach" as I've seen on some dancers. Even though I consider myself basically an Egyptian-style dancer, I wouldn't hesitate to work with these drills on a regular basis, to add that skill to my repertoire. It's so pretty!

The drills go from upper body movements to undulations into internal hip work, all with the extra addition of a belly roll. She focuses on very internal movements, exploring the difference between simply doing the movement and then doing the movement with a more internal focus.

(I would say the drills in this section are comparable to, but a little harder than, those in Ava Fleming's "Sizzlin' Hips" DVD.)

Next comes a series of 4 (and a shorter 5th) short combinations -- none too difficult, so you really have a chance to work on technique here. Again the focus is on keeping the movements internal, and going over and over the material to plant it solidly in your muscle memory. She teaches a combination, practices it for a while, and then moves on the next combination.

Then all the combinations are strung together in a longer series, and you practice that for a while. The music is the generic beledi drum beat, so students will probably want to take these combinations and practice them to music of their choice.

Finally, there is an extended section on playing cymbals. Although this begins with a short basic tutorial on playing 3s/longa/gallop/triples, (whatever you call them) it quickly moves beyond that and into variations of common patterns to malfouf and beledi. Lastly, cymbals are added to the combinations previously taught, and you drill those for a while before moving into a gentle stretch and cooldown.

Bonus material is short clips from performances and some adorable Greyhounds dressed in their Sunday best. (A portion of the proceeds of this DVD goes to Greyhound rescue efforts.) There is NOT a full-length performance by Tamalyn on this DVD, which is disappointing, but the focus is supposed to be on the class itself.

TL;DR
Get over the fact that it's a homemade production, and you have a great series of drills that really work on generating movements from the abdominals, as well as actually dancing and playing with cymbals, beyond the step-hip with triples. I'm especially fond of the drills which focus on abdominal rolls with other abdominal and torso movements. This is a great DVD for intermediates to work up to, and for advanced dancers to use as a practice companion, or as a substitute for a weekly class. It's all drills and drilling combos, so there isn't really any wasted time in about 2 hours of practicing.

Total running time: 116 minutes
Price: $30

Available from major belly dance retailers and directly from Tamalyn Dallal:
http://www.tamalyndallal.net/merchandise.html

Things I like

I love the PA that I got for Christmas. I had a couple of outdoor events where I used a small cd player or had to burn a disc because the sound set-up wouldn't take an iPod. This prompted me to ask for a PA for Christmas. I asked my husband because he is well known for doing his research before making and purchases.

He picked out the Pyle-Pro PWMA930I 600-Watt VHF Wireless Portable PA System/Echo with iPod Dock from amazon.com 


This thing rocks. Upon opening it and testing it, I actually could not turn it up all the way because it was too loud for my ears.
It has an iPod dock on top, with controls to play, pause and advance the iPod. It is a little tricky to get the iPod into the dock because there is a spring loaded cover which I assume it to keep the area clean. With a smaller iPod (mine is a last generation nano, so current gen will be way to small), you will need to use the input cable into one of the ports. I also use this cable with a discman (yes, they still make them) to play cds. It also has a port for a guitar and 2 microphones. It comes with a wireless mic which I have used and think is awesome.
The best part, is that it has a chargeable battery so you can take it to outdoor events where there is not outlet and run it off the battery.
At my last show, my husband did the sound using our iPad connected to this. While it was a smaller show, we had plenty of volume for both the music and introduction. I give it 5 stars.

Best Beauty Products of All Time (muwahahaha)

I am so glad that Princess Farhana posted her favorite beauty products. I admit that I get into a little niche and never come out when it comes to make-up. It did give me an idea. What if all my bloggy-blog friend did post on their favorite products and linked them in the comments. Then let's say in two weeks (January 22nd) I will post a poll that pits mascara against mascara and rouge against rouge and we can see who the Best Beauty Products of All Time (queue lightning) are!

Shellac Nail Lacquer 
I am lucky if I can get home from the salon with my nail color on. If I dance on Saturday, my nails get done on Friday and I DON'T TOUCH ANYTHING. Enter Shellac. Cured by a UV light, this polish will last for two weeks. I am not kidding, it only looks bad then because my nails have grown out leaving little have moons of naked nails at the base.

Any and all primers
I don't care which one. They all work. L'Oreal and Bare Minerals are my favorite ends of the spectrum.

Bare Minerals
My face breaks out if I concentrate hard enough so this is my everyday make-up of choice.

Coastal Scents
Eye shadow doesn't get better than this. The high pigment colors pop and last all day or through the show which is my goal. I use them for the stage and every day.

Smashbox Gel Eyeliner
I love cream/gel eyeliners and this one has to be favorite. I have been meaning to try the awesome colored gel eyeliners from Coastal Scents.

Make-up forever Lipstick - the Rouge series
I actually don't like that it is perfumed and reminds me of my moms old maybeline (the way it tastes) but the color is incredible and it lasts without drying my lips out and looks shiny without being so sticky my hair get stuck in it.

So go ahead, do a make-up post and link to it here. The make-up poll goes up in two weeks.

Momo Kadous Seminar and Show

I admit that I took too long to post this but I was tired.... and then it was my birthday, and then I went to Mexico for a week, and then I was tired again. I then I got it done but needed to upload the pictures... you know how the story goes.

Momo Kadous was sponsored by Turquoise International with Shahira and Sabylla being the local hostesses. We had a hafla on Friday night at The Mirage. I was very happy that Ali (from Turquoise) and Momo were able to attend. We had some great dancers from all over Tennessee and the surrounding area.

Me, Laura and Jessica with Momo

If you have never taken a workshop with Momo, I have to warn you...his English is not very good. He also tends to go back and forth from English to French to German. I attended a workshop with his last year and this year I was prepared and that made it easier for me to understand. Several fellow attendees said by the second day they were doing much better.

Both choreography's he taught were incredible. I dream at night that art like that will ever come from my mind. I was also flattered that he thought enough of us on the first day to give use a second, long, complicated orientale piece.

He allowed us the film the class (just not him) which is great since our notes were all filled with things like "Opa, opa, hep, hep, step". You would think it would be hard with a language barrier to be funny but Momo is a laugh a minute. If the class doesn't look like they are getting it he will say "Do you understand?...Say no" or "say yes" if he is ready to move on. The jewel sound bite of this workshop was, "Is beautiful, yes? Then why you no dance it good".

If you ever have a chance to study with Momo, take it! I can't put into words the masterfullness (which is not even a word) of his choreography's. Even of you never danced them, the technique and ideas for creating your own choreography are endless.

The only possible complaint about the workshop is that the materials said that the last afternoon of the seminar would be folklore and instead Momo taught the same Oreintale choreography before and after lunch. I don't know when he changed his plan and surely hope no one was really disappointed. I hate it only because having danced one of his folk numbers, I know how great they are.

The show on Saturday was amazing as far as performance but attendance left something to be desired. The show competed with a UT Football which, around here, is like church.

Unfortunately, I spent most of the night in the dressing room and got to see very few numbers. My husband and friends were astounded by Raksanna, Linda of Nashville, and Mahsati Janan among others.

Both my troupes danced Momo choreography's that we learned on his 2008 circuit. Here is Shahira's Troupe Hyetti doing an oreintale piece

and BellaBelly with a Bedouin Folk number.

I think it is safe to say that this number stole the show!

Momo himself ended the night with a great performance.

Review: Coastal Scents Cosmetics

So thanks to Google Readers new "Send To" Feature rather than putting up a link and hoping my readers click and read, I can pull across the whole post. So read this! What a great make-up for performances. Also, read one or more of Manolo's Blogs. I got started with Manolo for the Bride and am now committed to Manolo for the Big Girl (where the following post is from).


Review Revue: Coastal Scents Cosmetics (ZOMG an actual positive review!): "

Until a few weeks ago, I’d never heard of Coastal Scents, a small cosmetics company based in Florida, and when I visited their site on a whim I wasn’t especially impressed. The site was a no-frills online store, the photographs weren’t professional beauty shots and the menus less than intuitive. But I was intrigued.

Coastal Scents, unlike traditional mascara slingers, caters to a combination of mad-scientists and professionals; make-up artists, resellers and people who want to make their own custom blends. They don’t just sell makeup, they sell makeup components, including pure pigment.

I am constantly on the hunt for intensely pigmented matte colors.

MAC is great and I heartily recommend them, but I have a hard time justifying dropping $15 for a shadow pot I might use once or twice a year. As far as drug store brands go, I’ve had good luck with the L’Oreal HiP line and Milani, which is marketed towards women with darker skin tones and generally contains more pigment, but they’re almost always too sparkly and their lasting power leaves a good deal to be desired. Plus I can’t use their cream-based products because of my eyelash extensions.

Coastal Scents sells their pigments by the half-teaspoon, teaspoon, ounce and pound. I ordered teaspoons of several oxides and micas (at a dollar each!) which is what they call “sample size”. Sample size it may be, but for the recreational user, a teaspoon of pigment is a LOT of makeup. They arrived packaged neatly in teensy zipper bags. Each bag was labeled with the color, approved uses –eyes, lips, face, nails etc.– and the ingredients.

I popped each pigment into its own five gram jar ($3.49 for 10) and started experimenting.

Using their excellent 13 piece brush set ($16.95 including roll) which is by far the best brush set for the money I’ve ever come across, I began monkeying around with applications. First I applied some pigment with a very wet brush and got a lovely, even wash of color. Then I added a drop of fixative (I think mine came from a N.Y.C. loose powder kit) for a full-on intense look. The color payoff was tremendous as good or better as anything I’ve used including the MAC pro colors. It blended like a dream and although there was a good deal of fallout on the dry applications, that’s to be expected with any highly pigmented powder, especially since I forgot to use a primer the first time.

Using a primer is always a good idea with powders, especially if you’ve got deep set or oily eyelids, because powders as a species tend to “travel”.

Primer gives the powder something to grip, making your application last longer and stay where you damn well put it. The nice folks a Make Up Forever sent me a sample of their HD Microperfecting primer in Neutral the other day which is what I’ve been using and I highly recommend it, but historically my trusty old Rimmel Fix and Perfect primer has never steered me wrong and would probably work almost as well.

My only complaint with the Coastal Scents pigments was they don’t offer a really screaming yellow, which I’ve needed for a particular look for ages. I finally caved and bought Make Up Forever’s Pure Pigment #2, which is good, but not the Holy Grail yellow I’d been searching for, especially not for $20, which was nearly as much as I paid for the entire Coastal Scents 42 Color Double Stack Matte Palette ($24.95).

I am way, WAY gun shy about inexpensive palettes. Too many years of cheap Christmas sets with chalky colors meant for little girls playing dress up have left me with a fear and loathing of the multicolor pack, so I can’t tell you why I ordered this.

Maybe it was because the colors were matte –once you’re past the glitter and gloss stage, mattes are a much cooler look than shimmers which tend to look cheap even if they’re not–or maybe I was hoping for that Holy Grail Yellow (close but not quote) but I wasn’t expecting much.

I’m glad I was wrong.

This is by far the best big palette I’ve seen for under $100. It’s a great combination of neutrals and brights, plus some killer blushes and bronzers. The browns are almost exact duplicates of MAC mushroom and bark, which are great browns I use for eyebrow powders (apply it with an angled brush) and the pressed colors have the same ease of blending and almost the same intesity as the wonderful pure pigments.

Next week I’ll have a review of their mineral foundations and veils, plus I’ll reveal The Greatest Cosmetic Brush Ever. Stay tuned!

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Book Review: Dancing, The Pleasure, Power, and Art of Movement

Dancing The Pleasure, Power, and Art of Movement by Gerald Jonas

I found this book at my local used book store. I make it a habit of quickly browsing the dance books and looking for anything that references Middle Eastern Dance.

This book is a really great primer on the evolution of dance. It starts with the Europeans discovery of dance in Polynesia, India and Greece. There are some very detailed sections on dance in Africa and Asia. A chapter called Lord of the Dance is an introduction to dance and religion including some of the very first dance stage shows depicting Salome (great photos). I especially liked the sections on dance and religion.

The largest section on Middle Eastern Dance is in the chapter on social dance. It is interesting to see how social dance differs from culture to culture. This chapter also details how MED was introduced to Europe and the Western World. In the chapter on modernizing dance, I loved the section on Ruth St. Denis. She is someone I would like to read more about.

Ruth St. Denis in 1904

In no way is this book just about ethnic dance, there are sections on modern dance and contemporaries such as Jerome Robbins and Twyla Tharp.

I am really glad I found this book. The pictures are incredible and it would make a good coffee table book just for photo flipping. I recommend this book to anyone with any interest in dance.

The very last photo in the whole book is Michael Jackson

from the Smooth Criminal video

Book Review: Ancient Egyptian Dances

Ancient Egyptian Dances by Irena Lexova

Because Amazon and other vendors list the publication date of the English translation (1999), many people don't realize this book was actually published in 1935. It is a true academic treatise on Ancient Egyptian Dance.
The book started out really dry but if you can get past the academic writing style there are some very interesting descriptions of how and why dancing was done. I particularly liked the explanation of how movement was performed. One of the first descriptions of leg movement describes the Saidii style of kicking up one leg into a 90 degree angle as the weight bearing foot bounces off the heel.
The illustrations are reproductions of actual ancient art. The most difficult thing about reading this book is that the illustrations are all appended at the end of the book and you spend a lot of time flipping back and forth.
This book, even though thin, is by no means a light read. I had to sit down with great intent to make it all the way through. I think any dancer interested in the ancient history of the dance should add this book to his/her bookshelf.