Dance 2: Baladi

    Again, this dance was inspired by a particular piece of music and a workshop.


The dance began last year. I attended a workshop at JOY  in October 2011 with Diana Tarkan. The workshop was titled 'Beloved Baladi' and aimed to explore the beauty of traditional baladi. During the workshop I was very moved and felt a deep connection to a piece of music she used from her own C.D for the workshop. The workshop explored different combinations of moves and how they could be used with varying speeds, positioning/angles, and levels to express certain emotions and feelings. After the workshop I bought her C.D determined that I would return to the song and choreograph a dance to it. At the time however my life was too hectic and find I couldn't find enough peace nor time for me to even dance. I can see now that not dancing is unhealthy and truely suffocating but at the time it was sacrifice I chose to make. Therefore, the dance and music were, not forgotten, but pushed to the back of my mind.


A few months later I had one of the worst experiences of my life. Although its was a time of suffering and pain, for me it was also a time of renewal and strengthening. Dance in particular, as well as my faith and friends brought me peace. I returned to the song baladi from the workshop determined to channel my emotions and feelings into the dance and creativity express them. So I drew from my life experiences at the time to choreography a dance that explored the literal progression of music and used it as a tool to reflect my personal emotional progression, from heart break to celebration of life.

The dance is therefore about loss, heart break, hurt and pain but also about hope, trust, faith, inner peace and thankfulness

It was a dance of healing, choreographed through my months of healing, that re-affirmed the value and importance of dance in my life.

 Picture, taken by Katherine Soutar-Caddick at Judee Tee's Oriental Prom Hafla in Shrewsbury on 30th July, of me performing 'Baladi'.

 

 

And here is the youtube link for my performance of the dance at Lindsey Soloman's hafla in Morda 20th October 2012

 

 

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPJ3IIRxoUE

 

 

 

  

 

 

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Feeling the sensual aspect of an emotion connects us to it and helps us express it and integrate it into our experience. When laughing, feel it in your belly. When sad, cry and feel the sorrow in your chest. When angered, connect with the volcano inside before it erupts. Not only does this help us feel other emotions, it also gives us back control over our actions that come from emotional responses."

~Emotions in Dance article issue #15

 

3 is a magic number

The process of trying to be more me in my dances has led me to create three choreographies over this year.

The first was medieval themed and explored the archetype 'maiden'.
The second was a baladi piece
The third (yet to be performed) explores what is called a 'swan's song'.


These three choreographies have challenged and rewarded me in different ways. I hope to share my thoughts and reflections on these three dances and through them my dance journey over the last year.




Dance 1: The Maiden

This dance was inspired by a workshop given by Pauline Qu on 31st March '12 (http://www.britishtribalstyle.com/). Organised by Azhara Dance (http://azhara.weebly.com/) the workshop involved an exploration of several peformance archetypes; Maiden, Temptress, Diva and Wise Woman. The workshop encouraged participants to 'let down [their] inhibitions and allow [their] inner persona to shine through'.

After exploring the four archetypes I found myself wanting to be the wise woman; she is the woman I aspire to; I was indimidated by the seductress; my body could be her but not my mind, and I was unsure about how to be a diva. I found the Maiden the most comfortable archetype.

At that point in time in my life my responses were not surprising to myself, the maiden was a comforting retreat and a safe persona to enact and the positivity of innocence was very appealing.

I felt that it would help my personal healing at that time to get in touch with this part of myself that I was drawn to. I hoped she would help me approach my dance and life with a new, fresh, positive and lighthearted outlook.



After the workshop, and when I had decided I wanted to choreography a dance based on the maiden, I returned to the workshop notes.

They said:

'MAIDEN - Air

Keywords: Innocence, lightness, flighty, airy, joy, shyness, coyness
Focus: Outward, upward, seeking, discovering, open hearted
Caze: Clear straight gaze, open smile, daydream
Motivation: The love of dance, the love of life, joyful expression of youth and the promise of the future
Body Centre: Upper Body, Lifting Arms, open body language'

This was my starting point for the dance. I began by dancing like a maiden to lots of different pieces of music and exploring the characteristics. This part did involve prancing around the garden singing to flowers and birds, which i could quite happily spend most of my time doing! (Snow white was my inspiration here ;-) One dance and song in particular stood out in my mind as a great example of 'maidenly' dancing; the scene from Severn Brides for Severn Brothers where the girls are dancing around the bedroom dreaming about getting married: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faQHDd1KEwg
(Anyone fancy re-eancting this song at a hafla with me?? hahaha!)



I also had an event and music in mind;

3 months later Mel Jones was hosting a Games of Thrones hafla. Although a pure fantasy theme, It seemed the perfect context in which I could a explore a 'medieval' themed dance. My academic study of medival history and learning belly dance are to great loves in my life and I have always been tempted to incorporate elements of medieval history into my dance.


   However I did have to take into consideration that it could not be authentic (having studied medieval history at University I tried not to be too serious about authenticty, I would have gone bonkers and had to write an essay justitifying my dance otherwise!)
    In the end the only near authentic part of my dance was the medieval music (based on a piece of music written in 15th century France but played with modern reproductions of medieval intrustments and played by modern musicians). In respect for medieval history I cannot claim that it was in any way a medieval dance rather a medieval inspired dance influenced more by fantasy than fact. 

      

    My outfit owes a big thank you to Rita Williamson (http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/ruabellydancer/) for amazingly putting into reality the dress I had in mind and creating the following outfit (picture to follow at later date) from descriptions and very badly drawn diagrams (Included below just for you to laugh at!)

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The end result was thus:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1DGh3ibpiiw&feature=plcp
The picture is not clear due to low lighting but I hope it is clear enough to see the dance :)



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      I really enjoyed the performance and dancing The Maiden helped combat some performance nerves as approaching my performance and dance itself with her pure joy of life, love and laughter and innocence was liberating and alot of fun.


Perhaps In the future I will try to explore the other archetypes in my dance, when those parts of me want to be expressed and explored :)

Be brave, pinch a bit of courage and be me 

I have been trying to motivate myself to begin my dancer’s blog for a few months now and have put it off due to not knowing how to start. I have always found in my studies that the title and the first line are always the hardest part of an essay, very much like a dance!

However having just returned from Lorna of Cairo’s workshops in Manchester crammed full of inspiration I feel that I MUST now start to my blog just to share some of Lorna’s wisdom.

Firstly I must say a thank you to her for giving me a much needed four hours of fun and being such an inspirational person. I feel blessed to be a part of the belly dancing community in that I am always surrounded by female role models that are courageous, strong, tremendously giving and follow their hearts.

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Lorna’s second workshop:  

Make it Masri – What is that makes someone’s dance style ‘Egyptian’?

Lorna answered this question with the following answer:

What makes Egyptian dance Egyptian –> YOU

 What a wake up call! A bit of scary one to be honest!  – no chance of hiding behind those hip drops now.

Lorna emphasised the importance of not just stringing a few moves together that we have seen someone else perform, nor should we attempt to perform our repetitive class drills.  Rather she encouraged us to reach deep down inside and connect with the music, presenting what we felt and appreciate the usefulness of utilising our own personality and intuition. Most importantly she asked us to allow ourselves to be FREE. The workshop reminded me that I need to be able to trust myself enough to let go of fear for a little while and be free to be me.

 I probably spend far too many hours on you tube drooling over Randa, Dina, camellia, thinking oh I wish I could be like then! Thank you Lorna for reminding me that I am not them, that I have something unique to contribute to belly dance and that’s me, my emotions, feelings and personal creative expression.

Lorna talked about how we uniquely express a song/piece of music and she beautifully illustrated it by comparing dance to ‘language’. We all learn the same words, the punctuation, the sounds, but how we piece it together, how we express and speak the words is unique to us.

We are so used to ourselves speaking that it can be easy to forget that our voice and the way we put words together and present them is unique.

Wouldn’t it be nice to also get used to dancing like ‘Rachel’ so that it becomes second nature just like talking?

It would certainly make improvising a lot easier, it I knew what to expect of myself, could establish where my strengths lie and what I wanted to get across and have the confidence just to give.   

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The workshop has re-enforced my ‘dance aim’ for this year: To explore dancing from my heart, not my head.

I have been taking a step back again to look at my own dancing and get to know it better; really search who I am, what I have to give and try to be more of myself in my dancing. It has been more of a challenge than I thought but also rewarding in that I have been able to share and channel my feelings creatively within a supportive and understanding community.

The next few blogs will look at several dances that I have been working on this year and share my progress on being Rachel!