Here we are in 2010!

 What will be our Focus, Passion and Experience in this New Year?

What is ‘trending’ in the Global Orbit of Belly Dance…Oriental Dance Styles and costuming… as well as ‘Alternative Dance Styles’?

Where are the Creative ‘Hot Spots’ ?

What countries are experiencing a Belly Dance ‘Explosion’???

Why do we DANCE and are we truly Dancing with Joy?

If we are not experiencing ‘True Joy’ in our dance…What is ‘Blocking’ it?

How do we ‘Release The Genie’  ???

What kind of ‘Learning’ experiences are we looking for? When we go to a workshop or a class, what do we want to learn and experience?

What inspires us and How do we stay inspired?

Is Belly Dance the ultimate ‘Feminine Movement Mediation’????

Oriental Dance East and Belly Dance West…is there a difference..Really?

Dancing From the Heart…A Radical Personal Transformation!

 These are just a few of the topics I am inspired to ‘Blog’ about here with you in the coming year!

What are some topics you would like to see covered ?

Please join in and leave your feedback…

Together, we can enrich our Personal and Collective Joy in the Feminine Art of Belly Dance!

We all want to hear from YOU!

Here is a ‘Cup of Inspiration’ for today!

Today, we embrace the current ’ Shinning Star of Egypt’ Randa Kamel! In her Modern Egyptian style, Randa is a Powerful Expression of Arabic music in motion! Her love, passion, innovation and dedication to her dance is ‘front row center’ in this performance!  Randa shines in this show from ”Spectacle Tanyah’, France~Paris! 

 Enjoy!!!! Read the rest of this entry »

Ahlan Wa Sahlan …Welcome to Juwariah…a Master Story Teller, and a woman of many talents, living a life of adventure.

The strait of Gibraltar is the narrow passage between Morocco and Spain.

An air cushion hydrofoil ferry was all I needed to make, more years ago than I care to count, the connection between Morocco and Spain—and more tellingly, between Oriental Dance and Spanish Flamenco.   The connection is more tenable than the ticket one buys to make the crossing. Still, seeing is believing.

The day after we arrived in Cadiz was a bank holiday. The same people who had sold us a postcard from a kiosk, a T shirt from a boutique, or who had served us a dish of Ceviche with bread at a street table did the unexpected: they walked out in the middle of the street and started dancing.

Flamenco in the streets.  Everyone was a bit more talented than I had expected (ever in my wildest dreams)  Sweet, hard working matrons of the day before were snapping their fingers, clacking their  castanets, and pounding around the pavement in high heels with  equally invigorated spouses—or whichever male neighbor decided to spring forward to partner them. Not that they couldn’t dance—and very well, thank you—alone. Here is a taste of Spanish Street Dancing.

I thought, “How very Spanish!”   I also thought here was living proof of Moorish Spain’s heritage—in addition to all those ancient Muslim castles so amazing the French refer to them in the expression “Don’t go building castles in Spain!” (In English, we say, “Don’t go building castles in the air!”) Read the rest of this entry »

First We Imitate Then We Create!

It is a natural progression of learning an art form, it seems, to imitate our teachers. In dance, through the process of imitating, we develop the movement skills, the rhythmic expression and nuance that we can internalize. By repetitively watching and following our teacher we gain the imprinted skills that allow us to experience our bodies in dance.

Once we develop a more extensive movement vocabulary we gain confidence in our abilities and we experience the desire to expand.

Hopefully, we have a teacher that points us to the resources, such as videos, DVD’s and YouTube, that will expose us to other dancers that will inspire and instruct us in our ‘learning journey’. The more we experience, through observation of the  ‘style’ of each dancer, the more inspired we become to express our own unique style.

I thought it might be interesting to watch a current ‘Star’ in Egypt, Randa Kamel. Although she has flavors of Egyptian Super Star Lucy..She is very innovative and definitely has her own unique style of Oriental Dance!
Read the rest of this entry »

Michael Jackson (1958-2009)

Thank You for your Beauty!
Namaste… Michael !

Whatever has been said or will be said about Michael Jackson,one thing is for certain, he had a powerful gift and he gave it! He was a Bright Star amongst a ‘world of planets’!
What is the difference between a Planet and a Star?

“Stars are huge balls of hot gas that emit their own light . Stars burn hydrogen in their cores and have nuclear fusion going on inside. A planet does not have nuclear fusion. A planet is a world like the Earth. Unlike stars, planets get their light from the Sun.”

Stars emit their own light…Planets only reflect light!

Michael Jackson gave his light through every possible aspect of Music and Dance! From a Dancer’s perspective his movement was truly ‘Stellar’ ….the visual he created with his ‘moonwalk’ and all of his dancing, expanded our perception of the human body, movement and gravity!
Michael was truly a ‘Cosmic Dancer’!

Here is a montage of Michael’s Best Dance Moves! (if your time is limited..don’t miss ’3:34′ time on the vid…Wow!) Read the rest of this entry »

Oriental Dance, from the Middle East, is expressed in ‘Regional’ Styles as well as the individual ‘style’ of the dancer. There is Ice Cream and there are Many Flavors.

I Love the Lebanese Flavor….

When I think of the essence of Lebanon, I think of BEAUTY!

The country is beautiful. The cliffs of the coast and offshore rocks stand firm with the warm shimmering Mediterranean Sea gently splashing and foaming on shore … Downtown Beirut always glowing pink with the light playing on the rose-colored stones of the revitalized old buildings… The crisp air mountains with rushing pure rivers and falls…. the rich warm agricultural fields of the Bekka Valley…the heady fragrances of Roses, Gardenia, Jasmine and Fil…waft about in country gardens and on city verandas.

All of these flavors and more are the Lebanese style.

The people are of extraordinary beauty …many with black hair,blue or green eyes. ..yet, no matter the color , one always sees beautiful powerful eyes!

The Lebanese Love to Play Music… Dance, Sing, and Dine on delicious dishes that look like works of art .

The Art of Living is beautifully expressed in the Lebanese style of life. It is from this milieu that the Oriental Dancer of Lebanon graces us with her dance.

Lebanese Belly Dance is first of all, glamorous…very feminine costumes..rich, ornate, elegant bead-work with soft flowing fabrics and almost always accessorized with high heels. The Dancer’s make-up, as is also true with Lebanese women in general, is Artistic, Exotic and Flawless.

 Lebanese Oriental Dancing style is spirited and coquette.. athletic yet soft..strong yet feminine…it is playful, sassy and demure all at once!

So…since  ’a picture is worth a thousand words’….here is the late Great Lebanese Superstar Nadia Gamal in an Egyptian movie..circa 1960′s.  Read the rest of this entry »

…Why Dancing Keeps us Sane!

If there is one aspect of Belly Dancing that everyone, who has experienced this dance agrees upon, it is it’s ‘Theraputic Value’.

In my personal experience of teaching many women in and from different cultures, the responses are the same. Although expressed in various ways, the acknowledgement of the joyful, liberating ,physically freeing, meditative and self-acceptance qualities of Oriental Dance are unanimous.  It is this fundamental core that ‘keeps us coming back for more!’

We can explore this subject of Belly Dance as Therapy intellectually while knowing that the actual experience is the ‘Holy Grail’. Nonetheless, we are creatures of intellect and it is fun to dissect, analyze, validate and confirm ‘why’ we do the things we do.

There is certainly a long list of the benefits of Belly Dance as Mind, Body, Heart,Spirit integration to be found in many sources.

My Heart Has Wings!

But ,today I ran across an interesting source from the Dance Therapy domain. Read the rest of this entry »