Dance Yourself Happy!

The Return of the Warrior Woman

Speaking of passion, there isn't anyone who exudes it more than Berlin-based teacher, Raksan.  Readers of this blog will know how much I love her dancing.  When she dances she does so with every fibre of her being. It's magical.

A couple of weekends ago, she was back in the UK, teaching for Sabine Dawson in Salisbury. The first workshop was Gypsy Fantasy - Balkan Beats and Wild Women.  We were invited to 'explore our passion, sensuality and wildness'.  It was really enjoyable to learn some basic technique, listen to the music and just let go.

Sunday's workshop, aimed at Intermediate level and above, was completely different.  Billed as 'Contemporary Oriental Dance a la Raksan', it was quite challenging for anyone without a background in ballet or contemporary dance, but really rewarding nevertheless. We spent the first two and a half hours doing stretches in preparation for dancing, and it was great to feel that loosened up and flexible when we started putting together dance sequences.  

The workshop made me realise how unrealistic it is to expect to achieve that level of skill without putting in the work. And unfortunately, belly dance has always been judged as an 'easy' dance to learn.  It certainly isn't - especially if you want to achieve a professional level.  And watching Raksan dance certainly inspired me to work on my own dancing. 

Ahlan Wa Sahlan Pt 4 - The Power of Randa, Sufi Spinning and the Closing Gala

At the beginning of the week, we registered and booked the workshops we wanted to do.  It's fortunate that the dollar is so weak against the pound because it certainly didn't come cheap!   Three-hour 'Super master classes' with the likes of Randa, Dina and Soraya were $80, three-hour master classes were $60, and two-hour classes were $40.  Add in the cost of the opening and closing galas and registration, and it's one expensive holiday.

Now that more and more Egyptian teachers are coming to the UK, and there are tailor-made tours such as those organised by Farida Dance, it seems sensible to choose master classes or two-hour classes with the non-Egyptian teachers.  Firstly, there were fewer people so you actually got to learn something, and secondly, the subject matter was often more interesting. 

For example, I really loved the Tanoura workshop I took with Madrid-based teacher, Mohamed El Sayed. He seemed a gentle, joyful kind of person and it was wonderful to work with live music too; he brought along a singer, req, nay and darbuka players.  Mohamed obviously has a big following in Spain and South America as the majority of people in the class were Spanish speakers.  This was a big advantage as he didn't speak any English, and I found his translator's English  far less comprehensible than Mohamed's Spanish, which fortunately I more or less managed to follow.

After getting used to turning by changing direction and varying arm positions, we all got to spin as a group.  Sufis spin only to the left, and this takes some getting used to. Every few minutes there was a dull 'thud' as another person keeled over. 

After the break we got to spin in the big Tanoura and Sufi skirts. They really are magnificent. The Tanoura ones are made for performance, much more colourful and weighted with a thick band of rubber, while the Sufi ones are hemmed with very thick rope. Apparently there is only one person in Egypt who makes them. (I was momentarily tempted to buy one for some home spinning but then remembered the excess bagage we'd already accumulated over the previous few days and thought better of it!)

The music has a haunting, meditative quality with an insistent rhythm that builds up in speed. It's a very special feeling having that weight to ground you when you feel that otherwise you are spinning so fast that you might take off.  I find sitting still to meditate extremely difficult, but spinning is a great way of clearing the mind.

Maja, a Russian-born dancer based in Miami, gave another interesting class in Gypsy Tribal Fusion. I loved the combination of Arabic, Flamenco and Romany Gypsy movements.  At one point she taught us how to use silk fans.  We had to make do with plastic plates, which made me smile until Jo pointed out that it was no more ridiculous than making people put a shoe on their head as a candelabrum substitute (which, yes, I have been known to do).

Having said that I felt I learned more from the non-Egyptian teachers, I really enjoyed the piece of choreography we learned at Randa's masterclass. 

The Ahlan Wa Sahlan Festival Pt 3 - The Magnificence of Mona and Catching up with Keti Sharif

It's curious being here with a VIP.  As organiser of the Bellydance Congress, Jo is very much in demand. Other international teachers, who previously didn't show much interest in the UK scene, are falling over themselves to say 'hello'.  As Jo admits, it makes her life much easier.

I'm enjoying meeting new people - and bumping into dancers I have met at other workshops, such as Bernard from Paris and Raja, from Lille - a truly wonderful dancer, full of passion and flair, who I first met at a Horatio and Beata Intensive and then performed with in a show in Biarritz when a Parisian dancer fell ill.  (My abiding memory is of her stunning finale - and of getting locked out of the theatre with my friend Yvonne during rehearsals and having to scale a wall to get in, only to find that there was no time for me to practise with the orchestra, or even mark through what I was going to do to somebody else's music in front of an audience of 500 people.)

That ranks as one of my scariest experiences, but the masterclass with Mona el Said wasn't far behind. My God, she's the ultimate maa’lima (boss woman). She gave short shrift to anyone wishing to sit down, telling them that they should go back to their room if they were tired, and told the people on the door to shut it in no uncertain terms.

But she danced with such passion that she made me cry.  She doesn’t teach as such, you just follow her dancing to a piece of music, which keeps you on your toes as the choreography changes each time she dances.  She used all the signature moves I have seen in videos of her over the years.  I’m not sure how the younger dancers felt about her, some looked rather bemused. I was interested to see that there were (only!) about 80 students in the workshop, compared with 150 for Soraya and nearly 200 for Randa. But Jo and I agreed that she’s a legend and has to be respected as such.  It was dancers like her and Fifi Abdou that made me fall in love with this dance.

The Case for Burlesque

Now I realise that Burlesque is an emotive word as far as some belly dancers are concerned.  (But then again, 'belly dance' also makes some dancers' hackles rise...)  I can see their point; those of us who have been dancing for a while have fought so hard to improve the reputation of this dance and see it recognised as a valid dance form like flamenco, jazz or salsa, that we don't want to jeopardise the progress that has been made.

And it hasn't been easy. I still shudder at the memory of a gig I once did in a restaurant in Reading.  I was there with a couple of friends and we just wanted to get some experience of dancing in public. I should have known it would be a disaster when I first clapped eyes on the restaurant  - a  dingy, delapidated building that backed on to a graveyard.

Unbeknownst to my fellow dancers and myself, the place had been booked out by a group of bikers.  Apart from the fact that by the time we arrived the women were already throwing up in the loos and were extremely aggressive towards us in the mistaken belief that we were there to get off with their men (now, that really is deluded), those men's comments nearly put me off dancing for life.

'Ee, you're better than strippers!' and 'If we paid you more, would you take your top off?' were among the tamer remarks.

As a feminist and someone who held a responsible publishing job at the time and was used to being taken seriously at work, I was mortified to be treated like a piece of meat.  True, once we got talking to the bikers they were perfectly OK, but it really put me off cabaret for a long, long  time.

And that's just one story. I have heard so many dancers relay similar experiences, often far worse.  So why am I now so staunchly pro-Burlesque, which in many people's eyes is just glorified stripping?

Britain's Got Talent - and Bitchy BellyDancing Remarks Too!

I didn't see her myself on 'Britain's Got Talent' but I did catch 19-year old bellydancer Sophie Mei on GMTV yesterday morning.  She came across very well - very smiley, down-to-earth and charming.  Her dancing wasn't bad either.  All in all, I thought she articulated the appeal of this dance form very well.  And the judges obviously thought so too, as they voted her through to the next round. 

So can someone tell me why some of the comments about her on the TV forums are so bitchy?

Knocked Out By a Wild Woman!

It's taken me about a week to recover from the excitement of last weekend's Sirocco Festival - which is either a reflection of my advancing years or the fact that I don't get out much! (More likely to be the former as most of my week seems to be spent on the M4.)

The Sirocco is apparently a wind which comes in from the Sahara, bringing warmth to Europe. According to the organiser, Wendy Buonaventura, 'our festival celebrates the meeting of East and West via the inspiration of dance and music'.

Unlike other dance events which focus on mainly Egyptian or Arabic style this was truly a fusion-fest, with classes in everything from Performance & Symbolism, Cuban Egyptian and Arabic Tango to Sufi trance dance, Tribal style and Arab-Flamenco. Because the teachers and performers taking part have a great deal of acting and performance experience, there was a highly theatrical dynamic to the whole event which I found really interesting. With so much emphasis on Egyptian technique in most festivals, it was really refreshing to put that to one side and to 'explore our creative energy and the spirit of dance within'.

No-one epitomised that spirit of creative energy more than Berlin-based Raksan, a true 'warrior woman'...

Hi there, my name's Yvette Cowles - welcome to Dance Yourself Happy!

DYH is all about well, dancing yourself happy! I will be talking about my love of dance, particularly bolly-dancing and sharing the joy of travelling the world in pursuit of my passion.

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