Merry Christmas!

Thanks for joining me on Zoom for our video night.

Here's the Playlist of the videos we watched on Youtube.

Currently dancing in Cairo

• Dina
• Sahar
• Aziza
• Randa
• Soraia

Currently dancing in Istanbul (I believe, I'm no expert on Turkish dance) 

• Didem
• Asena

Going back in history 

• Tahia Carioca - 40s & 50s
• Samia Gamal - 40s & 50s
• Naima Akef - 40s & 50s
• Nagua Fouad - 50s, 60s, 70s & 80s
• Suhair Zaki - 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s
• Mona Said - 70s & 80s
• Nadia Hamdi - 70s & 80s
• Fifi Abdo - 70s, 80s, 90s
• Lucy - 80s, 90s
• Dandesh - 80s, 90s

And by request, some Sha'abi , aka Mahraganat (street music & dance) 

• Mesh Harou, by Sa'ad el Saghi
• Harat Agibtan, by Shehat Karika
• Ala Rimsh Ayounha, by Hamada el Leithy

Thank you for letting me share my favourite dancers with you! And if you're ever on holiday in Cairo, just ask, I can tell you where to go to see good dancing...

I hope you all have a relaxing and enjoyable Christmas and New Year. See you all in January. 

Beginners - Week 12

Apologies for posting a little late. To be honest I'm astonished that I've managed to be as good as I have up until now!

Anyway, since it is the end of term, I invited requests from all of you but it seemed like you were happy to go along with my plans. I decided to work on the choreography as the first thing after the warm up, because I wanted to give it plenty of time. We ran through the routine, focusing on how the arms work with the steps and hip moves, and trying to crash through the troublespots.

The technique we worked on was a development of the single sided hip circles from last week. This time, instead of focusing on the "empty" hip to create the circle shape, we used the standing or "weighted" hip to make the circle happen. Here is the quick video I filmed after class.

Finally, we did a group dance together, where everybody got a chance to lead the others with their own choice of movement. It gave me a little break, and everyone spotlighted their own personal style. Since everyone seemed to enjoy a bit of freestyling, we'll be doing some more of it next term!

Don't forget, that was the last lesson of the term, but we'll be having our Video Night on Zoom next Thursday, and I'll send you the link for that by the end of this week.

Sahira's 12 Days of Belly Dance Christmas

This is just a little Heads Up for some fun bellydance freebies in the run up to Christmas.

Sahira is a lovely American teacher, I've signposted you to her videos before. She's got an amazing free offer for the Twelve Days of  Christmas! Free classes, tutorials, resources, community events... And a lot of fun!

It all starts on 8th December, Thursday of next week. If you're interested, you need to sign up for it here. I have.

Beginners - Week 11

Tonight we worked on Single Sided Circles, where the hip circle is shifted from its central position to one side. While I've got a video for these, it covers a lot of different versions, and it's not really the most helpful thing for you at this stage, so I did a quick and dirty video on my phone after class, which is here:

We also did some Abdominal work, focussing on weight shifting while you pull in. This is a good preparation for working on the Camel move next term. This video ended up being a bit longer...

We practised the choreography, focussing on what we do with our Arms. I'm terrible at remembering to teach the arms while we're doing all the footwork and hip work, I'm sorry!

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It's the last lesson of the term next week, so I hope I'll be seeing you all. If there is anything you would particularly like to do in the last week, do please let me know. I always plan something for me to teach if I have no specific requests, but I want you all to have the choice.

And finally, I'm proposing a Zoom video night for the Thursday after the end of term (15th December). It's not a dancing session, just me sharing videos of some of my favourite dancers with you, and showing you different dance styles from different cultures. If you fancy it, let me know and I'll send out a Zoom invitation.