I always recommend these three shops, because I know the owners personally, I know they provide excellent customer service, and I know they stock their shops from ethical sources.
FaridaDance.com - looks like she's only got one in stock. But she's been in Cairo, so presumably she'll soon be stocked up again.
ZarasZouk.com - has a good selection of silk veils. Cost approx £27
I did look on Ebay, to see if you can get veils dirt cheap, but it turns out, not really! They were still coming in at around £25-£35.
I even looked at trying to buy the silk habotai fabric, but that's pretty pricey too, especially if you go for wide fabric. Honestly, you might as well check out Bellydance Boutique and Zara's Zouk, to see what they've got.
Welcome back! It's good to be dancing with you again!
This term is going to focus less on Technique, and more on personal interpretation. We'll be looking at the skills you can use to keep dancing even when you haven't got a choreography to follow (that's right - Improvisation!) There's a lot of simple tricks we can use, and we'll look at how you can keep your dancing looking fresh and sparky.
We'll also be working on Veilwork. I gave you a little taster last term, and this term we'll build up some basic technique, some tricks and fancy Veilwork, and how we could put together a short routine (not choreographed, but structured).
Tonight we started with the Veils (before we all got very tired arms and shoulders), revisiting our Walking and Wafting from last term, and working on Veil Twirls.
Remember the Golden Safety Rule of Veils - don't tread on your Veil. (Also, don't tread on anyone else's Veil).
Other guidelines include:
Try to keep your shoulders down, to stop your arms and shoulders getting tired.
Keep the top edge of the Veil taut, so you can keep control of it better.
Keep your arms straight to create beautiful lines
Try not to bunch your hand up into a fist, again, we're trying to create beautiful lines
After that we did some starter work on Improvisation skills. We used Side to Side/Hip Hit movement combinations, to start thinking about how we can put moves together, using simple 4-counts and 8-counts.
Using all Hip hits
RLRL RRR, LRLR LLL
RR LL RR Step back with the L & hit the hip backwards, LL RR LL step back with R & hit backwards
Hitting to diagonals - Front RR LL RR, then Back with L. This one is single sided, it will always start R first. So if you want to change sides, you'll need to add a little step before starting the next combination
Using Hip hits combined with other moves
RLRL Forward Back step Again this one is single sided so if you want to change sides, you'll need to use one of the Forward Back changeover options
RLRL Hip drops R x 3. Again, you'll need to add a little step R to change sides between the third drop and the hip hit on the L
RRLL ½ circle to change sides (like we did in the choreo)
RRLL Fig 8 x 1½ to change sides.
Here's the video (sorry for it being late):
Our motto for the term is going to be: JUST KEEP GOING!
