Autumn Term - week 12

Last lesson of the term! I do hope I'll be seeing you again in the new year. Please remember, if you can possibly sign up before the end of December, I'd be very grateful. The viability decisions will be made early in the New Year, and I would really like this class to keep going!

The last lesson of term is always Technique Requests, and Y requested Camels. This is a move that requires good abdominal control, so I usually leave it until the second term. But what the heck!

But like last week, I wanted to focus strongly on the routine to Akteb Aleik, and get it finished, so there was a bit of recapping Verse 3 (which has 3 reps within it), and moving on to Verse 4 which is nice and short, and the finale, also short.

I'm sorry I couldn't do the video last week of Verse 3, but did manage to film it all the way through after class, with only a small bit of forgetting what I'm supposed to be doing, and as soon as I've got it edited and uploaded, I'll add it here.

And finally, in Music Corner, we spoke about the cool down music I used, which is from Jane Birkin's Arabesque album, which was recorded live in concert, with a small orchestra of Arab musicians. The piece I used in class was Elisa:

But I also sometimes use Comment Te Dire Adieu:

Wishing you all the very best for the Holiday season, and looking forward to seeing you on the other side...

Spring Term - Week 8

This week, we worked on Shimmy Layering, and we were building on the Abdominal work we did last week, to move towards the Camel (or Undulation).

Layering is essentially where you have two (or even more) things going on at once. So a Shimmy layer is where your basic movement is the shimmy, and you add something to it, in this case, a sideways extension or a body twist. To start with, as with any other shimmy, we can do it nice and slow and easy, so that we can see how the shimmy and the layer work together. Then we can build up speed.

The camel is one of the loveliest bellydance moves (well, *I* think so), and it really is "belly" dancing! The abdominal work with weight shift that we did last week is the base for the camel move, and the key to it is the pelvic roll generated by the combination of the weight shift back and the abdominal pull in & release.

Home practice - try either the Shimmy layers or the Camel.

Spring Term - Week 3

Today we started with a bit of Abdominal work, pulling in using different speeds, and also using the Halfway hold and continue.

Then we practised the Choreography a bit more, consolidating the first half.

The last technique work we did was on Grapevines and Cross Steps. There's a Grapevines video in the playlist already, and here's the Cross Step video.

Home practice suggestion

Work on your Abdominals, use the videos in the playlist, and try to practise in a mirror, so you can check that what you think is happening is actually happening. You can click on the Abdominals tag to the right, in the Labels word cloud. 

Edited to add:

I said I'd put the music video for Ma Tigi Hena up. This is the music we used for the warm up dance and the final Follow Me But With Some Improvising dance. 

The singer is Nancy Ajram. She's Lebanese, but sings in Egyptian Arabic. She's had loads of hits, and her music is very danceable. You could try practising to Ah Wa Noss:

Or Ya Tabtab:

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!

======

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.