If you use Instagram...

I use Instagram a lot. I do have a specific dance related account, which is very sadly neglected, I'm afraid. BUT this isn't about me, it's about a good hashtag/account for you to follow.

Every year, a US dancer called Tiffany runs an Instagram challenge #21daysofbellydance. It's a load of teachers from all around the world, providing an exercise, or step combination, or something to try out. It's basically 21 days of mini tutorials.

It's all to promote Tiffany's deal - the bellydance bundle, and given that hashtags aren't the best way to keep tabs on this, you might want to follow the Bellydance Bundle account, to be sure of seeing all the 21 days of BD entries, and joining all her giveaways. There's a free download to help you with working out what you want to practise, for example. And there's some free zills (finger cymbals) on offer.

The Bundle is a brilliant idea, I've bought it myself a couple of times, and I'd happily recommend it to others. It's basically a package of online dance courses, some live, so you can interact with the teacher, some of them recorded. Some of them are time limited, but a lot of them are lifetime access, so you can go back to them time & time again. It seems like... it IS a big chunk of money to lay down, but even if you only do half the courses it's money well spent. I don't want to bang on about it, or make it seem like I'm promoting it myself, but I just wanted to explain what she's promoting with all of this.

Anyway, just a heads up that today is Day 1, and we have a lovely Veil tutorial from Aziza, yes The Aziza of Montreal I always talk about! She's giving us a Veil combo that you can try out. And for those who don't have a veil, you can use it as an Arms exercise.

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Those who did the course last summer may remember the Kiss Kiss Veil Move!

If you follow the hashtag, you'll see other dancers posting videos of their practice of the various tutorials, so you can see that they work for dancers of all different skill and experience levels.

Tiffany also did a podcast for a couple of the bundle years, talking with all the different teachers. So there are quite a few archive episodes, if you're into Podcasts. It's called Yallah Raqs, and it's a really good one for dancers.

Autumn term - week 5

Tonight was all about the Three Step!

We started with a recap of the Forward Back Changeovers and the long (7-step) grapevines from last week, but bringing the focus to the short (3-step) grapevine. This is covered in the Grapevine videos I posted last week.

We also worked on Walking using the Three Step pattern. We did some basic Walking practice, to practise posture and centredness, and moved on to the three step walking pattern, where we can add accents, and then we used that pattern to move onto the Arabesque Walk

We also started the choreography to our chosen song, Akteb Aleik. I will do short video clips as we go along, and try to post them each week.

For now, here's the music for practising to:

This week was all about the Intro. It's a long intro, so we'll do the end of it next week.

I can only apologise for the complete lack of any attempt at editing. I had to film it on my work iphone, and I don't know iphones, I'm an Android girl.
I did lose balance a smidge on one of the turns, next time I hope I'll be better at it!

For home practice, listen to the music, trying to identify the changes. Dance along with my practice video. I hate to sound really boring, but you won't learn it unless you actually practice it!

Good luck!

I mentioned listening to an interesting radio programme on Breathing as a way of reducing stress/anxiety, all about how they teach breathing techniques in schools. They talked about some really interesting techniques. If you fancy a listen, it's only 14 minutes:

An Almanac for Anxiety: In Search of a Calmer Mind
Episode 4 - Air

Autumn term - week 4

Tonight was very strongly focussed on Forward Back steps and Grapevines. They're close cousins in the movement family. 

We recapped the basic Forward Back stepping pattern and worked on ways to manage changing the lead foot. I was working on two different kinds of changeover - the new students were using my "take a step out" versions, and the more experienced students were using my "add a step in" versions. I'll video the Changeover techniques and add the vid to the Playlist and add it in here.

Beginner level Changeover:

Higher level Changeover:

Then we moved on to the Grapevines, which are the same basic stepping pattern, but moving sideways. For travelling a distance, I use the 7 step version, and I use the 3 step version for very short distances, or changing my direction. But I forgot to cover the 3-step version! I'll do that next week.

I've got a couple of Grapevine vids. The first one was filmed in poor lighting during lockdown!:

This one's a lot clearer, but maybe not so expansive:

We did a short bit of Abdominal practice, to remind our abs that they are going to be needed over the next few weeks, and had a bit of fun with belly rolls.

We used Kidda by Natacha Atlas in the Abs practice, and there was a request for the music, it's on Spotify. I can't get the right link, but you should be able to find it just by searching "kidda". Here is the YouTube video: 

Autumn Term Week 3

Tonight we worked on some new material, the Forward Back stepping pattern (aka box step, aka Pas de Bourrée). This can be a bit tricky to "get", but you just have to remember it's not a walking forwards step, it's a staying on the spot step, it's a case of balancing the forwards & the back.

For the more experienced students, we used the Forward Back step with a range of accents, to give it a bit of variety.

We also recapped the Hip Hits, and shimmies. 

We also added a heel lift to our Figure 8,

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I was also trying to gauge opinions on my choice of music for the class choreography. I'm hoping you all like Ma Tigi Henna, by Nancy Ajram (Lebanese, but she sings Egyptian style!)

But then you voted for my second choice of music, Akteb Aleik by Fadel Shaker:

For the Shimmy practice I used a drum solo called El Tablaa from a very old cd, called Delta Festival Vol II. I've done a bit of a Youtube search, and I can't find it. I'll keep looking...

I found a couple of tracks from the cd, but not El Tablaa. This one, Adomma we Tekka, is good:

The account I found that track on, TheBellydanceVideos is a goldmine of old school bellydance music and videos. It's definitely worth having a look at her videos.

The tabla drummer on is Khamis Henkish, one of a family of excellent drummers. There's a playlist of one of his cassettes here. Sorry, I don't read enough Arabic to tell you anything more than what's on the track titles.

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Home Practice -
For the new students, work on EITHER the Forward Back step, OR the Figure 8 with heel lift.
If you're one of the more experienced students, work on Vertical Figure 8s (especially on trying to work out the difference between the Up & In 8s and the Up & Out 8s)

Autumn term - week 2

I'm going to be using this term to build up your technique repertoire, so there's a lot to work on. I'm going to be teaching the basic moves to the new, less experienced students, and more challenging variations for the more experienced students. My advice to those new to bellydance would be: stick to the basic versions for now. There will be plenty of time to work on more sophisticated variations, when you have the basics firmly in your control.

Tonight we were going over the circles and figure 8s from last week, adding the half circles and the reverse figure 8. I'm afraid I don't have a video for the reverse version. I'll try and film one next week.

We also recapped the Shimmy, and worked on building up that "muscle memory" (it's more nerve memory, but hey!). We're trying to build a smooth, even movement. That means small moves, and keep breathing.

One new move that we used was Abdominal Pull-Ins. This is a really good move to create muscular control, that will help with posture and strong core balance.

The other new move we worked on was the Hip Drop. 

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I would suggest for your home practice you pick one video and use it for practice several times over, to get the move into your body. When you feel you can do the move without using the video, then you can go on to another move.

Welcome to a new year of Bellydance!

I'm delighted to be teaching you bellydance for another year!

For those who are new, thank you for giving this a try. I hope I can make you fall in love with bellydance! 

For those who are coming back, it's lovely to see you again! I hope I can move your skills forward and make you love bellydance even more. 

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Tonight's class is starting with basics. I know the more experienced students can't be there tonight, so I can focus fully on the new starters.

We worked on some foundation moves: Hip Circles, Side to Sides (sometimes I call them Hip Hits), Figure 8s and Shimmy. 

I have set up a YouTube Playlist with practice videos for the techniques we cover in class. For Home Practice you can pick one and watch it through and work with it, several times over. They're only short videos. But work on one thing at a time, to give your body the chance to get used to the move.

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If you want some music to practise to, you could try this song, for more flowing technique (circles, figure 8s):

 

Or this one for more percussive sharp moves: 

 

And the music I used for the Shimmy practice was this one: 

 

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For the more experienced ones, who were not here tonight, here's some inspiration for you - the wonderful Sahar Samara...

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Summer Term - week 11

 Our last session of the term, and the year! I hope to see you again in September.

Tonight we worked on the folkloric style again, using Sticks. Last week was all two-handed holds, but this week, I risked one-handed holds. I wasn't sure how flexible everyone would be in the wrist, but we did some Twirling and Figure 8 stick work, and combined that into an improvised dance, to Amouna Fi Al Said, by Bassem Yazbek:

The main focus for the evening was the Veil work, and putting together a routine for the whole of Windows of the East, remembering it's just a Roadmap, not a choreography. I was drawing the map, but you could find your own way of getting from A to B. The main elements were 

• the Entrance
• Travelling with the Veil
• Dancing on the Spot with the veil as a frame
• a couple of "tricks" as highlights
• Dancing without the Veil, and of course, 
• the dramatic Finale (being aware of the "boom, boom" ending).

I hope you've all enjoyed playing with Silk!

Have a great Summer break, and I hope I'll be seeing you again in September.

Enrolling for the Autumn term

Enrolments are now open for the September term.

The term runs from Thursday 14th September to 7th December. The timing is still the same, 7.00-8.15pm.

Click here to go to the Belly Dance page on the Surrey Adult Learning Website

You can enrol online on that page, or you can phone the Customer Service Team and enrol by phone.

As I've mentioned, this term I'm running this class as "mixed abilities", to encourage some new beginners and boost our numbers. I will make sure the more experienced students are still learning new stuff and being challenged!

Summer Term - week 10

As we're winding down to the end of the term (😢), we're going all out for Props - Veils and Sticks (not together!)

We started with the Veils, and putting together a kind of routine, for the music Windows of the East.

The structure of the music goes:

Introduction, includes a bridge into the main melody

Melody A, twice, but the second one has a big orchestral whoosh at the start

Melody B

Melody A again, the one with the orchestral whoosh

Melody C & Melody D

Melody A, twice, like at the top, the second one with the orchestral whoosh 

Finale, winds up to a very clear finish 

Last week we worked with the first half, this week we were using the second half, from C&D, into A (x2) and the finale. We'll put it all together next week.

We continued with our folkloric technique work, Egyptian Sa'aidi style. We recapped the Heel drops and Horse Steps from last week, and added some Stickwork to go with those moves. We also added the Side Step (sometimes called a duck step), to build a bit more folkloric repertoire.

The main Safety rule with the stick, when you're new to it, is give yourself LOTS OF SPACE. Don't let other people get into your dance space. Try not to let go of the stick, but (and I know this is going to sound contrary) don't hold it too tight.

A bit of background/context for the stick work. Here's a video of men doing Tahtib, a martial art/dance game, which is what Stickwork in dance comes from:

Here's Tito Seif, who is using the sticks (yes, plural) more as a dancer. 

And now to see how the girls dance with a stick - much more playful and feminine, using those basic Sa'aidi moves.

And a duet to show how a masculine style and a feminine style are different, even when doing the same moves.

Summer Term week 9

This week, we started on some more Folkloric (Egyptian Sa'aidi style) dance.

We worked on Horse Steps with and without heel drops. We'll add some stick work next week. 

For the veilwork, we've got plenty of technique under our belts now, so we started working on how we can put a routine together. It's not a choreography, you don't need to remember any particular moves. It's more like a Road Map. The routine is just a journey through the music. We worked on Introductions and building up the drama. Next week, keeping the audience interested, and nailing the finish.

We're using the music, Windows of the East, by Ron Goodwin.

I think the Spotify link is here.

It's a nice short piece, 2½ minutes, so it's not too long.

Here are some inspiration videos...

Solo veil - Maria


Nice routine, well choreographed, but she did a throwaway ending, where I would probably have done it a bit more dramatically!

Group Veil piece - Ensemble Lina


Lovely group choreography, good use of movement vs stillness.

Group Veil piece - Banat al Medina


They’re using the head wrap intro that I have warned you against! They include some Floorwork for interest. They include a good “veil pick up” from the floor, which works well with their dramatic ending. I really like this one!