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About a month ago I looked around my bedroom and decided that it had reached critical mass – something had to be done. I was getting ready for a gig. I pushed aside a pile of clothes on the floor and sat down on my pillow in front of the lighted makeup mirror perched on top of a foot locker and started my stage makeup. Yes, this has been my makeup setup since I moved

The psoas seems to have become the trendiest muscle in belly dance over the past few years.  Now, I’m not saying that dancers are only now using it – but they sure do talk about it a lot more in the past 5 years. If you asked Souhair Zaki where the “psoas” was, she may well have pointed in the direction of a shipping canal, even though she used it extensively for all those juicy,

“From Cairo with Love” by Zamalek Musicians The Zamalek Musicians’ 2010 release “From Cairo with Love” is a diverse mix of Egyptian performance tracks. There are 12 in all, including 3 drum solos, classic Oriental and folkloric pieces. Every experienced dancer has her own “formula” for putting together a full show, and I could easily put  a whole show together from the tracks on this CD, plus a few for teaching my classes too!  Fix

Performing at Tagine in New York City with Rachid Halihal and Majdi Kurd. A dancer’s first solo is an exciting and scary experience, but  the first live music performance can induce a whole new level of stage fright – even in dancers with plenty of performance experience under their belt. Dancing to live music can – and should –  be a thrilling experience for both the audience and the dancer, but as with most worthwhile things, there’s a hurdle

“Belly Dance Mirage” by Ya Salam Orchestra has 13 tracks with a nice variety for any cabaret dancer looking for performance music. Among them, there are four drum solos ranging from straight-forward to complex. I would consider 5 of the songs to be “classics”.  Ya Salam’s renditions bring something fresh making them worth adding to your library even if you already have a few versions of these standards. For the dancer who is just building