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Last weekend my student troupe and I performed our newest choreography, a multi-part Saidi, at our MECDA chapter’s annual festival. They were very excited about it and deserved to be – they worked on it diligently for months, aligning cane angles and synchronizing their spins. Their post-show glow took a rude hit in the dressing room unfortunately when another dancer approached them and said, “Your piece was…. interesting.”  When she told me later my student

Early this year I attended an out-of-state weekend workshop  to study Turkish Rom dance. After the final class, a group of us went out to restock our many burned calories. Our dinner party included the instructor and the sponsor in addition to a group of us students. Aside from being hungry, I was also there to work – specifically, to interview the instructor for Shimmy Magazine. After the meal and interview were wrapped up, the talk

I watch a lot of bellydance. Whether I’m on the hunt for the next clip to include in the Daily Bellydance Quickie, at a live show, supervising rehearsal or just wasting time – uh, I mean doing reasearch – on YouTube, the total adds up to a good chunk of time every week. Of course, I never get tired of it, but I have noticed what captures and keeps my attention and what makes my

I started dancing at age 3, doing tap and ballet just like my big sisters. Every May we did the cheesy end-of-year recital in awful sequined satin costumes to even more awful music. They sprayed our ballet and tap shoes with metallic spray paint to complete the tacky look. I have to wonder how much “dancing” they got out of us at that tender age, but they got us up there before we were self-aware

I love beladi music. I love the way my ears are seduced by the first strains of accordion, then my hips are playfully poked by the scattered drum beats. I am willfully led down the garden path by the growing steadiness and energy till I am whirled like a dust devil in the final bars and released. Ahhhh. Beladi music sucks me in body, mind and soul like no other kind of Middle Eastern music