Articles by Azadi

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Thanks to All Our Students!

November 24, 2011 in Reviews by Azadi | No comments

I just want to say that I am very thankful for all the students at Twisted Dance. I love that you have all found us and that you love to dance with us. What you may not know is that I love to dance more than almost anything else and to be able to dance with you all is the greatest thing ever for me. I love to hang out with you, talk costuming, teach you new stuff, dance with you, and to learn from you. Same to all our fabulous teachers too.

So thanks for being friends in dance and for being just great friends! I totally love you guys!

The Suhaila Certification

February 13, 2011 in Reviews by Azadi | 1 comment

One thing has become clear over my years in belly dance: people that hold a Suhaila certification in belly dance are GOOD.  The higher the certification, the better they are.  This is not to say that you can’t be a good dancer without it, only that I believe this particular certification is clearly an indicator of a person’s quality of dance.  My belief in this is based on my observation of many dancers over the last 5 years.

Naturally this has led me to want to achieve this certification, not just so I can say I have it but because I am convinced my dancing will be top notch if I can do it.  I took a 2 day Suhaila certification “demo” after dancing for a bit over a year and thought I was going to die.  That was my first introduction to her, outside of the videos I used to learn glute work & undulations in my early days.  The excellence in dance that results from her certification comes from hard work, sweat, and hours of repetition.  I recently attended another 2 day Suhaila workshop in Charlotte NC, which showed me how much I have improved and how much more there is to learn.

I had despaired of being able to become certified from the simple fact that the MotherShip (Suhaila’s studio) is located near San Francisco – too far to commute.  My hopes have been raised again because I was able to get a demo DVD of  her on-line classes at the recent workshop.  It looked doable.  I signed up for a 3 month special to try it out.

So far I really like it.  I am able to work it in, even if I seldom have time to run through an entire class (1.5 hours) in one go.  I have noticeably increased my core strength and I have increased control of my glutes, though I am still struggling with traveling and layering.  That kind of hurts after 5 years of dancing & thinking I had layering down!  I’ve tried out both level 1 & 2 classes.  I like them all, though they are hard as the dickens.  If they were easy though, I would be learning nothing.  I can say without doubt that when I master these classes, I will be a much better dancer!

That’s my take on the Suhaila format and certification.  I have not investigated any other dance certification, though I am preparing to go to Fat Chance’s ATS General Skills and Teacher Certifications 1 & 2.  I know that even if I never get certified, I still want to pursue the online classes so I can learn & practice using Suhaila’s format.

Reducing Stress

February 13, 2011 in General Dance by Azadi | No comments

Stress is a constant for me these days.  My job can be very stressful.  I spend a lot of time working on my computer and in conference calls, and I often work at night and on weekends.  I am required to stay up with technology, which can be very difficult because of how fast it changes.   For many years I had stress-related neck and back problems and spent a lot of time at the chiropractor’s office.

For the last 5 years, I have not needed to see a doctor for any stress-related problems.  I still have the same job, which has gotten more stressful, if anything.   I also took on co-ownership of a dance studio.   So what happened to relieve the stress?  I made two changes in my lifestyle – I get regular massages and I started taking belly dance classes.

When I am stressed – most of the time -  my muscles get and stay tight.  My shoulders creep up towards my ears as the tension increases.   I found that getting a massage at least once every 6 to 8 weeks keeps the tension at bay.  Trager is my favorite type of massage.  I have gotten Trager massages on and off for the last 15 years and finally figured out that I really feel do better when I keep regular appointments.   Massage loosens and relaxes my muscles and makes me more aware of my body.  This is a good thing, since I live in my head most of the time!

The other change I made was taking regular belly dance lessons, which included yoga-esque warm-ups and stretches.  I realized after about 6 to 8 months of weekly lessons that my neck did not hurt and that I had not made a chiro appointment in a long time.  I have not had neck problems since and have continued regular belly dance lessons and practice.   I believe the reason belly dance has helped me improve the quality of my life is that practicing it has helped me to maintain consistent awareness of my body.  I practice to improve my posture, even when not dancing.  I can sense tension in my muscles now and can work to actively relax them.   I want to be a better dancer, which is leading to all these side benefits.

I don’t continue with belly dance for the health benefits it provides.  I just love to do it.   I am really happy that I have found an exercise I can do which I love and helps me in so many ways.   Will belly dance have the same results for everyone?  Will massage?  I think it’s highly probable.   There’s only one way to find out!

Musicality

November 22, 2010 in Performance by Azadi | No comments

Artistic Depiction of Belly DanceMusicality, as discussed here, means fitting a dance to the music being played, with the goal of relating the dance to the music’s rhythm, melody, and mood (wikipedia.org).  I recently went to a workshop given by Dierdre, who described Middle Eastern Dance as “the physical representation of the music”.  When I watch the best dancers I can see that this is true.  Other times I look at dancers and hear the music or see the dance, but notice that both aspects are not coming together as one.

Deirdre noted many ways in which a dancer represents the music in their body – stepping in different ways with the beat; making movements up & out for high tones, down & in for low tones; treating the vertical length of the body as a physical representation of a scale; and using quality of movement to reflect the quality of sound (excerpt from workshop notes).   A great example of this would be Zoe Jake’s performance at the 2010 Massive Spectacular.

Other ways that dancers can represent the music is by choosing when, how, and where they travel on the stage.   They can use degrees of speed for different types of music, and can bring the viewer’s attention to different parts of the music by choosing to move to the melody or even to a particular instrument.  Dancers can also use their center of gravity to depict changes in the music.  Rachel Brice and Mardi Love show musical representation through traveling in their performance at the 2010 Massive Spectacular.

I did not notice such details when I first started dancing, or even within the first few years. I just saw dancers that I thought were amazing, but was not sure why. Now as I begin to analyze my own dance and performance, I have begun to realize some of the reasons why my favorite dancers are so great. Pay attention to the next performance you see and let me know if you can see this too.

TribOriginal – A Four Day Belly Dance Immersion

October 21, 2010 in Workshops by Azadi | No comments

Tribo HeaderFor the 3rd time in 4 years, I made the trek to Hendersonville NC to attend the 4 day awesomeness known as TribOriginal.  There were at least 200 other students, as well as an abundance of teachers.  Classes topics ranged from dance technique and skills, to the business of dance, music, and circus arts. There were excellent shows, tasty AND healthy food cooked by a chef (!), and vendors a-plenty. I decided to tell you about my top 3 favorite TribO classes – hard to choose since all of the classes were excellent!

My favorite teacher there was Samantha Riggs, who taught a class in Bollywood.  She is very nice, accessible, and a really fun teacher. I (and others) were a little worried about taking a Bollywood class, but she put us at ease right away. She made the class fun, challenging, and sprinkled interesting tales of Bollywood (Bombay + Hollywood) throughout the class. I will seek out her classes whenever I get the opportunity!

Another class I loved was the Shimmy & Shake with Rose Harden. We shimmied for 2 hours straight, no change in speed. The only break was a brief 30 minutes where we worked on the shoulder shimmy. I was very happy to learn a new way to shoulder shimmy: rather than doing shoulder punches, use the muscles in the center of your back, between the bottom of the shoulder blade, to move your shoulders together as a unit. Bye bye, shoulder fatigue! I got much more out of this class, but that was the most surprising takeaway!

The class that was the absolute hardest for me had nothing to do with technique or rhythm.  It was all about learning to draw out your emotions to make your dance feel more “real”.  This one was taught by Asharah. I have taken workshops with her in the past – she is an awesome technical dancer. I believe she has achieved a Level 5 certification from Suhaila Salimpour (yow). Anyway, she took us through a series of mental exercises & movement that took us into increasingly intense emotional states. We learned to change quickly from one state, such as sadness, to another, perhaps happiness. We finally danced in each state that we created, choosing a move that made us think of the emotion we were working on. It was just what I needed to learn.

So that’s my brief summary of TribO 2010, complete with my favorite classes. All I have left to say is I can’t wait until next year!!

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Dancing on the Road

September 24, 2010 in General Dance by Azadi | No comments

What is the first thing I think about when I find I’ll be traveling?  Finding a belly dance class to take of course!  This time I am in sunny Temecula California visiting relatives.   My friend Tamara at Opal Moon Henna pointed me to a great resource for the LA basin: laraqs.com.   I easily found Politti Ashcraft, who is an awesome ATS (American Tribal Style) teacher & performer and was able to take a class.

I’ve been able to take classes in many places from lots of great teachers, thanks to internet resources.  I highly recommend checking out the local teachers when you travel!

Love to Dance!!

September 21, 2010 in General Dance by Azadi | No comments

What I want to say in my first post out of the gate is this – I love belly dance! I love learning to do it, actually doing it, watching other people learn to do it, teaching people to do it, watching and performing in shows, looking at costumes, making dance costumes, talking about it with both dancers & non-dancers, reading about it, and writing run-on sentences about it. I just love dance! My favorite styles of belly dance are ATS & Tribal Fusion, but that doesn’t mean I don’t love the other styles too. My favorite dancers are Rachel Brice & Carolena Nericcio. Both are Masters of their chosen styles. I am very happy to live in a World of Dance.