I just finished a fun weekend filled with belly dance.
It started out on Friday night in Connecticut with a perfomance gig at Shalimar's Belly Dance Connection. This is a sweet, once-a-month performance venue hosted by Shalimar at the Marco Polo Restaurant in East Hartford. This had to be one of the most appreciative and attentive audiences I have ever danced for. You should check it out if you have the chance!
From CT, I headed out to Northampton, MA to take a workshop on Saturday with the lovely Leyla Jouvana and her drumming husband Roland. I really enjoyed the workshops about beautiful arms - I had no idea there were so many variations of snake arms - and understanding the drum solo. Leyla is so lucky to have a wonderful drummer in Roland, and the two of them demonstrate how the dancer and drummer work together to create a satisfying performance. Special thanks to Whitney for bringing this wonderful artist to our area!
And finally on Sunday I was off to Brattleboro, VT to teach a workshop at the Empowerment Arts Goddess Camp. This was a wonderful experience to share The Sacred Shapes of Belly Dance and The Dance of the Sea Anemone with a small group of fabulous women! We had a nice space in a finished barn on the banks of a lovely brook where we danced, and shared and participated in ritual together.
All in all a very satisfying weekend!
Sunday, July 15, 2007
Friday, July 13, 2007
Towards Balance: The Story of the World According to Yin & Yang
My dance company - The Goddess Dancing - just held our annual show this past June.
In the show, we debuted our latest choreography "Towards Balance: The Story of the World According to Yin & Yang"
I was inspired to create this dance after taking a class in Delsarte technique with Joe Paul Williams.
Delsarte technique is a method of expression which among its attributes, describes universally understood body postures and gestures that express Body, Mind and Spirit. As a very simplified example, an uplifted head and outward palms express Body, a forward tilted head and edges of the hands express Mind, and the steady level head position and backs of the hands express Spirit. Joe shared with us that while Body and Mind represent opposites in varying degrees along a continuum, Spirit is always the perfect balance point between the two.
This got me thinking about balance and YinYang and how out of balance our world is right now...
And so, this 3-part dance was created.
Part I takes place in the earliest civilizations - a "body" time - when survival depended on lots of physical work such as hunting, gathering, planting and birthing. Movements used in this section were primarily circular. The "Yang" dancers perform with their backs to the audience.
In part II we see the rise of the Patriarchy - a "mind" time - with it's great exchanges of ideas, formation of governments and male-deity religions, the building of structure and infra-structure, and struggles for power. The dance movements in this section are primarily linear and staccatto in quality, and this time it is the "Yin" dancers who face away from the audience.
And finally, part III takes us to a future time where we have come back to Spirit - to balance. This part of the dance opens with a short Tai Chi sequence and continues with dance movements comprised primarily of undulations. We see the Yin and Yang dancers relating to each other, moving in and out, toward and away, in a continuous motion of give and take...
In the show, we debuted our latest choreography "Towards Balance: The Story of the World According to Yin & Yang"
I was inspired to create this dance after taking a class in Delsarte technique with Joe Paul Williams.
Delsarte technique is a method of expression which among its attributes, describes universally understood body postures and gestures that express Body, Mind and Spirit. As a very simplified example, an uplifted head and outward palms express Body, a forward tilted head and edges of the hands express Mind, and the steady level head position and backs of the hands express Spirit. Joe shared with us that while Body and Mind represent opposites in varying degrees along a continuum, Spirit is always the perfect balance point between the two.
This got me thinking about balance and YinYang and how out of balance our world is right now...
And so, this 3-part dance was created.
Part I takes place in the earliest civilizations - a "body" time - when survival depended on lots of physical work such as hunting, gathering, planting and birthing. Movements used in this section were primarily circular. The "Yang" dancers perform with their backs to the audience.
In part II we see the rise of the Patriarchy - a "mind" time - with it's great exchanges of ideas, formation of governments and male-deity religions, the building of structure and infra-structure, and struggles for power. The dance movements in this section are primarily linear and staccatto in quality, and this time it is the "Yin" dancers who face away from the audience.
And finally, part III takes us to a future time where we have come back to Spirit - to balance. This part of the dance opens with a short Tai Chi sequence and continues with dance movements comprised primarily of undulations. We see the Yin and Yang dancers relating to each other, moving in and out, toward and away, in a continuous motion of give and take...
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