Bozenka Workshops!- Not to be Missed!

Bozenka

Bozenka, the Cuban born Winner of some of the World’s highest awards in Belly Dance – is the World’s Best Belly Dancer, according to Primer Impacto.

Bozenka meaning “touched by God” is a world-renowned performer and master teacher, taught by Master instructor Tamalyn Dallal. Her distinguishing elegance and her classic, earthy technique elevated Bozenka to superstar status. She is globally loved and admired and is one of the most sought out instructor. She has won many titles and has danced for celebrities including Sean Connery, Donald Trump, Hugh Hefner, Madonna, Alejandro Sanz and Enrique Iglesias amongst others.

Bozenka was part of the Belly Dance Superstars Troupe & Bozenka Choreographed for Latin Pop Sensation SHAKIRA

Treat yourself to the knowledge of this beautiful Art Form and invest in yourself. Take a day or 2 off work to experience these amazing workshops with BOZENKA – world renown Belly Dance Superstar

Don’t miss this opportunity of a LIFE TIME

There are a few spaces left so contact Angela@bellydancebabes.co.za to get details!

Belly Dance Fantasy showcase – www.computicket.com

Bollywood and Hoola Hoops

I found this clip of an amazing Italian dancer, Valentina Manduchi, who is the winner of the International Oriental Dance Festival this year. She has a full time Bollywood dance group in Italy and I love the way she does all the facial expressions perfectly. Brought back great memories. :)



While looking for other videos of her I came across this Hoola Hoop Tribal Belly Dance performance (performed by another 'Valentina'. I'm not such a big fan of just her dancing (and tend to question the 'Belly Dancer of the Universe' title in general), and am not too keen on the amount of leg shown at one point...but the hoola hoops are mesmerising! I love it, her dance suits the music perfectly and frames her isolations. VERY entertaining!

How to Perform Under Stress- Great Tips

Does your mind go blank every time the boss calls your name in a big meeting? Ever bombed a test you spent weeks studying for, or botched a simple play that cost your team the game? If so, University of Chicago psychologist Sian Beilock feels your pain. Her new book Choke, which is based on her own studies as well as research by other cognitive scientists around the globe, explains why stress causes us to screw up. Following are five of Beilock's best tips on how not to crumple under pressure—no matter how nervous you might feel.


Erase Your Fears


Having a positive attitude is all well and good, but not if you're stifling negative emotions. That can cause them to sneak up on you at the worst possible moment. A good way to banish those pesky thoughts for good is to acknowledge them long before the big day, then let them go. Take a few minutes to write out your fears or how you might have corrected a previous poor performance. You could even sign up for a comedy or improv class in which you can practice making a fool of yourself. These approaches serve as catharses to free up your working memory (which is basically your ability to reason on the fly) and enable you to focus on what matters *when* it matters.


Pause


When you're under the gun, it's tempting to just go with whatever comes to mind first. But that's often a mistake. Beilock argues that the best strategy is to take a deep breath, clear your mind, then carefully analyze the problem at hand — like, say, a complex question on a math test — before trying to solve it. Just like a pro basketball player quickly scans the entire court before making a pass or driving toward the basket, it's important to absorb all relevant information before proceeding. Not only does pausing help to ensure that you don't overlook key details, but it also gives your brain time to replenish its supply of glucose, the cellular fuel that helps ensure peak performance.


Practice Under Pressure


It's easy to sit in front of the TV in your underwear imagining your speech to the boss explaining why you deserve a raise, but that technique is not very useful. Instead, get dressed, meet a friend for coffee, and practice your speech on her. "Even practicing under mild levels of stress can prevent you from choking when high levels of stress come around," notes Beilock. To illustrate her point, Beilock explains how Southern Utah University's men's basketball team earned a first-place ranking (up from 217th) in successful free throw shots after head coach Roger Reid began making players run a lap around the court each time they missed a single free throw during practice. The squad's 80% success rate is now higher than the NBA average of 75%.


Don't Over Think Things


Once you've mastered a skill or perfected your presentation, it's best not to over think it. Brain scans of skilled rifle shooters, for example, show that their neural activity is actually much lower than that of beginners as they take aim. Because the expert marksmen have practiced so much ahead of time, their mind and body practically work on autopilot just before pulling the trigger. "Attention can be counterproductive when it alters performance. Under pressure, people start worrying, which leads them to try to control their performance," notes Beilock, who advises focusing on the outcome instead of the process, for all but novices, who actually do better when they consciously think about every move as they make it


Distract Yourself With Music


Sometimes trying not to think about your upcoming performance at work or on the playing field backfires. In fact, it can make you think about it *more.* That's where distractions come in. Remember champion swimmer Michael Phelps and his iPod during the 2008 Summer Olympics? They were inseparable. If you can't pop in the earbuds, try singing to yourself. Distracting yourself with a song can keep you from focusing on negative thoughts or overanalyzing your next move. The melody can help you focus, too. For example, you can use the rhythm of a song to pace your running stride or time your golf stroke.


Read more: http://healthland.time.com/2010/09/21/dont-choke-5-tips-for-performing-under-pressure/slideshow/6/#ixzz10FBmpCrH

How to Choreograph Your Dance

I don't usually like to choreograph my belly dances, I just know which props are for which songs so a typical show will be:

1. Entrance/ Candles
2. Veil
3. Drum Solo
4. Fire
5. Sword
6. Drum Solo
7. Isis Wings (if on a stage)
8. Sagat

etc... and with party songs to get the audience participating.

If you get to know your music well it's nice as you can really play with the accents, details in the music and have a strong ending. I also, however, fully enjoy performing to music I've never heard before. It's actually not to different to going to a club and dancing to hit songs. You never find yourself 'running out of steps' only to stand in the middle of the dance floor blank, right? When you learn belly dancing you gain a wealth of steps, moves, tricks, isolations that you can draw on instanaeously. That's when it gets fun.

For Miss Belly Dance SA I do have to have a 6-7 minute song choreographed and insert Veil, Sagat and Drum Solo.

This page gives some very helpful tips on choreography and I do use some of the same methods.

My notebook looks more like this, say for the Veil section:

Veil 15x8 (14 counts of 8 beats)
   Figure 8, Kneeling
   Big Circles/Turning
   Loops
   Shoulder Turn
   Whirlpool etc...

Feel free to name your moves whatever describes it to YOU best. :) Be creative.
  

Turkish Belly Dancing

I finally fixed up my blog header a bit. I'm liking this logo better. :)

I've been practicing like crazy for the MBDSA and decided that I'm definitely going to stick with freestyling the majority of the drum solo. Not only is it near impossible to memorize a good drum solo (there should be hundreds of very small movements and patterns) but I think it dumbs it down to lose all of the excitement and interest that it should have. A real drum solo is exciting because you dance to a beat played by a drummer, you know the rythyms but changes and speed is left down to the moment, you have to stop guessing what comes next and listen with your body and react to the beat WHEN he plays it. Ansuya said even stumbling or missing a beat then catching up is part of it so the audience knows it's in the moment. It keeps them on the edge of their toes wondering what you'll do next.

I found that dancing improv to a recorded drum solo can be just as interesting even though you know the beat by heart. You still change what you do every single time keeping it fresh and a surprise to everyone including yourself. Tanya from Bellydance Africa showed me some groovy veil moves that I want to incorporate the tough thing is I'm dancing veil while wearing sagats (zills) so that keeps it a bit challenging as I can't do moves that require me to let go of the veil. Rather challenging.

I practiced some great floor work and somehow managed to get a aching knee out of it. As every dancer knows knee injuries are scary stuff so I've done my best to give it a break even though I'm wanting to practice as much as possible. My dashing husband got me some anti-inflammatory meds so I'm hoping that helps it get better quicker along with rest and prayer.

I'm enjoying studying up on Turkish style belly dancing and found this great page explaining the main differences as well as showing some tasty video examples.

Your body is the voice that sings what there are no words for, the instrument that plays the music of your soul.

~ Katisha ~

 

Ten Reasons to Start Belly Dancing

1. It's fun!

2. Belly dance can be great for weight loss and tones your body especially the obliques and lower ab muscles.

3. It is great socially. You get to meet many other dancers and you can find yourself making new friends.

4. Belly dancing strengthens the muscles needed for child birth and can help relieve PMS and back pain.

5. It can build your self-esteem.

6. Reduces stress.

7. It is a relatively inexpensive hobby (unless you start buying various professional belly dance attire, and by that time you can start using it to MAKE money!)

8. Belly dancing is something which you can start no matter what your level, age or size.

9. It gives you new control of your body through isolations that you can use in many other dance styles.

10. It introduces you to amazing new music and rich culture.


There are far more than this but this is just to get you started... ;)

Belly Dance Fusions Paris 2010

This is a very interesting take on modern belly dancing and the huge variety of interpretations and fusions there are! Some I obviously like better than others but every performance style speaks to a different audience and the art is to try to find how to really make it yours.

Gaga and Peep Dance!

You have to visit the link here to discover, what is Gaga dance? Well, for starters it's got nothing to do with Lady Gaga, Ha, it's far more interesting. I was fascinated by this concept and this it would be a wonderful way to explore movement as a dancer.  It's obviously very good for improvisation which as a Belly Dancer you must be able to do. It's the same concept of interpreting the music and not limiting your movements to what is expected or falling into old habits and patterns of dance steps. Truly exploring the possibilities.

The creator of this dance wrote:

“Gaga challenges multi layer tasks. It is fundamental for gaga users to be available for this challenge.

At once we, the users, can be involved in moving slowly through space while a quick action in our body is in progress. Those dynamics of movement are only a portion of what else might go on at the same time.

We are letting our mind observe and analyze many things at once, we are aware of the connection between effort and pleasure, we connect to the “sense of plenty of time”, especially when we move fast, we are aware of the distance between our body parts, we are aware of the friction between flesh and bones, we sense the weight of our body parts, we are aware of where we hold unnecessary tension, we let go only to bring life and efficient movement to where we let go…

We are listening, seeing, measuring, playing with the texture of our flesh, we might be silly, decorating our inside, we can laugh at ourselves.

We learn to love our sweat, we discover our passion to move and connect it to effort, we discover both the animal in us and the power of our imagination.

We learn to appreciate understatement and exaggeration, we discover the difference between joy and pleasure and use both to protect ourselves from injuring and hurting our body, we learn to apply our force in an efficient way and we learn to use “other” forces.

We become more delicate and we recognize the importance of the flow of energy and information through our body in all directions!

We discover the advantage of soft flesh and sensitive hands, we learn to connect to groove even when there is no music.

We become more aware of people in the room and we realize that we are not in the center of it all. We never look at ourselves in a mirror, there are no mirrors. We become better aware of our form. We connect to the sense of the endless of possibilities.

We explore multi dimensional movement, we enjoy the burning sensation in our muscles, we are ready to snap, we are aware of what we are made of, we are aware of our explosive power and some times we use it.

-Ohad Naharin


I'm going to audition for Peep Dance a unique Israeli Dance show choreographed my Nimrod Freed, performing here in Johannesburg on the 23rd and 24th of this month which is going to be a very interesting experience, as for the audition you have to improvise interpretive modern dance to whatever music the director puts on.  I absolutely love the concept. Even though Belly Dancing is my current focus I think adding other dance forms helps keep you from boring yourself and gives you more material to draw from.

We change our movement habits by finding new ones, we can be calm and alert at once.

We become available…”

-Ohad