Confessions of a City Slicker

The second workshop for the day focuses on Turkish style belly dance.  I had a big plate of mom’s chicken rice for lunch so was starting to regret it a little.  But how to resist?  It’s mom’s chicken rice.

Turkish style is a little more bold compared to Egyptian style.  It’s more energetic and in your face.  Another big difference, the dancers all wear heels.  The elevation of the feet allows for different movements.

Oh, and there is also floorwork.  This is something hardly seen in Egyptian style.  Badia demonstrated the many different things that can be done on the floor like changing directions.  She also gave tips on the dos and don’ts when doing floorwork, you know, just in case we unintentionally show the audience too much :)))))

One thing is for sure, doing lots of yoga will help with the floorwork.  There is one undulation movement that I find most impressive.  Lie back on the floor with knees under you then pull yourself up with your stomach muscles to a kneeling position, scoop forward with your head while keeping your butt on the floor as much as possible then raise your chest, completing the undulation.

I tried to lie back but the strain was too much on the thighs :p

Oh, I hate being on my knees and since the floor is covered in carpet, I found out later when showering how much skin I lost from my knees and feet.  Ouch!

There wasn’t much coreography during this workshop, mostly a demonstration of the different combinations that we can do and travelling moves, most of which required us to be on our tippy toes.

I think one valuable tip that I left the workshop with is that you don’t want your dance routine to be full of all the cool stuff that you can do with the music.  You want to also layer it with dancing as well.  This is one mistake that a lot of people do with a drum solo.

Yeah, I know what she means.  When I listen to a drum solo, I think about all the stuff that I can do with the different beats, but that’s not what’s going to make the dance captivating.

Six hours of dancing, that’s quite a record!

The first workshop for the day will explore Egyptian style belly dancing.  Cool!  Something familiar.

I wasn’t feeling up to it because I had stayed up till 2 am the previous night watching Shrek 2 and a certain inconvenient "relative" is in town visiting, making it really uncomfortable to dance.

When I arrived, I found that the girls were in an adjoining room looking at the belly dance paraphernalia that Badia brought along with her.  They were all in USD, bummer, else I would love to get my hands on a few of the veils that were on display.  They were softer than the chiffon material that we use and their color were so vibrant.  How beautiful they would be to dance with.

I recognized a few girls from CF’s hafla, there was also PC, an ex schoolmate who attends one of Conny’s other classes and all the teachers from Penang were there - Lisa, Beatrice and Azlina.

Badia decided to teach a coreography that she performed from the night before.  The first thing she told us was that when dancing to music with lyrics, the dancer must be able to convey the song not only through her movements, but through her facial expression as well.  So she definitely encourages us to make friends with people who speak Arabic.

Ha ha…no problem for me.  Coach is Arabic so I can get her to teach me.

Throughout the workshop she gave us a lot of valuable tips while performing and how we can interpret the movements in the dance if we were to perform it ourselves.

Egyptian style belly dance allows us to be a little playful and coy.  The movements can be flirty and cute if we want them to be.

This particular dance tells the story of how a guy is in love with a girl but is afraid that the girl will break his heart.  So it leaves it up to the dancer how she wants to interpret this message, how she wants to react to it.

I’m not sure how much of the dance I will be able to remember, especially since I don’t have the music so I can’t practice.  As it is, I’m only remembering bits and pieces of it right now and can’t really piece them together coherently.

The steps were really basic, well, either that or I’ve come a long way.

So after all the anticipation, the day finally arrived.  The program for the night features an impressive line up of performers both local and international.

The night kicked off with the opening dance, the dancers all dressed in their batik costumes.  The costumes were beautiful in their simplicity.  See, belly dance costumes need not be so elaborate with all the sequins and blings.  I swear, some will blind you with their glare.

I was especially impressed with the winners of the kids belly dance competition.  Of course, these girls were from dance studios all over Penang, therefore they have had some training.  However, it is their sheer joy of the dance that was most attractive.

Sigh…sometimes, I feel that this is what is missing in adults.  We are so caught up in all the technicalities, coreography and whatever that we miss out on just enjoying performing.  These girls were able to express their carefree abandonment through their dance.

Best of all, they were not self conscious about their figures or what they look like.  They just love doing it.  Not so for most adults, I think.  Personally, I know when I first started belly dancing, I was really shy about pulling up my shirt to expose my middrift, mostly because I had a less than flattering figure.  I’ll only do that if I’m standing together with other women who have equally unflattering figures :p

The other professional dancers were as impressive as well.  I really admire their ability to give the illusion of being able to dislocate their pelvis bone.  I mean, how else is one suppose to thrust the hips so far out to one side and make the movement look so sharp, right?

I haven’t figured that one out yet.  Guess I haven’t managed to unlock the energy from my pelvic area, as Conny always calls it.  This, unfortunately, is something that I’m gonna have to figure out for myself.  No one can teach me how to do that.

The most impressive one is the finale dance by Badia, who will also be conducting a workshop the next day.  When I saw her balancing the blade of a sword first on her head then on her hips and manage to dance without it falling off, I knew that my investment in her workshop is money well spent.  You’ll have to see it to believe it.

Unfortunately, we were not allowed to take photos or videos during the halfa, else I would have shot to the front of the stage to take a picture of that!

Because we purchased our tickets quite late, our table was quite far away from the stage.  I think we were the fourth row from the back.  But we were right in front of the projector screen, so we still get to see a close up of what happened on stage.

Oh well, I guess we can always purchase a copy of the DVD as a keepsake.