You Don't Know Me....

June is proving to be a rather busy month for me with plenty of teaching and performance engagements coming up. I recently returned from Germany where I was at Tribal Festival Hannover, and stayed with Martina Crowe-Hewett.

While I was out there, a video of my performance at Tribal Massive back in February was uploaded to YouTube. I was interested to see it. I’ve posted the video here in the blog for you to see for yourselves.

I can’t say that I am delighted with the performance – I was still suffering from jet lag at this point, and to be honest I agree with some of the comments I’ve had on the video link on facebook – it really needed some atmospheric lighting! Hopefully once my knee has recovered (yes, that’s right, I’ve somehow injured it again!) I will be able to perform it in a venue that provides that kind of lighting. With some practice I think it can be a dance that expresses what I hoped to express.

The process of making this dance was somewhat difficult. The moment I heard the music after scouring my hard drive full of about 70,000 tracks, I knew I wanted to dance to it. I’d downloaded Apparat’s album years ago, and for some reason my mouse pointer was drawn towards the folder that contained this song – meant to be! So once I’d chosen it, then came the task of doing something with it!

I listened to the track repeatedly for several months. I could envisage floorwork that I was at that time unable to do, and I had a story that I thought I wanted to portray. After the fact I realised that, at least for my own interpretation, the dance was about something completely different.

Dance Spinner - Choreographic Saviour

And then I struggled. I had the floorwork section in my head (which further developed as I worked through the process) but really had great difficulty doing the rest. I focused on strengthening my body for the floorwork and teaching myself the movements I wanted to use (a challenge in itself!), hoping the rest would just fall into place. It has been about 3 years since I last used floorwork in a dance because of my injury, and at that point, even right up until the performance night, I had a back up song in case I couldn’t do it. And I battled this choreography! In January I went for a private lesson with Samantha, who told me about this tool she had found to help you with choreographies – it’s actually for children, and is not at all for bellydance, but she showed me a combination she’d created using it and we worked on one for me too. I didn’t use it in this dance, but I did go and buy this tool – the Dance Spinner – as soon as I got home that night. And it really helped! I had a few combinations ready in the dance, and I used the dance spinner to help me fill in the rest. And I liked the stuff that came out! It wasn’t so far removed from my own work already, but it gave me options for thinking about different qualities of movement within the dance. And now I watch the video back I see that some of it didn’t look quite as effective in performance as it did in rehearsal, but all that can be revisited and revised as I rework the choreo.

I don’t know what you interpret the story as from the dance. For me it was something very different to begin with. However at Tribal Massive I took Amy Sigil’s STATIC workshop. I’d taken it in Brighton last year and hadn’t felt like I’d gotten much out of it after looking at the transcript that I had at the end – Amy gets you to fill in a transcript based on answers to question she asks which reveals what makes you an artist and what you can harness from within you to use in your art and mine had not made a lot of sense. However the second time around it made lots of sense, and made me realise that I was carrying with me something quite dark. Something that I didn’t like about myself, an emotion that we all experience during our lives that is destructive and achieves nothing. During Amy’s workshop I wrote this down and the script this time made sense... ‘Hello envy, let’s go for a ride...’

The genius behind the tune

When I returned from Tribal Massive I was listening to the music on the bus, going through the choreo in my head and suddenly it hit me. I’d already made the dance that came out of Amy’s workshop as being the next piece I should make. I just didn’t know that I’d done it. Thinking about the movements that I chose, even with the aid of the dance spinner, it all in my mind reflected what I was experiencing. Unwittingly I had created a dance that was truly me, that was not contrived in emotion or story. And now I understand the dance, I know I can truly do it justice. Isn’t it funny how these things work?

Once I am recovered from my latest knee injury I will return to working on this dance and making it the finished product I had hoped it would be, and to present it in an environment where I can influence the lighting and mood. It’s been a case of this dance, and Amy’s workshop, helping me to realise something about myself that I wasn’t fully aware of and helping me to battle through something that I don’t want to have in my life. Dance is great.

I’m interested to hear others views, so please feel free to comment!

~

Ariellah as Nosferatu.
Photo by Thomas Schirmacher   

This morning I returned from a week in Germany. I was asked to judge the Tribal Star competition at Tribal Festival Hannover which was a great experience – I really enjoyed the festival and the three awesome shows. I had the opportunity to see the Nosferatu Silent Sirens Theatre show with Ariellah and The Lady Fred, a show I should have seen when I was in San Francisco for training a couple of years ago but was rescheduled. The two main shows showcased some of the top European talent in addition to the American teachers. I enjoy the European events because I am always reminded that America is not the only source of great talent in this little bubble we call Tribal Fusion Bellydance. We forget what amazing dancers we have on our own continent, and as Brits I think it’s easier to forget as we’re all isolated on our little islands – we forget to look East as well as West, and we miss so much by doing so.

The genius that is Amy Sigil.
Photo: Thomas Schirmacher

I took three workshops over the weekend – ITS with Amy Sigil (a format I loved instantly, but due to the fast nature of it I had to sit out of most of the workshop due to knee issues), a combinations class called The Swing Box with Rustiqua (three amazing girls from Slovakia) and Electro Swing Choreography with Maria Fomina (Ukraine). I was delighted to see that these girls that I enjoy seeing perform so much are also excellent teachers. I’ll definitely be going back for more. And I always enjoy Amy’s classes – that woman is actually a genius, for real.

Judging the competition was a difficult decision especially when you know some of the girls involved – two German girls and a Brit, all of whom I know well. The standard of the competition, particularly in the final, was rather high, and difficult decisions had to be made by the judges. The competition was won by an American – Hybrid Bevin. I am delighted that the joint second place winner, Cristina Zegarra, won the prize that I donated to the competition, and is coming to Infusion Emporium in October and performing in the gala show – I’m so happy about this as Cristina is a wonderful dancer and was one of my favourites in the contest. The winner of the audience vote, and the one who wins the trip to Tribal Fest that was won by Illan Riviere last year, was the wonderful Inga Petermann. A gorgeous dancer, and definitely one to watch over the coming years. I’m thrilled she won the trip as I think she really deserves the opportunity to get herself out there.

Cristina Zegarra is coming to
Infusion Emporium!
Photo: Hana Sladkova

I met a lot of wonderful people at Hannover, and saw some truly incredible dancing. I’ve returned very inspired by my fellow dancers. Saturday was incredible act after incredible act. However - and I rarely choose a favourite - my favourite performance in that show was Giuliana Angelini. I’ve seen this girl perform several times now and am a huge fan – gorgeous movements and choreography all executed with perfect precision. As I always joke, it’s not a good show unless I cried, and her performance certainly stirred up some emotion for me, alongside UNMATA’s piece. This piece I saw them perform in Las Vegas and felt it was so powerful and raw. This time it was a little less so for me because I was so far back in the audience, whereas in Vegas I was in the second row and could see the incredible emotion echoing through their bodies. However, knowing the story behind the piece and reminiscing on my previous viewing, it still brought some liquid to the eyes.

Walking in the Alps

After Hannover, we journeyed with Martina Crowe-Hewett to spend a few days with her and her family in Ulm where she is currently residing. We had a fantastic time with them all, walking in the Alps, visiting the old centre of Ulm and dancing. Martina and I have been working on a duet for the Tribal Summer Camp in Offenburg show. I’m super excited to be going back to Germany in two weeks to teach and perform, and am particularly looking forward to the duet. I really like how it has come out, and it was interesting to work with Martina on the choreography. I came in with sections done that we tweaked, adapted for formations and created the missing sections during our two days together. We discovered very quickly that we have very similar movement preferences and would have almost identical ideas simultaneously. I’m excited to see how it comes out as performance.

Hilde Cannoodt

This weekend I’m hosting Hilde Cannoodt and Chaos Carousel for what promises to be an awesome show and weekend of workshops. The show is in aid of Compton Hospice, a charity which provides palliative care to terminally ill patients in the West Midlands, a charity very close to the hearts of me and my husband. So please, come along and have a wicked night listening to live music and witnessing great fusion bellydance. We have performances by Bex, Black Veil Tribal, Khalgani, Ashima Tribal, Samantha Gatehouse, Dames du Serpent, Pedralta World Fusion, Lyza, Maureen Pemberton and me of course! As well as a fundraising raffle with top prizes. Any profits from the show go to Compton Hospice, so please do come along and help us to donate a huge chunk of money. Tickets will be available on my site until 11PM Friday or in cash on the door. We hope you can join us!

Later this month I’m off to Germany to teach some workshops, organised by Gudrun Herold. After that I’m teaching a day intensive in Wolverhampton on Sunday 1^st July with all new material for layering and choreographic tools. Booking online on my website.

Hope to see you all somewhere soon!

A x