May Madness!

May has been a quiet month on the dance front really, until this past weekend. If you follow what I do you’ll know I had a pretty ridiculous weekend last November which involved flitting between The Netherlands and London for workshops, a wedding and a performance! This weekend was not quite as bad, but even more exhausting!

Last Friday I made the trip to Rome for the Tribal Fusion Express show. I had a very tiring day! I left home at 4:30AM for the airport where I was greeted with a huge queue for security, and had my bag pulled out for a search, meaning I had to run across the airport to get my flight. When I got on the plane I discovered that there was basically no leg room and was destined for a DVT inducing experience!! No, really, my knees were pushing into the seat in front – not good for someone with an ongoing knee problem. And then, the guy next to me decided he needed to puke as we came into land. Lovely.

Getting through passport control, I discovered I had missed the bus into Rome by one minute (seriously!) and the next bus would not leave for over one hour. I was starting to get hungry, having not eaten since the night before and considered waiting at the airport with a coffee and something to eat. Weighing up the cost, I figured I would just pay extra to get the train and eat at Sciahina’s apartment, expecting to be there in no time. I took the train to Termini and then the Metro to the correct stop. And then I waited. And waited. For almost one hour!! Eventually I was picked up (a mix up it seemed), tired, ravenous, hot and sweaty. Just enough time to grab the last few slices of bread and last bits of cheese to make a sandwich before going to the theatre for tech rehearsal.

Photo: Shadi Khries

After some gelato and pizza, the afternoon went in no time to the beginning of the show. As we had to stay backstage all night, peeking behind the curtains in between costume changes was the order of the day. I performed an improvised solo to a song by Modeselektor and Thom Yorke and reprised the duet with Jaana. I think both went ok... We’ll see from the videos when they arrive! The best part of the crazy trip there was spending time with fantastic friends – Sciahina, Jaana, Violet Scrap, Vesna Zorman, Lamia Barbara, Daria Bertogna and sooooo many more wonderful dancers. On Saturday we took a workshop on pops, locks and shimmies with Eliran Amar from Israel, and it was interesting to hear his different approaches to movements that we have been doing for years. He also taught a short drum solo choreography that had some challenging layering involved.

Photo: Violet Scrap

After another gelato, and bidding my friends farewell and onwards to Termini station where I almost missed my bus to the airport! The rest of the journey was relatively stress free, just long – I got home at 5AM the next morning after setting off at 7PM GMT+1. But the lack of sleep was all worth it to be able to spend (albeit not much) time in the Eternal City with some of my favourite people in the whole world. It was an honour to share the stage with such incredible dancers in a show with a brilliant concept (a train travelling across Europe, meeting dancers from different parts of the world at each stop). Thank you so much Sciahina for inviting me! I just wish I could have stayed longer.

So you might wonder – why did I have such a flying visit?! Well, on Sunday I was guest teaching a workshop in Walsall for Dawn O’Brien’s Drills & Thrills Intensive. She hosts these monthly and the focus is on deepening your practice through conditioning and drilling. I deliberated for some time over what to teach at this workshop, knowing that Dawn works the regulars that attend hard... I often struggle with the balance between conditioning and dance in workshops I teach, knowing that the conditioning is a fundamental part of achieving precision and proficiency in this style of dance, but also wanting students to leave knowing how to apply that to the pay off – dancing. As this workshop series is called Drills and Thrills, I felt it was acceptable that I could focus more on the conditioning and drilling than teaching combinations. We had three hours together and we spent a significant amount of time conditioning the body for dance, literally from head to toe. I introduced some little gems of information that I’ve picked up along the way that not everyone teaches, so I hope that it was helpful to everyone! I certainly enjoyed it after sitting on my backside travelling most of the weekend – stretching and moving was exactly what I needed. Staying in bed, no matter how tired I was, would have done nothing for me.

I often wonder what people that attend workshops expect. I frequently read comments on Facebook that I interpret as not feeling like it was a good workshop unless they woke up the next day unable to move (and I’m probably completely misinterpreting that). But I can identify with that – when I was in the early years of my learning I loved that feeling of not being able to move the next day (and if I’m honest, that good pain, where you feel like you worked really hard does still appeal to me). These days though, I’m more interested in deepening my practice and extending my movement vocabulary – learning exercises that will target the muscles more deeply without necessarily killing me, and seeing how these logically enhance my dancing, not just doing them for the hell of it. Learning movements from different forms of dance that can easily translate into bellydance, or existing movements that I hadn’t thought of using in that way before. Understanding how different people use movements in different ways, and learning conceptual stuff that I can apply to my improv and choreographies. And coming out of workshops feeling less like ‘oh, that’s gonna hurt tomorrow’ and more like ‘wow, my body feels amazing!’ – maybe that just comes with time? I got all of this stuff recently in workshops with Zoe Jakes, Amy Sigil and Donna Mejia and could immediately apply to my practice and my performances. And maybe this change in attitude has also come from needing to take more care of my body thanks to injury and getting older – I can’t do some of the things I could do 6 years ago when I first started!

So I’m interested to know – what do you look for in a workshop? What sparks your interest? Why do you go to workshops at all? Haha, these are the questions that keep me awake at night!!

Show in aid of Compton Hospice

On a non-dance related note, I also had the pleasure of seeing Amon Tobin's ISAM 3D live in Brixton this month - very much worth going to see - a really wonderful show!


Next month is going to be a busy one! I’ll be at Hannover Tribal Festival at the beginning of June – I’m helping to judge the competition and have donated a prize to perform at Infusion Emporium and take a workshop of choice with either Deb, Illan or Vesna! Then we have Hilde Cannoodt and Chaos Carousel up in Wolverhampton on 9-10 June, teaching and performing – workshops and show tickets still available, and remember it’s all for charity!! Then I’ll be back over in Germany, teaching and performing at Tribal Summer Camp, Offenburg in the beautiful Black Forest. I can’t wait to meet everyone there!

As usual, workshop and performance dates are listed on my website at www.alexissouthall.com and I have a special day of workshops coming up on Sunday 1^st July focusing on new and interesting layering and a choreography class with added zing – advanced level conceptual applications for making your choreo’s more engaging and interesting for the audience, and for yourself - all inspired by recent USA studying (oh, how I miss 8 hour dance days!).

Hope to see you all on the road this month!

A x