Sketch for Mel.

My lovely belly dance teacher Melusina and I have agreed to a trade in which she will give me some private dance lessons in exchange for a new business card design. I have a pretty high bar set for me with this one because Mel is so incredibly beautiful, and I want this to look as much like her as possible.  I based this image on a clip of her performing a mesmerising sword dance that I posted on my blog previously. Her end of the bargain will involve helping me with a choreography to some of my favourite music, which will most likely be either Take Refuge or Deep Politics by Grails, depending on her preference. I'm very much looking forward to having a choreography that I can practise and enjoy at home, to the music that I feel inspired by.

Serpentine

I just ordered this new instructional DVD by Rachel Brice, and I am so ridiculously excited about it.  This clip won't be very interesting to most of you because it's just an ad for the DVD and features Rachel talking about yoga and drills (although the demos alone are amazing to watch), but get a load of the performance clips interspersed with it all! They appear to be her best performances yet, and she looks exquisite as always.

I'm so pleased to see that she's incorporating more of the rhythmic hip movements which caused me to fall in love with belly dance to begin with. Beautiful as her trademark snakey arm and torso undulations are, I think they feature in her dancing a little too strongly sometimes, and I feel like I want her movements to address the rhythm more directly as they do here. I'm especially loving the choreography at the end of this clip, which is set to to Borino, my favourite track from the Beats Antique album Collide. If you like what you see, also check out the video below which is a live improvisation...incredible.

Tribal Fusion

So after my last post I thought I'd introduce you to Tribal Fusion bellydance, which is a contemporary style that evolved from Tribal and is similar aesthetically but much more open. There are no rules in Tribal Fusion - it can be performed solo or in a troupe and there's more room to experiment with music, which makes for some incredible dancing but admittedly some really awful stuff as well. For this post, however, I'll focus on the dancers I love who perfom in this style, and there's none better than the divine ladies from San Francisco troupe The Indigo.  Here are some clips of them performing at Tribal Fest 9, which is exactly what it sounds like. I've included a solo by Rachel Brice who is an incredibly beautiful dancer (pictured) with an astounding mastery of the slinky, serpentine movements that define this style, and two clips of the three girls of The Indigo, Rachel, Zoe Jakes and Mardi Love, performing together in choreographed pieces. If you think you're not really into bellydancing, watch these videos and tell me you still feel the same way.

Ultra Gypsy

I've been really pining for bellydancing this last few weeks, because after a particularly strenuous dance class about a month ago (in addition to terrible posture from too much drawing and tattooing) I put my back out and have not been able to dance. Luckily for me I have my lovely friend Jerome, who's a remedial massage therapist among other things, to fix it for me and I should be back at class next week. In the meantime I thought I'd share a few more clips of ladies who have contributed to my obsession with Middle Eastern dance. This one is an old video of Jill Parker's Tribal Style troupe Ultra Gypsy performing a beautiful choreographed piece for television.

Tribal Style is a modern fusion style of bellydance that hailed (like so many things I love) from San Francisco, beginning with Jamila Salimpour's incredible Bal Anat troupe in the late 1960's. This format is based on the idea of performing in a group, or 'tribe' as opposed to the solo style more commonly seen in traditional bellydance. It also incorporates some influences from folkloric Middle Eastern dance and from other styles like Flamenco, in its movements as well as the music and costuming. As you will see, these qualities along with the synchronicity of the tribe creates a much different visual impact than that of a soloist, and it's one that I personally love, both in practise and as an observer. This clip gives me shivers every time I watch it.  Enjoy.

Odalisque

I did this painting last year for an exhibition called 'Skins and Sharpies' which was held at the Per Square Metre gallery here in Melbourne (click to enlarge). It's the first of many paintings I have planned that are based around a vague Orientalist theme, mainly inspired by my love of bellydancing. Like most of my paintings it was done with Indian ink and watercolours and is available for purchase. Giclee prints are also available for $100 in a limited run of 50. Email me here if interested.

Sharon Kihara

Last night I found this incredible photo of talented bellydancer Sharon Kihara, whose performance I have tickets to see in March this year. Hopefully I'll also be attending one of her Tribal Fusion workshops, if finances allow. In the meantime I'm going to stare at this picture for a long, long time.  It's kinda similar to a drawing I've been working on for a few months but haven't found time to finish...it has naked breasts in it so once it's done I'll upload it here since Myspace is so prudish when it comes to nudity.

Melusina Sword Dance

I'm incredibly curious about sword dancing at the moment, an interest that no doubt was partially sparked by having just spent a long drive over to Adelaide and back with a gentleman who happens to be a swordsmith, but also by having some newly acquired experience dancing with props. We covered zills (my favourite), veil and cane last year and I enjoyed learning to use the cane so much that I can only imagine how incredible it feels to dance with a sword. As luck would have it, my beautiful dance teacher Melusina is particularly fond of sword work and teaches it in her level 3 class, which I should hopefully be advanced enough to join by midway through this year.

In a discussion on swordsmithing that we had in the car last week, Tim (the aforementioned gentleman) described the process of crafting a sword as almost alchemical, and said he always relishes that magical moment when a simple piece of steel becomes a blade. For him, the creation of these powerful weapons fulfils some kind of primitive masculine impulse, something I'm sure many sword and knife enthusiasts can relate to.

I very much look forward to the day when I can commission a personalised scimitar from Tim, and dance with it in the knowledge that it carries all of his energy as well as my own. In the meantime, I'll continue to enjoy Melusina's incredibly impressive sword dancing via crummy youtube videos like this one.

Natacha Atlas in Dub

Ok, the filmclip is crap but the track rules so play it and look at something else in the meantime.

Saidi Cane Dance

I'm learning Saidi cane dancing at the moment with my beautiful bellydance teacher Melusina, and I'm enjoying it more than I expected to. I never knew what the significance of the cane was until she explained its origins, and showed us some of the ways that it's used in the context of traditional Saidi dance movements, which are actually folkloric in style. I always thought the cane belonged in the more western, cabaret style bellydance but in fact the Saidi people and their dancing are considered disctinctly bogan by the majority of  Egyptians which makes them more appealing to me.

So as it turns out, the use of the cane in bellydance comes from a traditional martial art from Upper Egypt named Tahtib, which is a fusion of aesthetic dance and combat training much like Brazilian Capoeira. In Tahtib, two men perform a mock fight, accompanied by music, with large bamboo sticks as a demonstration of strength, skill and agility. In a manner that appears deliberately emasculating, the Saidi bellydancer utilises the stick with lightly feminine and flirtatious movements, poking fun at the men's proud display of bravado and communicating a clear message that they don't hold all the power.

I was lucky enough to find this amazing clip of a dancer performing a gorgeous and lively Saidi cane dance, and an example of two men performing Tahtib to the very same piece of music, which I believe is "Shashkin" from the awesome album "Mystical Garden" by sufi-styled musician Omar Faruk Tekbilek. I can't get enough of that mizmar.

The Indigo

In both a personal and an artistic sense I am very inspired by bellydance at the moment. The drums, the zills, the movements, the costumes; I love everything about it.  And of course, the women who do it professionally are some of the most exquisite creatures you will ever lay eyes on, as you will see if you scroll down a bit. The dance also has it's roots in Gypsy culture, with its bare feet and bellies, lavish jewellery, feisty matriarchs and loose morals. How can one resist? I share with you here some images of the women responsible for my obsession with bellydance, the incomparable Rachel Brice and Zoe Jakes of The Indigo (click on images for enlargements). Enjoy.