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.

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.