How the dancer lost her mojo, and found it again…

Once upon a time there was a dancer who lost her mojo. That meant that she had no enthusiasm to dance and no lust for costuming or music. This dancer just wanted to curl up and watch Sex and the City until it came out of her ears. That dancer was me!

Notice how I used “was”? That dancer is no longer me. Just when I was beginning to despair and update my Facebook status about it, it all came back to me. I’m cured!

I wasn’t sure whether it was the end of year blues, the fact that I’ve just spent this year prepping for performances or if the state of belly dance was just tiring me out. Whatever it was, it had made me uber depressed and rather unhappy. I think that it was because we had our show at the beginning of the year, which was a really big deal and we had a lot to work towards and we spent the whole of the first term prepping for the show, and then the rest of the year we’ve been preparing for the International Oriental Festival (which would get its own blog post, but there’s not much to report). Preparing for dances is great and it’s always nice to learn new choreography, but I feel like I need to learn something NEW. I have so much on my list of “things to learn” and I’m not covering any of them, really.

But there is always a light at the end of the tunnel, my light was called Balkanology.

A couple of weeks ago, Paula got hold of Leoni and myself to ask if we’d like to go to an event with her. This event was Balkanology. I’d heard about it via Facebook and some people that I am connected with, but never really thought more about it or looked into it at all. Paula found a brilliant half-price deal online and we promptly decided we wanted to go. Without really knowing what it was about, we booked and paid for the tickets.

It turns out, it’s exactly what it sounds like – Balkan inspired/styled music with a side of crazy(that’s the “ology part). The theme was “Animal Farm”, the whole evening followed this theme, with the pigs declaring their command over the “farm” and telling us humans what we could and couldn’t do. As the evening progressed, people dressed in freaky animal costumes paraded around with signs and generally mingled with the crowd (and by mingled, I mean growled and pranced around) while bands like Manouche, Nomadic Orchestra and Mr. Cat & the Jackal played awesome tunes for us. Towards the end of the evening, the animals all took over and threw the pigs off the stage, and tore down their piggy decorations. We were then told that the building was now open and that Toby2Shoes was going to be DJing for us inside and we were to party it up in there!

What has pulled me out of my mojo is the music that they played that night. It was so refreshing to go out and listen to real music, honest music with instruments. We had a people playing wooden spoons, guitar, drums, saxophone (what a sexy instrument), violin, accordion and a tuba. It was fun, and light and it was so easy to just let go and dance. Also, the tuba player was very sexy.

The head-pig telling us what we can and can't do

More pigs

A lovely guy who came dressed as "my little pony"...

It was this music that has “saved” me from myself and brought back my mojo! I am so inspired to create choreography to this music (which is up for free download on their facebook pages!) and I just want to tell everybody about it. But I think that I will quietly go about creating choreography and maybe one of the bands will notice and they will ask me to dance at the next event. Now wouldn’t that be something!

A member of Manouche - after this I put my camera in the car and got ready to dance.

One of the many animals - excuse the blurry pic. It's difficult to take photos of moving targets in the dark!

Go and listen to all these band’s music. Go go go!

Photo shoot tips for belly dancers

As I’m sure many of you know by now, I am a photographer as well as a dancer. It’s a fairly unique combination of skills and I wanted to share some of the combined knowledge with you. At some point in every belly dancer’s life, they will want a photoshoot. If you are going professional, this is a MUST!

So here are some tips from a photographer and a dancer to you:

Costume

Make sure that you’re comfortable in your costume and that it fits well. A photographer may be able to edit a few things here are there, but don’t rely on it. If you are unsure whether your costume fits well, ask a friend or your dance teacher to help you with it.

Don’t pose with unfamiliar props

Posing with props can be great – if you’re comfortable with them! The last thing you want to do is pose with a prop that you don’t usually use. This will show in your body posture and facial expression, because you won’t look comfortable and you’ll usually be holding the prop awkwardly. You don’t have to pose with a prop – while veils and the like look great in photos, sometimes it might be better to leave them at home.

Practice poses

Before you arrive at the photoshoot, practice your poses! It’s ok to be a little vain here and stare at yourself in the mirror for hours because in the end you need to know how your body looks good. If you are unsure which poses to do, think of poses from dances you have done, perhaps an end pose of a dance or a mid-movement pose. If you are conscious about a certain part of your body, tell your photographer so that they can make sure they don’t accentuate it.

Weather & Lights

Weather is only a factor if you are shooting on location, which can be absolutely beautiful but also an absolute disaster! Keep in mind that if there is wind, veils and isis wings can become redundant  as the wind will dictate the direction the veil and wings go. While a light breeze is nice, it can quickly become irritating. Make sure you arrive at your location early so that you can scout out areas you’d like to use for your photos. If you are shooting in a studio, it’s important to know what kind of lighting you’d like – dramatic or even lighting.

Make up

Remember that photo/film make up is very similar to stage make up in that it has to be exaggerated in order to show up well on photos. Look on the web for ideas for make up by looking at other dancer’s photoshoots. So if you look like a drag queen, you’re doing it right!

Don’t waste time, come prepared!

Remember that you are paying the photographers for their time. You don’t want to waste their time because you are not prepared. Coming to the shoot full of ideas is a photographers dream – it makes it so easy and so much more fun to shoot!

Don’t be afraid to talk and ask

If you have questions or suggestions, TALK to your photographer! We are always open to ideas and always willing to ask questions!

Listen!

Listening to your photographer is essential to a great and productive photoshoot! Photographers know what they are doing, and you have chosen your photographer for a reason, so listen to them. Sometimes they want to try something a little more creative and that is almost always rewarding if both sides cooperate!

Choose wisely!

The most important thing to do in preparation for your photoshoot is choose a photographer you are comfortable with. Being uncomfortable is not something that can be Photoshopped out of your face – and believe me, it will show.

Although a (good) photographer will be thinking of all of these things anyway, it is also your job to do research and come to a photoshoot prepared!

I recently did a photoshoot with some dancers, and I will be putting the photos up on my Facebook page sometime soon, so if you want to see my work, you can have a look at it here: Alexandra Graham Photography

Good luck to those planning shoots, I hope this advice was useful!

Belly dance in South Africa – according to me!

Ok, so last night I started writing a long ranting blog post based on this article posted on The Gilded Serpent (read HERE). 3 ladies who are involved in belly dance in South Africa had written little article pieces that were accompanied by a video interview with Charlotte who lives and teaches in Joburg.

Unfortunately, I disagreed with a lot of the answers Charlotte gave on the video, and I’m sure it’s because of the area she’s from rather than ignorance. The problem is that when you are asked about issues that are about the entire country, you can only really answer for yourself and give your opinion about your area. It’s not to say “These are the facts!” but rather your perception of things. So I thought I’d post the video, you can have a watch and then I’ll answer the questions/talk about the topics briefly like she did. I thought it would be an interesting experiment. J

So first up, she spoke about POPULAR STYLES of belly dance in South Africa. If belly dance as a whole is new to South Africa, Tribal Fusion is even newer, and a much younger form of dance. I disagree with the fact that ATS is not popular in South Africa. I get the feeling that PURE ATS is popular, but not performed as often as it isn’t as much of a “crowd pleaser” here, so rather the girls learn ATS as a base for fusion dance and perform ATS moves in a fusion setting.

WHAT IS MOSTLY PERFORMED IN SA?

I would honestly say that American Cabaret is mostly performed in South Africa. And when I say AmCab, I mean the westernized style of Middle Eastern Dance. I think that there are very few teachers who can honestly boast that they teach Egyptian or Turkish style of dance. Dancers here (and all over the world, I’ve noticed) like to fuse the styles together to perform their own brand of dance – and I personally think it’s great, creating your own dance identity!

VARIOUS STYLES IN VARIOUS AREAS

Of course, I can only speak for Cape Town and surrounds, but I’d say that most of the studios here perform the more AmCab style of belly dance. Or as I like to call them “Glitzy dancers” But there are plenty of fusion dance studios, and not necessarily tribal fusion either – just belly dance fusion.

FESTIVALS

There are loads of festivals here in Cape Town. There are two that I attend every year – the International Bellydance Day in May and the Oriental Festival in October. There are many other smaller festivals that I don’t/can’t attend in the middle of the year sometime.
Now something I strongly disagreed with Charlotte about, was her saying that the local girls (in Cape Town) don’t support each other. Now, as Charlotte is not from Cape Town I am sorry that that was what she took away from her visit here. I feel that the studios here are all very supportive of other studios as well as other dancers. Maybe I just know some really good people? But as you come off the stage, you get greeted by a bunch of arms giving you a squeeze and saying “Well done!” Of course, South Africa is very small and the bellydance community so big in relation to the size of our country and of course we will step on each other’s toes from time to time. It will happen in any organization any art form, any business, really.

TRAVELLING

Many dancers travel overseas to seek out dancers or particular workshops that may not attract much interest or attention to bring the dancer here. It is probably cheaper to bring a dancer out here if there is enough interest than it is to travel overseas. We have had many international dance stars in South Africa such as Sharon Kihara, Samantha Emanuel, Bozenka, Danisa and Yasmina of Cairo – to name a few. Besides the weakness of our currency, it is also expensive to travel due to flight costs, and visas. DVDs are expensive to bring in, but cheaper if you are a bunch of people ordering together and can then split the shipping costs.

COMPETITIONS

There is a whole other blog topic hidden away in this heading, so I’m going to try and touch on it lightly. I like competitions. I think that they can be good for you. I don’t feel (like many do) that it detracts from the dance itself or the emotional connection of the dance because competitions are voluntary. Those that want to be assessed on their skills will do a competition, those who want the crown of “Miss Bellydance South Africa” will be the ones entering. It doesn’t mean that competition is bad. In fact, it can be exactly what an artist needs to push him/herself to that next level, to get out of a rut. That is exactly where I will be leaving this topic – for now!

As for PERFORMANCE OPPORTUNITIES in South Africa, Charlotte was right in saying that there are only a few restaurants that will accommodate a dancer properly. Mainly dancers are asked to dance at festivals, corporate events, birthday parties and themed parties. This isn’t to say that a dancer can’t find work elsewhere, it is just few and far between. Luckily, we’re not in this business for the money!

I guess that’s the end of my post. I had written another piece concerning “feminine ideas” in dance (a new age “spirituality” thing going on) but it was a bit mean, I cussed a bit and I thought perhaps it’s better left in my archives and I will post it later perhaps when I’m brave enough/calm enough to write about it diplomatically.

There were a few things in the written article on the Gilded Serpent site that I didn’t agree with, as well as in Charlottes video interview – such as sexuality in Tribal dance. Unfortunately if I were to tackle these topics right now I would probably end up attacking the person who said it and that’s not right. So until I can think of a blog post idea that doesn’t directly relate to the article, I will be writing it. I have been in a feisty mood lately and I want to share that loveliness with the rest of the world!

Where ever you are in the world or in South Africa, I’d love you to answer these questions/tackle these topics – leave a link to your blog in the comments or just leave a comment! Also, SA dancers, let me know if you disagree/agree with me and what your experiences are!!

A Belly Dancer Special!

As most of you know, besides being a dancer and teacher, I am also a photographer. That is infact my career.

A few weeks ago, Kash from Rhythm Nouveau Dance Company got hold of me and asked me to be a sponsor for Miss Belly Dance South Africa! The idea being that a Cape Town winner would win a photoshoot with me. A location shoot to the value of more than R1500!  So I came up with this bright idea to celebrate my sponsorship. I would do a bellydancer’s special! I am doing a 20% off ALL photoshoots (if you’re a bellydancer!).

 

I’ve done this so that the dancer’s who are coming down for the Oriental Dance Festival in October can also book shoots while they’re here.

 

If you’re wondering “Why should I ask you to take photos of me, when I have a hundred photographers in my area that can do it for me?” Here’s why!

I am a dancer. I understand how dancer’s move, I know what looks good, I know what poses to suggest – you don’t have to be uncomfortable with me, or worry about somebody looking at you strangely. I can GUARANTEE that I will get beautiful pictures of you! I am very good at what I do, and I have a passion for it.

 

Even if you’re not from SA (or the Western Cape), you can like my photography page here: Alexandra Graham Photography

 

I promise to have a proper post up soon! Hope everybody is well!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tribal Jewellery

Any tribal dancer who reads my blog will know how difficult it is to find something that looks authentic for a decent price. Too often, I find cheap looking tribal jewellery pieces that are chipping or have cheap faded plastic pieces. On the other hand, you often find the most exquisite pieces and they’ll cost you an arm and a leg – and honestly, who has that kind of money?

So… recently George, owner of GEKA Trading Tribal Jewellery, has been doing amazing specials with his Tribal (and even non-tribal) things! You’re looking at a collection of items with a value of over R800 for around R400! I’m going to post a few photos of the specials from the last week…

Miao Silver!

I was SO close to buying this... SUCH a great deal at R380! (Approx. 38 Euros)

George does ship internationally, as far as I know. The shop is located at 7 Rheede Street, Shop 3 in Rheede Mall in Gardens, Cape Town. So if you’re not from around here but are coming for the Oriental Festival – I suggest making GEKA one of your stops! If you have any questions, send George an email and ask! He’s super friendly and supports the local dancers like you won’t believe – seriously one of the nicest people I know!

If you don’t see something you like in the specials, you should check out GEKA’s Facebook page – I can guarantee you’ll find something there!

See? It's not just for the Tribally Inclined!

If you’re not a Tribal gal, but know of one that doesn’t read my blog, send her these links – I’m sure she’d appreciate it! Hell, even if you’re not into Tribal, there are some amazing silver pieces that are to DIE for that are perfect for somebody with more of a cabaret flare!

I hope that this post brightened your Monday, and inspired you to put some money towards some quality Tribal things!

x

I want to live in this shop...

Hafla Performance Video

I have finally received the footage of my video performance from the BellyRing Hafla, which I spoke about in my previous post. I am strangely optimistic about this performance, overall I am pleased with it but there are many areas I would like to improve. I know well enough this time to pat myself on the back for doing well and then still say “what were you doing THERE though?” At some point I’ll write a blog post with all of my “need to work on” points and then you’ll look back on this video and go “ohhh ok! I see it now!”

I welcome constructive criticism, so feel free to give me advice. However, don’t use this as an opportunity to bash me.

BellyRing Hafla and some exciting news!

As you know from my previous post, Saturday the 13th August, BellyRing was hosting a Hafla here in Somerset West! Of course, you never pass up the opportunity to dance at an event so close to home as events are rarely hosted here.

If you don’t feel like reading my post on this event (or even if you don’t feel like reading at all) you can mosey on over to Roxy’s post on Shimmies, Sequins & Slippers - she promises it’s an almost wordless post!

I was hoping to have a video of my performance already but it looks like that’ll take longer to get than I initially thought. When it does go up onto YouTube, I will do a blog post with the link.

It was my very first Tribal Fusion solo, and I finished the choreography the afternoon of the Hafla, which is pretty disgraceful, but apparently I work under pressure. I was the second performer of the evening, and halfway through the first performance the speakers facing onto the stage (for the dancers to hear the music) stopped working. Luckily the dancers were champs and danced as if there were no issue! Before I went on, they struggled to get the speakers to work again, and they asked me to step onto the stage to see if I could hear the music. Strangely enough, that got rid of the nerves that had been building up for a while (I had gotten there early).

Once I started dancing, I just had a blast! Halfway through the dance, I thought to myself “I’m not even thinking about what comes next – my body is just doing it!” That made me feel really good, that my hours of practicing (the first 3/4 at least!) were paying off. There was a photographer at the event, Martin van Niekerk, who took some gorgeous shots on the evening. All photos used in this post are by him!

Yours truly!

I look surprised, but whatever.

BAM! Hip drop!

BellyRing doing a fabulous Bollywood piece - one of my favourites of the evening!

BellyRing did a fabulous Bollywood piece – which was reminiscent of the Bombay Bellywood from one of the Superstars DVDs. I really enjoyed it, it was a great dance to end the evening on and the audience got really into it!

Roxy's solo - Benefese from Totally Turkish!

Unfortunately I was recording Roxy’s dance, so it was difficult to watch and keep an eye on the camera (making sure it’s pointing in the right place and watching a performance is more difficult than you might think!) but what struck me about this performance was how much it suited her! It was fast paced, bubbly and full of energy  - which is pretty much the embodiment of Roxy! She danced beautifully and gracefully despite losing her earrings mid-dance! (Which seems to happen to her often!)

UV veil dance by us - Maya Troupe!

After the break we performed our UV veil dance – which is a very striking dance to watch because it’s so unusual! We use white veils and UV lights. Strangely enough, Silk veils don’t glow under UV lights. We use veils with a fabric that’s slightly heavier than chiffon and that really gives it a great glow!

A great dance with many facets to it which was visually great!

Feminine Divine did a very cool and dynamic piece with 3 dancers. Tenille (pictured above), Tiffany, and another dancer who’s name escapes me for some reason – sorry! They used 3 props in a short amount of time – kind of to give you a taste of each once, but not too much that you get bored (sorry, the use of a prop for too long bores me senseless). They used veils, fan veil and a sword! With the dancers alternating who is on stage.

Well, that is the end of the Hafla section of the post! Now onto my exciting news!

I met a lovely lady at the Hafla who chatted to me before the show about dancing and the different styles. I told her that she would clearly see the different styles in this Hafla alone as the performers are all very different! So earlier this week I received an email from her asking if we could meet up. Soo, on Wednesday I met with her at a café and we chatted about dancing and classes, etc. Well the exciting news is that she would like to start private lessons with me! Me! Of all the dancers at the Hafla, she chose me to teach her. This makes me very happy and I’m quite proud of myself!

She also expressed interest in me performing at an event she is doing in December, which might lead to a dance gig overseas! But I can’t tell you too much about that right now, it’s all still in the works. However, as soon as everything is finalized, you will be among the first to know!

Hope everybody is well, I will post another thoughtful or interesting post soon, I promise!

x

When the boyfriend is away, the bellydancer will… sew?

This will mark my fourth attempt at a blog post in the last month. Except this time I actually have something to post about instead of vague thoughts on a virtual piece of paper.

 

I have a performance coming up – my first tribal fusion solo. I’m really very nervous for it because I am having a struggle with my bellydance identity and a whole lot of other things, but that is a blog post for another time. So… in order to cheer myself up, I bought some gorgeous fabric! (Of course, what else do you do when you’re upset at life?) This inspired me to make a new dance bra. I had the bra at home, the shiney new fabric, tons of scraps at home to use. I have spent a total of R40 on this costume so far, simply by using leftovers and a bra that didn’t fit my mom anymore. Score!

 

On Tuesday, the love of my life, Dennis, left to go 700km to shoot an advert for TV. Of course, I buried my head in my bra and got to work in the hopes of distracting myself. I watched Top Gear, 3 episodes of “The Killing”, Letters to Juliet and Mr and Mrs Smith during the making of this bra. Of course there were huge gaps where I just watched the TV instead of sewing and plenty of times when I looked up at the screen and stabbed myself with a needle. Also, I think my eyesight is getting worse, because I’m struggling to see when I sew, although I think I can safely blame that on sewing black on black. It aint easy, folks!

Bleeding fingers and near blindness aside, I have enjoyed making this costume. I love the shape of it, and I think that this is the kind of bra I will use to make more costumes. It’s very easy to work with and it has a nice shape and form to it. It probably took around 4 hours to get do as far as you can see in the photos.

As it is Friday afternoon and I have a huge piece of choreo missing… (oops!) I need to get along with doing that instead of being lazy and sitting around typing this blog post!

 

Making new straps...

 

Pins in place for covering

 

My entertainment - Top Gear.

 

It needs much more work, but I'm happy with it for now! Later I will add some silver sequins or something.

I will be taking my camera with me on Saturday to the performance to get some backstage shots and general faffing around. Then I will hopefully have a blog post on Monday!

Hope everybody has a great weekend and I hope you forgive me for the long gap between blog posts… I still love you all!

 

x

A bit of (con)fusion!

*DEEP BREATH*

Ok… so this post is going to be opinionated and probably offensive to some, so if you’re easily offended – step away from the computer! Also, I am going to continually contradict myself, but I see this post more as a soliloquy or an internal monologue of sorts.

Lately I have been depressed, or rather… unsettled by the direction Tribal Fusion seems to be moving in. To me, TF is a fusion of ATS, and the muscle controlled way of bellydance. You will probably argue with me on the validity of that statement, but it is just how I see it, or as I have come to understand it in my research.  After seeing some performances lately (online and in real life) I just feel that we, in the Tribal community, are getting so desperate for “something new and different” that we might we going too far. I’m sure that this problem is not just restricted to the Tribal community, but I don’t frequent cabaret performances as much as I do TF. I think our “desperation” (for lack of a better word) started out with using different types of props and seeing what we could do with those props that was “wow”. The next route we took was different types of music – I think perhaps first not straying too far with Arabic pop music, to Western pop music, rock music, heavy metal, alternative, the list goes on, really. We added theatrics, making it more of a show and less of a dance. We fused dances… slowly but surely forgetting where we started.

That really makes me sad. It’s a juvenile statement, but I find it expresses exactly what I feel. Just sadness for it. I think Fusion is doing all this in a big way – we’re moving away from the earthy feel of ATS which I love so much and more to the contemporary style of things. (As a side note, I must just add that I quite dislike contemporary dance, I honestly think that I just don’t get it.) The problem you see, comes with asking “When does it stop being belly dance?”. According to some cabaret dancers, Tribal Fusion isn’t belly dancing. This opinion makes me very angry because traditional Egyptian dancers from back in the day would probably say American Cabaret isn’t belly dance either. Ok, I’m going to stop having a little heart attack about that now. You see… this post is contradictory because I don’t like the direction that TF is going in, but in reply to the people who think that TF isn’t belly dance I say that art needs to evolve – it needs to change and suit whatever is going on in the world at that time.

Dancing is an art – and I fully accept that art needs to evolve. I think that my problem or issue comes in with the direction that it’s heading. There are of course some dancers who are still grounded strongly in their ATS roots, but I am seeing a lot of bizarre and “out there” performances. I can only hope it’s some kind of fad that’ll pass with time.

I could give you YouTube links to some examples, but I don’t want to attack individuals, so Facebook or Twitter or E-mail me and I’ll tell you if you’re interested. (Info on my contact page)

But you see, the contradiction in this post comes from my next statement: I want to do a fusion dance. And not just a tribal fusion dance, a fun “Caribbean/reggaeton fusion” dance. Honestly, something more to choreograph for fun, to flex my newly found choreography muscles, to do at a Hafla around people who can appreciate me doing it “just for the hell of it.” I don’t want to take it seriously, I don’t even want to label it belly dance. But I DO want to have fun and do something a little different.

However, therein comes the difference. I’m not pardoning myself from what I frown upon, but I have honestly and openly said “What I want to do is NOT belly dance, although inspired by it. I don’t want anybody to take this as a serious overview for what the art form is. This is NOT an accurate representation of belly dance. I’m doing this for me.”

Does that excuse me? Maybe not. But I’m not claiming that what I want to do is belly dance.

I’ve found this post very difficult to put into words, so there are lots of things I haven’t said and lots of things I still want to say. It might come to me one day when I’m washing the dishes or editing some photos… but we’ll see. There might or might not be a “Part 2”. So I end with this question:

Where is the line, for you? There is no right and wrong answer, so please don’t attack other comments, but answer for yourself. (And of course, my own interest.) I can easily be swayed by a good argument or a good point – so please, go ahead and try!

PS
I’m sorry that there are no pretty pictures in this post, but my next post has about a billion, so I’ll make up for it!

A few of my favourite links (Part 2)

So about… a million years ago I wrote this post: These are a few of my favourite links. Which I thought was a particularly clever play on the song from The Sound of Music, These are a few of my favourite things. But now I’m over trying to be clever in blog post titles and I just want to say whatever I want to say!

Since I work from home (whenever I do WORK) – I spend a lot of time on the internet, doing research *cough cough*, looking for inspiration and other (not so interesting) things. I also spend a lot of my time on YouTube, so here are a few of my favourite video links – videos I cannot stop watching! (listed in no particular order)

1. Rahel 3-part Bellydance

I found this … somehow on YouTube when I was doing one of my regular searches for anything belly dance related. I really liked her performance, she dances really effortlessly and moves very fluidly from one movement to the next. She also smiles and interacts with the audience a bit – which is great! I don’t know much about her, but since I’m (fairly) well connected on Facebook, I can usually just type in a bellydancer’s first name and her profile or fan page will come up. So here is a link to her fan page! Rahel Dance. She has a few more videos on her facebook page if you’re interested.

2. Ultra Gypsy Mazamir Bellydance

Of course, Jill Parker and Ultra Gypsy are legends in their own right, but I honestly just can’t get enough of this dance! It’s really cheeky and fun, and the attitude emitting from all the dancers adds a great atmosphere to it. A lot of the moves they do are fairly simple moves – there’s nothing super complicated BUT it makes for a great performance anyway. Which just goes to show that you don’t need smoke and mirrors to make a great performance.

3. Rachel Brice Tribal Fest ’09

I know I’ve posted this video before, but I love it and I have since I first laid eyes on it. At first sight, I knew this video would land up in my “favourites”… forever. *ahem* I am a self confessed Rachel groupie and after every Tribal Fest, I eagerly wait until her video is up on YouTube and then I ferociously attack it and watch it on repeat. I am a firm believer in that if you watch videos a lot, you start to pick up on the habits displayed in the video – and thats exactly what I am hoping to do. I LOVE the music in this video, especially from about 3.05 onwards – it’s such FUN music!

4. Cassandra Fox – Baladi Sagaran Bellydance

I’m not sure if I’ve posted a link to this amazing dancer before, but she really is incredible. She was taught by her Jamaican grandmother to “rolls her hips” – as she put it – and has loved dance ever since. She doesn’t like to describe her style, but I’d say its a Caribbean Fusion and to be honest, it’s not for everybody, but that’s ok. She does what she loves, and she has fun doing it. Her bellydance moves are always executed beautifully and she throws enough Caribbean flare in there to keep it interesting! She has a YouTube channel, which has a lot more videos and you can check it out here. I don’t know what it was about this particular video that drew me in, but it did and I keep watching it for inspiration!

5. Dancer Unknown – Alf Leila wa Leila

This dancer is amazing and awesome and everything you want to be…….. Ok… it’s me. My latest video, done this weekend at a High Tea. I was going to do 2 improv performances but my CD didn’t work, so I had to use my backup, which only had 2 songs on it, of which 1 was a choreography. I couldn’t post the choreography because we’re not allowed to post troupe choreographies online. Comment and let me know what you think!

Comment below and let me know what some of YOUR favourite videos are and if you even liked any of mine!

x