Spring Update

2010 has been an amazing year for my belly dance life so far! First, I was asked to join Kaeshi Chai's student troupe, Rising Sirens. We are currently preparing to perform at Spring Caravan, which you can read all about at the Rising Sirens blog.

On top of that, I was fortunate to be able to participate in two amazing shows at Djam under Jebon in March. First, I performed in Andrea Anwar's student show. She put together a cheeky, fun group drum solo for us to perform and she asked me to dance a solo improvisation with the band. I felt so blessed for this performance, because this was the first (and only) dance I have given so far where I really felt "in the flow" and did not over-think the moves or give into nervousness. I have linked to the video below for whoever would like to see it and listen to the wonderful band that Brad Mack put together for our night. The videos from that night can be viewed here and here.

If all this was not enough, I ended the month of March by dancing to a drum solo performed by my very own habibi, the ever-talented John Sully of Eye of the Dawn. That's right, the rock n' roller has gone maqsoum! John put in so much work into developing his darbouka skills over the first few months of the year and also creating an enchanting acoustic guitar intro for our piece. We were so overwhelmed by excitement for our show, we felt like we would explode right on stage. And perhaps we did!! It was by far the most energized performance I've ever given. The link to the video is below as well. I hope that you enjoy it!

Nothing But Desire

Happy New Year everyone!

I kicked off 2010 with this Rock 'n Roll/Bellydance fusion performance with Eye of the Dawn (formerly the Creamsicles). It was such a pleasure to be back with my rock n' roll boys, especially lead singer and guitarist John "Sully" Sullivan. This was my first time dancing to one of his original compositions and I loved it!

The Continued Decline of Belly Dance in Egypt

Here is an interesting article on the loss of customers for belly dance nightclubs in Cairo. While it's been an accepted fact for years that the rise of conservative Islam in Egypt has decreased interest in belly dancing, this article points out new detractors among the more secular crowd: girlfriends and house music!

Belly dancing, a dying art?

I think this is a big factor in the loss of belly dance venues in New York City as well. The men who once made up the customer base would rather just go to a club and dance *with* women, rather than sit and watch them dance.

Within You Without You at Jebon (Djam)

I recently took a fun, creative workshop hosted by Kaeshi Chai of Bellyqueen and taught by Diana Susanto. In the workshop we all were taught and guided by Diana to create our own original belly dance costumes. This is something I have been interested in doing for months, so I was thrilled that Kaeshi put this together. Then, 2 and a half weeks later, we all performed together at Kaeshi's weekly Djam under Jebon belly dance show. I regularly attend Djam, but this was the first solo performance there for me. What a wonderful feeling it was to dance there for my friends in what feels like a home away from home to me. The video of the performance in my own originally designed costume is below:

Devadas Broken Train Video

Here is a just-released music video by the artist Devadas featuring me as a belly dancer

Roadsong / Broken Train from filmgirllisa on Vimeo.

Wedding Belly Dancing 1

I have been asked to perform at a wedding of a coworker in October 2010! Of course, I am very excited. In preparation for the event I am doing some internet research on the tradition of having a belly dancer perform at a wedding, and I will post some of the more interesting things here.

This article about the present-day feelings in Cairo toward belly dancers reveals a lot about the current climate there: The belly-dancer at the wedding: in Egypt the unusual love--hate relationship with belly-dancing persists amid a conservative culture of veiled women and virgin weddings.

Rock n Roll Variety Show -- The Spy

Last weekend I took the opportunity to dance once again with the most amazingly cool rock band in New York City, The Creamsicles, at their monthly Rock n' Roll Variety Show.

I chose to dance to The Spy by The Doors for it's slow bluesy feeling, which helped me to work on presence and stage persona. Here is the video from the night, hope you enjoy it!