Dina's Workshop

I took off for over a few days enjoyed my workshop in Singapore then head back stop in K/L . Yes, Thanks again to all of you for my birthday wishes along my journey. Initially I was thinking to have a big party, but because of Dina workshop, I only had a quick ‘dim sum’ celebration on the bright and sunny Saturday.

Dina workshop – the Egyptian Belly Dance Megastar. I had never taken a workshop with Dina, and only decided to go to this one at the last minute when Emily told me about the Cairo Cairo Cairo 2010 organised by Claribel's Raks Sharki Studio. I am so glad I did!

Dina arrived looking very casual in simple black work-out wear without any hip scarf. She told the dancers to devoid those tinkling hip scarf. I got a chance to observed Dina’s trademark oriental dance real close (everything were so small), styling and her trademark movements were difficult for us to follow. A lot of movement she taught were interesting to me, such as broken arabesque, turn, hip circle, arabesque and the small shimmies, and I really feel like they will add some new depth to my dancing. Dina also changed some of sequences when we cant dance through the whole sequence, she then make them simpler, and she repeated the choreography over and over for us without counting the beats. She advised us to dance with the music and feel with the music. This sometimes meant many repetitions because we were not able to do most of what Dina can. In many ways, it reminded me of Hadia’s amazing teaching method in oriental dance and how Hadia break down her unique move.

Overall, the two workshop topic were barely enough time to learn. Anyway, it was thrilling, fun and challenging. It was also a great eye-opener for me. I don’t event have time to talk to Dina. Everyone were busy approached a tired and sweaty Dina to take photos, and me too. I look forward to attending Dina workshop. It was worth the long journey, worth the money, and renewed my commitment to practice and dance.