~~Arabesque Belly Dance~~: Professional Course Training in Jarkata.

Last week was my busiest week. Five days Professional Course Training with Hadia in Jarkata, hafla and 2 days workshop in KLPac! I had the greatest day even though it was crazily hectic! Jakarta was like my working trip nothing too exciting really…we have no time to explore the city. I would like to stay for a few days but the budget and my management wont let me!

Jakarta is famous with traffic jams and congestions. One thing that I like the Blue Bird taxi service, the driver are polite and always keep the car doors locked at all times while driving/riding in. Street vendors are everywhere and they sell almost everything that you need. From cigarettes, food and drinks, newspapers and magazines, arts and handicraft, music cds, toys, clothes and many countless items. Most of the street vendors lay down their merchandise on the roadside or hold them with their hands and move about quickly from vehicle to vehicle during a traffic jam. So these vendors will take this opportunity to sell their merchandise. The conditions that they operate is tough, tiring and unsafe. But they have learn to adapt and work in such harsh conditions.

I have seen many beggars in the streets of Jakarta. Some of these beggars are children. Children should not be begging, they should be attending lessons in schools right?. Every child should deserves an education. Anyway… this is not the topic here… I feel sad whenever I see young kids begging on the streets at night.

The Professional Dance Course is a very tough training that I am looking to learn! Knowing that Dance has its own vocabulary, knowing that how vocabulary translates into your body, it is like an open doors for any dancer/performer, no matter what age you are. The benefits extend well beyond dance, a good sense of movement, breath and space is all so important, it really improve every aspect of performance.

Our class was a very small class, so everyone gets lots of individual attention. Hadia talked like mad throughout the class. My body uncoordinated, and unable to contend with the kinesthetic approach to learning that dancers embrace so naturally. She constantly verbalized how to think about the steps, explained everything, giving lots of verbal feedback, unlike in a other dance workshop, where there can be very little use of the spoken word. Hadia not only teach how to dance, but how to look at choreography they might be given in auditions, she gives the tools to understand how choreography is structured, how the counts are organized, and how to approach specific steps. in such a way that dancing doesn’t look boring! On my 2nd day training, I cant control my emotion, I cried so freaking hard when I was on way back to hotel, from emotions and from laughter with Hadia how she want everyone transfer love right to the dance/music.

Hadia has a wealth of knowledge and some of it is knowledge that no one else can offer me. I feel that it really has made me excel as a dancer. As a dancer/performer, we really need to be in dance classes all the time, because we need to be continuously in charge of our bodies, not matter what your capacity or roles are onstage. So glad I went through the training! Each course have been my most insightful and influential Oriental dance training to date.

Well, I would definitely need some more hours to sleep, but many things need to be done, music chosen, but no time for choreographing, costumes ready, flyers, programs ready...now it's working time.... lalalalala…:))))

P/S : I didn't take many picture while in Jakarta. But got a few shots while eating time.