~~Arabesque Belly Dance~~: September 2011

Argh….. The Fantasy Oriental Night and a great Serkan Tutar workshop in Malaysia finally ended. I am back at work after sending Serkan Tutar off to Taiwan for his next teaching workshop. But my heart still rocking, my feet have not landed yet! I have been overwhelmed by the excitement and response from our audience and have really appreciated the phone calls and feedback from well wishers that continue to flood in. If you are not lucky enough to have seen the show, I would say, you really really really missed the boat!

Thanks to all the amazing ladies, you all show a great work on Fantasy night. Now let’s all just take a moment to pat ourselves on the back for having a really fun, highly inspired, respectful, positive weekend full of great music, friendship, and community! The performers at the show not only showed up with enthusiasm and support and rocked right out in their dancing feet. I appreciate you all so much for supporting the show, supporting community, supporting the arts, and supporting each other! I am going to upload all the photo on the facebook later. I missed out taking photos with all the beautiful performers, even forgot to take photo with my family. Also, if you have some great photos of performances (or anything else) from the weekend, please send them to me annie_arbq@yahoo.com . I would love some pictures for this blog! Thank you Thank you Thank you!

My Arabesque Kids on the show!!!

Serkan Tutar

Veil Workshop

Me and Serkan Tutar

Crazy Drumsolo Workshop

If you missed Serkan Tutar Workshop on Saturday/Sunday, I'm sorry you missed out on an amazing workshop that can't be duplicated, but I have a good news… Serkan Tutar is back in 2012. So keep your eyes on the details coming soon. I love Serkan Tutar’s professionalism in many ways! He has been showing his great teaching! I am crossing my fingers for 2012 would be the great one!

Finally going to bed...this days was enormously exhausted, mentally and physically...but what keeps me super excited despite everything is the fact that in exactly 2 weeks, we will rock again!

Finally the 3^rd Malaysian Open Dance Fest (MODF) had passed! It was very hectic trip and I've been super super super tired after a long day of judging! When I got back to the hotel, I can't sleep well on that night. I just can’t drink coffee that late in the day and especially shouldn’t drink the fully-leaded that late. This happens sometimes when I drink fully leaded coffee. I’d learn…

I can't wait to tell you all about my students results – Again, we got the Champion in belly dance under 12 and 1st Runner Up in the belly dance novice junior by Grace Heng Song Yang , 4th Place by Carolyn in belly dance intermediate open (with her own choreography). Jia Ying and Angeline didn’t do so well in belly dance this time, this is probably because the contingent was even larger was expected. The novice open were categorised in junior 0-12, teen 13-20, crystal 35-44 and diamond 45-54. Jia Ying entered in teen 13-20, out of which only 12 were selected for the semi-finals, it wasn’t easy either as this was her 1^st time and there were more than 20 participants, after fighting in 2 preliminary rounds, she was not able to make it to the finals. And same to Angeline entered in belly dance under 12, she didn’t get through to the finals. She didn't expect to win anything - and didn't, but it was a great adventure, at least she did it!

Over the years, the MODF gradually improved and improved. I'm always looking for that special time of the year when I can finally go back to see more and more belly dancers fall in love in the art. This year, there were all 6 belly dance adjudicators from all schools and all with excellent qualifications, including me!! We have one adjudicator - Joey Bay from Singapore, she is such a wonderful belly dancer! All of us are definitely individuals, with strong opinions! Besides that, during the judge, we were not allow to talk, so there can be no easy collaboration - and there were always plenty of people keeping an eye on us. We have only 2.5 minutes to rate at the end of each dances to fill out the score sheet, and we can barely see our own sheets after we handed over to the organisers. Ha! I tell you, judging can give one a bad case of brain burn, it is also so much fun! There were contestants I can remember over the years for good things or bad. There were one or two contestants wasn't there to respond when her tag number/name was called. I don’t understand if you are keen to enter the competition, why you left the dance hall? And I was impressed by Bronya Bishorek, she was the professional emcee for the event, she know exactly what to handle and sound great for the event. A good professional emcee is like another pair of arms and legs of the organizer, she is awesome!!!

The intermediate/advance open category was the tough one!! The advance music is one of my favorite song. And the song only distributed on that day when you collect your tag number. I can see where the first placed dancer gained points. She accents different parts of the music and she knows the music, her movements are strong and clear. Some dancers definitely has more fluid movement, but I can see where she lost points. Some dancers tended to accent all the strong beats, the BIG accents could be seen and that for me was over the top. And some did accent to the music in different ways, but for me she did not feel the music, she was just imitating the styles of somebody, and it really obvious that it does not come naturally to her. I am by no means saying who is a bad dancer or that she didn't deserve to win. This is only my assumption. I'm just very picky about what I like and don't like in dance.

Troupes have slightly different guidelines for the judging, but it comes to the same thing - are they the best they can be? Innovation is so important! Most of the participants were so nice to each other and so supportive that it was a very positive experience. And it always happy to see more troupe are joining in every year. There are always new ones, and that also makes for a lot of fun!!

Thank you for my students who joining the 3^rd MODF and traveled with me, and I wish you all to experience it at least once in your life. I think competitions are great for developing work ethic, ability to push yourself and promoting proper technique. It is a very special feeling, and it really helped me to stay focused in the "arts".

Well…. I am now try to take a rest during the Hari Raya Aldilftri and Merdeka long holiday break (1 week). Selamat Hari Merdeka and happy holidays! Mean time, stay tune for 4^th Malaysia Open Dance Fest 2012 is going to held on 25^th August 2012 at Manhattan Grand Ballroom, Berjaya Times Suare Hotel, Kuala Lumpur, see you there!! I am sharing some of the photos taken by Jason Oh, Thanks so much to him, I just love the photos!!!