The New, The Old & The Blue

Posting for 2nd night NEW experience - we participated in the activity of the temple in conjunction with their annual celebration. The beginner troupe performed the OLD choreography which I created in 2005 and the costumes were simple and BLUE, except mine one in peach.

Maybe dancing in this temple event doesn't sound like the most exciting thing to us. The stage were full of disco ball-style light, multi colored light and the smoke blurred my eyes. I felt uncomfortable when the emcee introduces me to the audience takes too much time.....and I wait... then I wait a bit more... and I keep smiling..... When I heard the music, I lose track of the of the choreography a bit, hope nobody noticed that, hahaha :D. Anyway, I was able to get back to my dance choreography again. After finish, my students complaint the stage is really small, they only kept the steps really small and it works.

My student, Ivy suppose to dance together with us, unfortunately she couldn’t find the place though, I was at the back stage when she told me she lost the way. Ivy, so sorry for the missed!

Pictures didn't come out very good this time (the smoke and the disco light), but for record purpose, I uploaded some.

Great job last night.

The kids performed in Taman Thian Peng – A Temple and the associates annual celebration. I am a little out of date, I don’t know the temple will have a such a big celebration every year, and the celebration is always last for a month. I was there early for parking as well as taking the opportunity to snap photos before people started to pour in. My little Grace was excited when she saw a temporary wooden stage that she is gonna to dance. The girls performed amazingly! They just shined on stage with their wonderful smile!

Tonight, it's our dance troupe will be performing on the same stage. Come and check them out, you will have a blast. we'll be on at 10 p.m.!

Bad Luck These Days…..? .

Yesterday was one of those hard working days, where I worked through lunch and straight on past five. At about quarter to five my colleague asked; Are you going to class? I told him that I was so caught up in what we were doing I forgot that time past. So I quickly rush out to pick the 2 little girls to dancing class.

When I reversed my car, I knocked someone's car. I did not hear the lady blowing her horn because I had my loud music on. I sat in the car and just stared at nothing for a while, I was like “Aiyoh die la die la…..” I saw a pregnant lady get out from the car and walked towards me, she starts yelling at me. I winded down my car window as well and I scared 'shit' because I honestly thought she gonna hit me. Suddenly I heard she said “You ar sister? Didn't you hear the horn? Thanks goodness it was my cousin sister out there. It turns out easy, it's that simple! Honestly, we didn’t meet up for quite sometime since she got married. Therefore, the incident was not a big problem and I just need to spend money to repair the cracked bumper. UGGGHHHH!!!! Not blaming, that was my fault, loud music does cause accidents all the time.....this is a very big distraction.

I lost my phone last week. It would be a hassle on my part because all contacts/friends/belly dancer/teacher/students will be on it. So if you’re reading this (people in my address book), feel free to re-send me your contact numbers or feel free to drop me an email.

Bad luck ? Not really. Friends, I don’t believe in luck. To be perfectly honest, I am having something personal about me. Hmmm…not to get into detail, I believe in blessing...

Just 2 Days Left!!

“Dance like a Star” with Hadia

International Belly Dance Artist and Master Instructor

Just a gentle reminder that there are only 2 days left for our early bird special. To take advantage of this great savings we encourage you to register today.

*Register By March 31st For Only RM380.00

We look forward to see you there!

All the best!

Just A Thought

YMCA Penang Ballroom Club is organizing the 2^nd National Dance Competition. I received the music for belly dance competition. The music is – Aswan Dancer 2.37 min open for all level in this individual category.

To me, I don’t like the competition idea. But this seems to be the way its going and a lot of people want it. You will see more and more of them in the competition. When my students want to take the challenge, I would never stop them. I admit, I think that there are some positive things that competitions can bring – in a way of motivating them to really try and improve their dancing, which is great! My students, if you want to join the competition, bear in mind that Belly dance is a personal feeling response of a dancer to the music, and also the audience to the dancer. So every dancer is different, but doesn’t mean one is a winner, then another one is a loser.

I have a busy few weeks ahead of us! Not only myself teaching the weekly classes, but I have a new class organized and I have two workshops and a performance coming up! So, choreographing this year has been such an eye opening experience and a huge challenge for me. Oh how wonderful, we are going to start our rehearsal soon right after Qingming Festival. If you think you want the best “shows” are onstage, come to rehearsal.

Truthful and Honest

Someone asked me yesterday for tips on how to market themselves as a dancer and instructor. WEEEE! She asked the wrong person! I’m poor in marketing, poor to ‘sell’ myself and my products. I remember one of my good friend told me, I should go ahead and “re-brand” the word sell myself, but I don't like to ‘big talk to promote’ so I have never seen it as any serious option. So my reply was simply to do this in a truthful and honest way.

I know why I dance, where I take inspiration, why I teach and how my training helps to convey this to my students. And I believe I really do. My organization is now only a small group of people, my teaching is about opening my students eyes to all the world has to offer. I think this is an honest approach will only quicken my process, helping the right match to be made. Other than doing my best to inspire others and continue dancing. I share my work with the rest of the world as it can give a lot of inspiration in return. This will be exciting!

Time will tell, they are all a part of myself, my own work, my own achievements, and what I stand for!

Tribal Fusion With Samantha

I am back from Samantha Emanuel tribal fusion workshop. Ow… my butt hurts! Really need to beg someone to give my butt a good massage :o

I remember when I tried Ariellah Gothic Belly Dance workshop last year, those core elements, upper body posture, lifted chest, high elbows, and strong ATS (flamenco-inspired) arms….. huh…I felt like a right fish out of water, but its all good experience though! And after much thinking about the tribal fusion workshop with Samantha, I signed up only 2 fabulous workshops, combination for improvisation, drill and layering workshop. I didn’t take up the choreography workshop as my main struggle is chasing the tribal fusion choreography.

Fingers crossed for Friday workshop!! It was such a challenging, and a ton of fun on the drilling parts. I have to say that this was one of the toughest Tribal workshop I have ever attended. The drills were well explained and I love the new knowledge. Thank you so much for Samantha and Carol Teoh. www.zahra.com (workshop organizer). It was a long, exhausting day for me, but I loved every minute of it. It's the kind of motivates that makes me say AND feel that I WANT TO DO IT!

Start training my butt and arms. Practice, practice, practice until reaching perfection…. If you ever get the chance to go to Samantha Workshop, try it! There truly is something in it for all levels and all dancers. Well worth the price of admission!

Eskanderany - Eskanserani - Melaya Dance

Feel so lazy these days in blogging and I couldn’t think of any interesting subjects to post. Aside from that, I've finished my new choreograph song (3.18 minutes). I found a piece of a classic song on the same CD album and I love so much, when I began choreographing I realized the huge obstacle in front of me. I found out the meaning of this song is means a girl/person from Eskanderany, or Eskanserani (Alexandria, Egypt). Oh ya, most of the Eskanderany dance is Melaya Leff dance (or Melaya , Milaya) Although I've been dancing for years, I still came across information about the dance was new to me.

Traditional costume of this dance is Melaya (large black scarf wrapped around the dancer's heads and body), it is part of Alexandria women dress. The dance is always tricky and best for advance students. And me, I only had a 3 hours Melaya workshop with Nuriyya in Singapore few years ago. After that workshop, I said Thanks to Nuriyya and told her I love the style of this dance. I told Nurriya I wanted to perform the dance. I still remember she was very happy and encouraged me to practice and send a video to her if I perform the dance. Then the next day, I went to Arab Street to get my Melaya. It drives me crazy that Malaya was expensive and yet most are made with a square black fabric. Especially since I know that some costumes I can make better than what I can buy. Anyway… no real measurements how to make, finally I bought the Melaya home and had some time to practice it..

Three months later I met Nurriya in Cairo, her first question was “Annie, how is your Melaya dance, do you perform on your hafla?” I smiled and told her No because I am not an Alexandrian women, and not cheeky and flirty when up on the stage. Haha…..made excuses for myself. Again, I promised to her, I will dance to it but till today I don’t. Admittedly, a Melaya is such a great prop, I hope to attend a couple of Melaya workshops before I start to choreograph it.

I did some research of the Melaya dance music/history today, I don’t have much info about the dance but I've picked up a bit here and there. Sorry, I am not going to go into detail in this post as it would take too much time, simply click here to read http://www.raqs.co.nz/raqs/milaya.html if you love the Melaya dance.

That’s ll for now, get back to work, busy day….

New Song

Its rain finally….. The weather was absolutely amazing and I felt good.

My note book and pen is right beside me at this moment, this is when I’m so excited to choreograph a new dance. It is 1am in the morning, I’m so energized, I know it’s night time and I should go to sleep. And you know I can’t sleep, my mind is going and going…. the best idea’s come at this time…..

My boss called me today to make sure I will go back to office tomorrow, he worried I will call in sick at the last minute, hehe… ‘pai say’ (guilty), I have had a lot of practice. I promised I will be in office tomorrow, and now I am going to listen to a music and dance to it, see what comes from tonight….

Hooray Hooray and ”whoot whoot” for this feeling….

Nagging Talk

After the oriental workshop then tribal belly dance workshop. Ugh! My head is FULL. Good thing I got the video to review. I tried out what some of the more complex combinations were taught in Dina’s workshop. I danced and took the video before I forgot everything. I won’t be teaching most of what I learned in Dina’s workshop, but I am adapting some of it to practice, and paring it down and use it in my class later.

In these times I realized that I have so many things I want to accomplish and learn, and I am busy with my dance homework, work out what moves I actually do in my current performance repertoire. Thank God that I have lots of inputs!! Huh….the only thing I wonder…… can we Malaysian dance like an Egyptian? I want so much for this art form that it burns a fire in my heart. If you ask me what is my future plans, well, improve my own capacity for oriental dance…. and keep dancing is my answer.

Here are something that bothers me. Something really weird is happening. My cellphone's beeping sound woke me up last night. I grabbed my cellphone and sleepily pushed the keys and read the message. It seems hard for me to believe when someone forwarded me the ugly message. I’m feeling like …..blahhhhhhh….. So my question is, do people really do these things to get attention? I wondered, when the belly dance community is developing…why are belly dancer feeling insecure? Does your insecurity drive you bring another down, to feed your thriving ego?.

Another practice is, some dancers are pretty smart when it comes to marketing. For example, I just discovered a belly dancer, promoting her dance by using my event’s photos. This is particular type of false advertising. I get really annoyed and I’m going to FIRE the person to take out my photo.

Oppps… sorry too much nagging today!

Salamaat!

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.

Tribal Style Belly Dance Malaysia

Workshop 7 & 8 : “Wait, But There’s More” Advance More

The workshop 7 & 8 was scheduled in February, but due to Chinese New Year Festival, the workshop has been postponed to 7 March 2010 (Sunday). I look forward to attend the more, advance more workshop! I do admit it does make me a little nervous. The most stressful moment for me is I never practice what I have learned from the last workshop. Meanwhile, I stare at my notes, trying to appear calm. Inside, I’m screaming “Oh, hell. I forgot all! I try my best to breathe, Three deep breaths, try to catch everything, so fingers crossed I am OK soon.

First of all, I would like to say a personal thank you to everyone help me kick off this series. I know it’s not always easy to handle the long series workshop. I look forward to the experience, mainly because I trust Nanci Traynor professor & peers. It feels like we’ve seen each other’s work & yet we continue to surprise and challenge one another. That’s where it’s at. That’s how it should be, but it takes a LOT of work to make the workshop experience work for everyone.

We will have at the end of the workshop showcase where we perform, so it’s good to have something official to work towards. So yeah, lots of work, have to do many things and make a final decision.

Hmmm.... I guess that’s about it. Never a dull moment around here, but I find myself not having tons of exciting things to say! Tata… .till next time!

“Dance like a Star” with Hadia

Things have been pretty hectic around here, trying to work, go to class and workshop. So, as usual, my life is jam-packed, but in a very good way! So now you know all about me and what I do around here. So we’ll see what happens. It was another thing that made life very insane….but it was at least an exciting thing!

I CANNOT believe how it’s already March. Where did the time go? Pretty soon Hadia will be back to Malaysia, next Month April!! Cant wait to go back to her Oriental Workshop. Just a gentle reminder, the early payment due date is on 31 March 2010! Don't miss this opportunity to study with Haida - a Master Instructor and Choreographer, Hadia is a World-Renowned. Her dance styles include classical, contemporary, jazz and Middle Eastern dance.

Hadia will be performing for Emily Hafla at Shah Alam on Friday 16^th April 2010. I will update when I get the information out. For more information on Hadia and her many achievements, please visit her web site: www.hadia.com. Please make your workshop reservation early. Visit www.arabesquebellydance.com.my for workshop details. I hope to see you all there for a wonderful weekend.

Thank you for those who have already signed up, your support helps.