Levels of Musicality
Now, I don't mean levels in terms of how skilled a dancer is, this post is about how zoomed in, or out, on the music you are. Each level...
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Student Resources
Here, you will find student reading, including links to other resources, material written by our teachers, and links to lots of video clips!
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Lisa Lumina
- Mar 8, 2021
- 2 min
Uncertainty, Improv, and Trusting Yourself
I'm writing this in early June of 2020. Quarantine for Covid-19 is still in effect here (and cases are rising in places that have broken...
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Lisa Lumina
- Mar 7, 2021
- 2 min
Level One: Circle Unit, Class 1
Articles I promised short articles each week to give the dance some context. This week: a little about our history and the origins of the...
290
Lisa Lumina
- Mar 7, 2021
- 2 min
Level One: Circle Unit, Class 2
Articles There are many styles of raqs sharki (the Arabic name for bellydance), influenced by changes in politics, technology, and...
321
Lisa Lumina
- Mar 7, 2021
- 1 min
Level One: Circle Unit, Class 3
Articles One of the beautiful things about bellydance is it gives a place for women to have community. This piece is from the e-Zine...
190
Lisa Lumina
- Mar 7, 2021
- 2 min
Level One: Circle Unit, Class 4
Articles While bellydance is generally dominated by cis-women, there is a long history of men and gender-queer folks bellydancing as...
160
Lisa Lumina
- Mar 7, 2021
- 2 min
How Bellydance History is Like Molecular Physics
Bellydancers have come up with some incredible stories to explain the origins of our dance. And while we can know a lot about the past...
190
Lisa Lumina
- Mar 7, 2021
- 2 min
Level One: Figure 8 Unit, Class 1
Articles I promised short articles each week to give the dance some context. This week: a little on the history of bellydance, and the...
220
Lisa Lumina
- Mar 7, 2021
- 2 min
Level One: Figure 8 Unit, Class 2
Articles I mentioned the more traditional way of teaching this class. Western way of teaching and learning, with a very codified way of...
230
Lisa Lumina
- Mar 7, 2021
- 2 min
Level One: Figure 8 Unit, Class 3
Articles There is a concept in Arabic music called Tarab, which loosely means "the ecstasy of listening" and is a sort of trance like...
170
Lisa Lumina
- Mar 7, 2021
- 2 min
Level One: Figure 8 Unit, Class 4
Articles There are many ways raqs sharki can be healing: it brings us back emotionally in touch with our bodies, balances physical muscle...
130
Lisa Lumina
- Mar 6, 2021
- 6 min
"Wishtory" and the Search for Origins
The following is a reader's digest/compilation of three articles, "Fact or Fiction: Which Belly Dance Urban Legends Should You Believe?"...
150
Lisa Lumina
- Mar 6, 2021
- 2 min
Level One: Infinities Unit, Class 1
Articles Old fantasies had people in the West thinking that raqs sharki (the Arabic name for bellydance) was a dance of seduction, but...
210
Lisa Lumina
- Mar 6, 2021
- 2 min
Level One: Infinities Unit, Class 2
Articles I want you all to find your own voice. Shems articulates well how all this movement vocabulary fits into learning how to dance...
100
Lisa Lumina
- Mar 6, 2021
- 2 min
Level One: Infinities Unit, Class 3
Articles I wanted to take a second to talk about the ways bellydance can be therapeutic, of course it can also be just plain fun ^_^...
180
Lisa Lumina
- Mar 6, 2021
- 2 min
Level One: Infinities Unit, Class 4
Articles Borderns drawn by colonizers have contributed a lot to the diaspora from countries in the Levant and beyond. In this week's...
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Lisa Lumina
- Mar 5, 2021
- 4 min
Orientation to Oriental Dance Styles
Post 1 of 11 To kick things off lets get our bearings, here is the diagram created by Nadira Jamal showing the relationship of...
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Lisa Lumina
- Mar 5, 2021
- 4 min
Finding Music to Practice to: a Guide for Beginners
When you're looking for music to practice to, you have several options. While you're waiting for CDs to arrive in the mail, or sampling...
160
Lisa Lumina
- Mar 5, 2021
- 2 min
Level One:Undulations Unit, Class 1
Articles The proper names for bellydance are raqs sharki, in Arabic, and dans oryantal, in Turkish. Besides the music and torso focused...
130
Lisa Lumina
- Mar 5, 2021
- 2 min
Level One:Undulations Unit, Class 2
Articles Raqs sharki has, for as long as we know, existed under patriarchy. And if you REALLY want to dive into an academic discussion of...
110
Lisa Lumina
- Mar 5, 2021
- 2 min
Level One:Undulations Unit, Class 3
Articles During the history of gaining respect for raqs sharki/dans oryantale as a family friendly dance there have been efforts to...
100
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