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Taqsim (Arabic: تَقْسِيم‎ / ALA-LC: taqsīm; Greek: ταξίμι, romanized: taksimi, Turkish: taksim) is a melodic musical improvisation that usually precedes the performance of a traditional Arabic, Greek, Middle Eastern, or Turkish musical composition. Wikipedia Taking a moment this week to indulge my musical side. Long before dance called to me, I was a musician. Western stylised trained but I always had my eye on anything that had a different melodic tuning or timing. When my first teacher introduced me to the Taqsim, I was curious, but also completely terrified of it! Improvisation was not a space I was comfortable in. Over...

“The upper limb is the lightning rod to the soul.” Robert Markison Hands – those funny things that hang off the end of your arms. They are a significant part of what separates us physically from other mammals and an underrated part of our body when it comes to dancing. When dancing, your hand and fingers, when held in a nice position, can finish your arm line and make your reach appear longer than it really is. They can bring attention to a part of your body by framing it or by literally pointing at it. They also help us...

Documenting dance. Sounds super un-fun right? But, also kind of essential. After all, it’s one thing to remember what you’ve done, but something entirely different to remember it tomorrow! For example, I’ve spent the better part of the last 2 hours dreaming up combos for a workshop I’m running next weekend. I’ve tried them out, I’ve found music and worked out the steps and their order. How would I remember what I’ve done? Videoing isn’t great (and doesn’t look good as the teacher to be on your phone – even if its to re-watch your combos), which really only leaves…...

Our feet are planted in the real world but we dance with angels… John C Mitchell Feet. They’re those floppy bits on the end of your legs. They support everything that you do while you are upright from standing to walking and dancing. They connect us to the ground, take the full weight of our bodies. We bash them, push them, drag them along the ground, and often don’t really give them a lot of thought if they’re not hurting. But how much do they really do? Fun Feet Facts There are 19 muscles in each foot and some of...

Belly dancing isn’t one of the more “normal” options when it comes to selecting a dance style. So it often comes as a bit of a surprise to people when I say that I’m a belly dancer! One of the next questions I’m commonly asked is “why do you belly dance?” “Why not?” Is often the answer that first comes to mind. But in this post, I’d like to take you through my top 3 reasons I love belly dance. It feels good Moving your body generates feel good chemicals in the brain. Plus as you dance, you gain an...

When I originally had the idea to share some of my belly dance life hacks, I thought I’d do a quick search to see what everyone else had already blogged about – I made a huge discovery! There are many posts out there covering belly dance life hacks, but they all seem to share the same 4-5 hacks! I didn’t want to fall into the same trap, so I compared notes to a few belly dance friends to see what I do differently and came up with the belly dance life hacks below. Hope they help you out as much...

Like most dance styles that have been around for a while, there are always those common myths and questions that people have. I’ve collated some of the ones about belly dance below, along with some of the common themes in questions I’ve seen. There are a lot more questions than these for sure, but I’ll leave them for another day. 1. How long does it take to learn belly dancing? All it takes is 1 lesson (yes one!) to start learning how to belly dance. However that’s not really the question here is it!The best part (for me) about belly...

I’d like to confess something up front, I’m a procrastinator. Yes, a procrastinator. As in I put off doing tasks until I have no options but to get it done. But a part of growing as a dancer (and as an adult), requires me to overcome obstacles in my path – one of which is my procrastination. Practice makes perfect… when you do it It’s really easy to not practice right. It feels good, and you’d happy “noodle” around all day, but do you really practice your dance? That’s me in a sentence right there. I am more than happy...

I was struck by a moment of inspiration this last weekend. My jingly-appreciative-belly-dance-husband and I went to Sydney to see a concert as a part of the Vivid Festival at the Sydney Opera House. While I let the music coming off the stage wash over me, with its complexities, I found myself daydreaming about how I could dance to this music. I looked around the room and took in the full effect of the concert hall, how the room was setup for the optimal auditory experience from any seat. How the music was moving people to get up and dance...

If you’re happy and you know it… clap your hands.But what if you can’t clap as a part of your performance? How would you show happiness on a stage? Or sadness. Or anger. A part of being a performer is knowing how to act – even for a dancer. Knowing how to shape my body to portray the emotion the song demands. To express through my core the feelings the musicians are putting into their music. Part of this puzzle is knowing what emotion the musicians want you to play, we’ll come back to that at another time. But when...

Continuing in our “Belly dance 101” series, we are going to take a look at all the major different styles of belly dance in this post. So how do you style your dance? The body can only move in so many different ways, so the different styles of belly dance comes through in how movements are sequenced and how they are “dressed up”. Egyptian Raqs Sharqi and the associated folkloric styles I’m going to group together a lot of what people may consider “separate styles” here under the one banner of “Egyptian Raqs Sharqi and associated folkloric styles”. Which may...

I’ve just finished another week of amazing training with Suhaila Salimpour from the Salimpour School of Belly Dance. The week elicited emotions from pure joy at finding freedom in dancing to the music, to frustration when my body wouldn’t operate the way I wanted it to and everything in between – hope, sadness, happiness and love. All these emotions gave me the drive to push harder, to be more. It’s taken me a while to truly understand that the emotional ride is a part of the learning path. If I allow my inner procrastinator to take over, I will get...

While some of you readers may be well versed in what Belly Dance is, I’m sure there’s a few who are a little confused, or are curious to learn a little more before you take the plunge on your first belly dance class. So without further ado, welcome to APB Dance Belly Dance 101! What is belly dance? Belly dance is the western phrase that was given to a group of dancers done by middle eastern (aka. northern African. Mediterranean and gulf), people. It encompasses many different styles from Cario stage to street style Shaabi, Saidi folk cane dancing, Debke,...

Happy Chooseday! I was clicking through the Tedx talk archives the other day and came across an interesting talk given by a choreographer who showed how he works with dancers to build choreographies. He even built one using two dancers on stage during the talk! So I started to explore this concept myself. How many different shapes could I make within a letter? Would it change the quality or texture of my dance? In the above, I explored the ‘T’ shape in the space around me. I found I was strangely limited by a lot of the normal moves and...

Did you know that there is more to learning dance than just learning how to move your body? On this Chooseday, we are going to look into how you can get more out of your dance by learning more about it. Every dance format has history. Our teachers learnt from someone, who likely learnt it from someone, who learnt it …. you get the idea. What should I learn? Now for the hobbyist, you may not care too much about where the dance comes from, you’re in it for the movement and the feeling of freedom it gives you, or...

Welcome back to Chooseday! If you are new to Chooseday you can catch up on the previous posts here (It’s ok we’ll wait while you catch up). Done? Great! This week I want to chat about the simplest practice you can do. It’s an amazing way to supplement (not replace) your normal practice as you can do it nearly anywhere*. It’s called a “microwave practice” or a “kettle practise”. I can see a few of you looking at me crazily, with puzzled expressions (well except that one reader who knows exactly what I’m talking about #highfive). Effectively what I’m talking...

Why do you belly dance? Why do you dance? Why do you perform? Why do you create art? 10 years ago, I was convinced to come with a friend to a belly dance class that was a short walk from my house. We danced a term of beginners together and then she moved to the west coast of the country. Typical. I, however, was hooked and persisted. There was something in the feel of the movement and the music the teacher picked that came together for me and left me wanting to learn more. Fast forward 6 years of weekly...

My personal practices took a bit of a secondary position last week due to my eldest daughter’s 5th birthday. If you’ve ever had kids or known someone who has kids, then you’ll know what a major adventure and investment in time this is, especially for the kid! She wanted a superhero themed birthday party as she has been watching the original Wonder Woman and Batman tv series on occasion. So theme party invites, entertainer dressed as Wonder Woman and themed cake were a must! The cake was definitely the highlight of the party from the parents point of view. The...

In an ideal world, this post would be a short one that said You are worthwhile, deal with it. But we as humans are far more complex than that. We think. We analyse. We worry. We convince ourselves we are small, nothing, not noteworthy because we don’t have the amazing ideas that we hear others sharing. We aren’t saving babies or endangered animals. So obviously we aren’t important. WRONG. We are all afflicted by the same problem. We think we are less than we are. The difference between you and that person who stood up and told the world about...