Suhaila Salimpour Intensive Brighton 14-17 July 2011

A belated, yet still extremely excited post outlining my thoughts on attending Suhaila Salimpour´s Intensive in Brighton from 14-17 July 2011. I want to thank Hilde Canoodt for organizing this wonderful event and providing European students and lovers of the Salimpour format with the opportunity to study with a legend. After meeting Suhaila, I remember her as wonderful teacher who believes in tough love and brings out the best in everyone by pushing her students in a positive and very healthy way. I love her format, and truly, the ideas and intention behind her approach to teaching. Studying with Suhaila was such a privilege and really reinforced my conviction that preparing for her certification is the right way to go.

Her technique is based on a muscular approach to mastering belly dance, regardless of what stylization you settle with eventually due to personal preference (be it traditional, modern belly dance, Tribal Fusion).
I really appreciate the way the format brings out individual discipline and students really work hard to achieve the tasks Suhaila is giving them (us). The whole weekend was full of (sweaty) wholesome training, devotion, pieces of valuable historical information on American style belly dance and yet more buckets of sweat. I loved it!

I particularly enjoyed the way Suhaila started the weekend with an introduction to the Jamila Salimpour format. Her mother Jamila is the "grandmother" of modern belly dance and we really owe her a lot. Learning about her through her daughter is a grand privilege. It beats reading up on the history of the dance via internet channels and it is wonderful to be able to learn directly from the source. The rest of the weekend was dedicated to Suhaila´s format, and both her and her two assistants did such an amazing job. I was largely familiar with drills because of my personal training (via her online classes) but the extra pieces of advice were so invaluable and I cannot wait to progress and dedicate myself more to the study of her format.

And really, I wish Suhaila could be coming to (and staying in Dublin) to promote the art form in this city. To have her around as a mentor must be incredible, and make you grow so much as a dancer.

I hope to attend one of her Intensives and study with her in her California based studio soon.

Thanks for a wonderful weekend, so much passion and knowledge you passed on to us at this event.

For more infos on upcoming events I am attending see http://jasbellyfusion.com/upcoming_and_past_events.html

Jasmin

Layercake Belly Bliss Class 30 July

This Saturday 30 July, I taught a modern belly dance layering class in the Dublin Holistic Centre.

I generally really enjoy teaching dance and passing my knowledge of modern belly dance on to my students. This goes for my regular weekly classes, and also for workshops which give me the opportunity to dedicate even more time to a specific theme. I am so happy I was joined by a select dedicated students of mine for this layering class. Thanks so much for coming! Your enthusiasm and support keeps me going.

However, at times, and at the moment in particular, I am finding Dublin a tough place to be when it come to passion and dedication to dance. I am imagining dance hubs like San Francisco (Tribal Fusion), New York and London and automatically, I visualize crowds of dedicated students and a level of commitment which is not generally that common in Dublin. I am hoping that with time, I and my friends in (Modern Belly) dance will be able to promote the dance form, and knowledge as well as passion of modern belly dance in the city. Because dedication and regular attendance in students makes it so much easier to teach and keeps any teacher extremely motivated to keep sharing!

Here is to more classes, workshops and more Dublin belly dancers in the future.
Check out http://jasbellyfusion.com/upcoming_and_past_events.html
for more info on future events.


Jasmin

Free Taster Beginner Belly Bliss 30 July

This Saturday 30 July 2011, I taught a free beginner taster class in the beautiful Dublin Holistic Centre studios in Dublin 2. It was an amazing session, and I want to thank all the participants for attending this class. Here is to more belly dancers to join and enrich the Dublin dance community with their enthusiasm and spirit in the future!


For those of you interested in regular classes, please visit the below website for more information.


http://jasbellyfusion.com/class_info.html


Improvers Modern Fusion Belly Dance  

Wednesdays from 6 45 pm until 8 45 pm
Dublin Holistic Centre, South William Street, Dublin 2

Beginner Modern Fusion Belly Dance

Tuesdays from 5 30 until 7 pm

Studio 99, South Circular Road, Dublin 8

Do not hesitate to contact me for more info.


There will be changes to the class set up in the near future which I will keep you posted about. 

Drop-in for the moment is available at 13 Euro for the beginner and 17 Euro for the Wednesday class, but I am thinking of introducing class passes (5 and 10 classes) to avoid dealing with payments every week.


Thanks for your attendance and support.
Jasmin