Belly Twitters

Dear dancers,

 

I have finally given in to the peeps pressure and set up a Twitter account.

 

For those of you who have one and are online a lot, it would be a great way to get class updates on the day, and info ref. workshops/ dance events etc, so do please follow me if you would!

http://twitter.com/#!/Jasmiini3.

 

Yours in dance,

 

Jasmin

Teaching as a measure of self transformation

When I started teaching Modern Belly Dance at the beginning of 2011, I realised it was going to be an enormous task, and entail a huge responsibility which would push (and require) me to continously learn, improve my knowledge and find new ways of making knowledge accessible to students new to the art form.

Eight months on, I still love teaching dance! Teaching provides a refreshing balance to my mundane, extremely busy office job. It makes me feel alive, like dancing in general. So while at times I feel pressurised with the triple demands of work, volunteering for NGOs and dancing, I know that teaching was the right step in my further progress as a dancer. It not only helps me to change, transform, and continuously improve my teaching methods as well as my own dancing, but I sincerely hope that my approach to teaching empowers students and makes them grow as much as I feel I do.

I have so much to learn still, and I am so grateful I have been able and continue to learn from amazing mentors in the field, Wendy Marlatt, Sam Emanuelle, Suhaila Salimpour to name but a few. Incredibly talented, creative, disciplined, yet ever so modest and generous individuals.

In the near future, events like Celebrating the body in dance which is a showcase taking place on
7 August in the Church Bar, Dublin 1 and workshops (see below) keep me on my toes.

Celebrating the body in dance is the first showcase of what is envisaged to become a sequence of dance events to promote collaboration across various dance styles in Dublin. With a multi-disciplinary background in dance, I am hoping that it will bring dancers of different styles together to learn from one another. Also the event is meant to celebrate what the body is able to achieve and create, as our tool, but also, as our friend. The mini showcase thus aims to promote positive body and self awareness. In such a vein, we have selected Bodywhys as the beneficiary of our first event on Sunday. Both my co-organiser and friend Nadia Gativa and I are hoping for a good turn out and for performers and audience to dance the night away. For more infos on the event see https://www.facebook.com/jasmin.victoria.dance#!/event.php?eid=188820901182293
and my website http://jasbellyfusion.com/upcoming_and_past_events.html

Meanwhile, on a personal front, I am still searching for a vacancy and occupation in my field, and am continously pondering how lovely it would be to just go off to travel for a year, and then enroll in a dance academy full-time. If only I was a millionaire, this would be a done deal already.

Hope to see you all at Celebrating the body in dance this Sunday and future workshops.

Jasmin

Flyer courtesy by Natalie Dwyer, Photo by Nadia Gativa

Modern Fusion Masterclasses in Cork on 20 August from 2- 6 pm!

I am very excited to announce that Hip Circles Bellydance will host me for two Modern Fusion Choreography Master Classes in Cork, Ireland!

Come join me on Saturday the 20th of August at the The Montfort College of Performing Arts at the Thompson House, on McCurtain Street, Cork City Centre.

This class will suit all levels of experience.
Investment: 45eur (4 hour class, a bargain!)

**************************​************
Early-Bird for 40eur if paid by 10 August 2011

 

For more info please see https://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/event.php?eid=219168138125478 and contact Graziela Calis at hipcirclesbellydance@gmail​.com for bookings.

Also, visit my website at http://www.jasbellyfusion.com/ for more info on weekly classes and workshops.

 

 

******** PART ONE: TECHNIQUE SKILLS ********

Warm-up (Strengthening and flexibility exercises, accessing muscles needed for belly dance isolations and warming up to safely execute technique. We will emphasize the necessity to warm up thoroughly by introducing a set of strengthening and flexibility exercises that are easily adaptable to your own practice)

* Fluid arm transitions and mesmerizing arms
* Precise isolations (head, shoulders, chest, pelvis- distinction between hard and soft contractions)
* Walking with reverse belly roll and learning travelling patterns (step cross)
* Travelling steps layering smooth contractions on top
* Turns (spotting technique practice and stylisation)
* Smooth transitions between turns (coming down to floor safely)
* Safe backbend technique
* Introduction of combos to prepare students for Dope Crunk choreo.

This set will teach students how to safely execute selected belly dance technique. An understanding of safe technique will promote the skilful and clear use of a variety of belly dance moves for choreographic purposes. For starters, various concepts, such as precise isolations, fluid undulations and transitions, turns technique and quick (yet, safe) floor transitions as well as back bending technique will be introduced. A thorough understanding of these notions will prepare students for the modern fusion belly dance choreography session to follow. It will give students an opportunity to learn and/or perfect their existing belly dance isolations and moves, asking questions about executing them safely and preserving clarity in movement. It will also provide dancers with vital technical pointers in order to promote muscle control and heighten presentational skills.


***** PART TWO: CHOREOGRAPHY SKILLS ******
(to Dope Crunk by Beats Antique)

* Musical Analysis (mood of the song, emotions invoked/belly dance repertory it inspires)
* Counting and choreographic skills
* Choreographic combo drills (learn them individually and then put them together)
* Drilling choreography in a group set up (groups present it to one another)
* Whole group performing the coreo (taping)

This set will take technical concepts and choreographic combos introduced in the general skills class to the next level, by putting those skills into the context of a 4-minute long choreography to Dope Crunk by Beats Antique, one of the leading bands in the Tribal Fusion world. Study items will include musical analysis and choreographic skills. We will learn the modern belly dance choreography thoroughly by breaking it down into digestible components (combos). Students will thus sharpen their memorising skills by repeating individual combos and then executing them in the correct sequence. We will eventually drill the whole choreography, taking care to respect group synchronicity and then present the finished piece to our fellow dancers. At the end of the second class the whole group will be able to perform the Dope Crunk piece together and have fun with it, putting their own emotional twist on it.

Finally, a gentle cool down will stretch out and soothe the body and the mind after training.

 

I am really looking forward to this and cannot wait to meet the Cork dancers and dancers from across Ireland to join me for these classes!

 

Jasmin

 

 

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

Recap on 2010

The year 2010 was generally a good one for me, albeit local doomsters painting the (Irish) world pitch black and hopeless. The year was full of dance, an essential part of my life without which (alongside with music, art and languages) I do not think I would manage as well as I do. Dance sustains me and eases the aspects in my life that still need working on (the job situation, relationships, myself and a general tendency to shy away from resolving difficult situations). I met wonderful people, travelling to dance workshops/events, twice to Amsterdam to events hosted by the wonderful Tjarda and Renate from The Uzume, and twice in Ireland. Travelling up to Belfast I had another great opportunity to study with Samantha Emanuel, and down to Cork, with Olivia Kissel who was one of the first dance teachers from abroad whose tribal workshops I took about five or six years ago.

Dance also taught me a lot this year- a lot was negative, finding that you can solely rely on yourself in a (dance) world which is often not as loyal as it would appear to the external spectator. Realising that finding like-minded individuals who you can trust and work with for a long time, is very seldom. Realising that what matters most is to rely on yourself and to be happy with the decisions you take and the things you intend to achieve in order to attain balance and happiness in your life. And cutting out negative factors, which includes negative people. All these realisations were positive and have helped me grow as a person, or so I hope.

I am really looking forward to 2011 and to doing all those things that I have postponed for too long, training harder, being more confident in myself and my talents and following my own path, regardless (of opinions).
Teaching classes is one way of challenging myself, and to take the responsibility of sharing what I learnt from my tribal fusion belly dance teachers over the last few years, Wendy Marlatt and Sam Emanuel being two of the most significant. It is also a progression of what my parents introduced  into my life when I was a little girl starting ballet classes at age 5 1/2. Dance will always accompany me in one shape or the other much like music gets me through the day and lifts my mood, and painting allows me to dive into another world.

Here is to 2011- May it be a year full of joy, productivity, dance and positivity!
Be true to yourself and the to the people around you is the motto that will accompany me this year, hoping it will give me more insight and enrich my life with balance and better decision taking.

Rock on New Year!