Dancing Isis Dance!

Archive for March, 2009

It’s 1975 and the sound of Billy Thorpe and the Aztecs rocks the Kings Theatre in Mt Gambier, South Australia. I am on the dance floor lost to the beat, my hair flying – my body knows the timing, the rhythm, as if we are one. The song is over I open my eyes and there is a space around me; my fellow revellers have given me room to move. That is how it was for me in my teens in the 70’s. Abandoned to the beat of Rock, transcending the moment. In the turbulence of my teenage years, this was my refuge, my home; to dance.

In hindsight Trance has always been in my life, it was my connection to something bigger than me, something that made me feel good. It took me out of whatever I was stuck in, for a while. It didn’t have a name then, the concept of Trance did not exist in my little world; in a town in the South East of South Australia.

Many years later when I finally found Middle Eastern Dance (MED) I also found Tribal and Trance. I found the names for this feeling of oneness. The Egyptian Zaar, the head spinning, the hair flying, it was just like being on that dance floor, by then I had grown up, I had left that world behind and had made a new life with a family of my own, in a city that connected me to a bigger world and a big cultural melting pot.

As I explored MED and all its technicalities, I always came back to the tribal indigenous aspect of it, which included Trance. I learnt about the healing aspect of these dances, I learnt about how cultures used them for these purposes and that dance; ecstatic dance, propels you to another consciousness. I have come to understand myself and why I am drawn to Trance dance and the importance of it in my life and how as a tormented teenager, it kept me sane and alive.

Trance or dance is my meditation. It is where I can release my thoughts . . . and go within. The older I get the clearer it is. Something that is an issue can be given over to the dance and a solution will show itself, without effort or thought, simply through dance.

Gabrielle Roth, leading exponent of Ecstatic dance and creator of the “5 rhythms”, has this to say about Trance:
“I mean for me God is the dance. God is energy, motion, energy in motion, motion is energy and that’s all one thing for me. And I can rely on it, because there’s no dogma in the dance. There’s nothing to believe there is nothing to hold onto. There’s only a force, a current, a wave, a cycle, a pattern to continually surrender to and to allow that to shift and change us, to take that which is disparate or divided and make it whole”. *

When Gabrielle talks about dogma she is referring to the constraints of organised religion and particularly Catholicism. Being brought up a Catholic myself, I understand what she is saying. What Catholicism has done for many of us “Once was Catholics”, is to take us on a spiritual quest for our own meaning of God. In the name of God many religions that originally practised dance as a way to God banished it. Catholicism and Islam are two such examples.

Trance dance takes place all over the world, all indigenous cultures have their own version of it. The characteristic of Trance music is repetition, simple repetition. The driving beat is a constant, something your body can trust so that your body can keep responding and releasing. In modern Western society, electronic music and the pursuit of Trance have created Rave gatherings.
What make Techno Rave gatherings like Earth Core and the Rainbow Serpent Festival so appealing is the constant loud driving beat and a place to be totally wild and abandoned. Personally, I can only take the Techno doof beat in small doses. After a while I long for the human touch, the emotional content, I respond more to the organic sounds that come from the skin of a drum or a person directly creating the sound. But for the thousands who go to these events it is their Trance.

Krusty, DJ, convenor of Rainbow Serpent Festival has this to say;
“You’ve got absolutely amazing frequencies coming out of those speaker boxes. And once you start dancing for a while you just start to resonate with those frequencies, they go right through your whole cellular structure, so that your whole body starts to vibrate. And when you’re all dancing en masse, with a number of other people, you all start to vibrate with that frequency, then the whole dance floor becomes a single organism.” *

That is what is great and in our ever-changing world, caught in a war between terror and trust, to be dancing with all of those people transcending is the best place to be.

I am very fortunate to have the opportunity to dance with musicians who also love to play transcendent music. Musicians are one with the dance, it is a pulse that works together as we play Sufi music, “Sufi music means any music that connects with the heart. It is the music of submission and surrender that bonds humans to God and transcends all religious boundaries. The sound of the Ney (reed flute) symbolises the lamenting and longing for the Beloved. The constant rhythmic beat of the Dafs (frame drum), the daf’s frame or circle symbolises the circle of love and each of the rings inside the Daf symbolises each one of us. The Zikr, a sacred phrase “La Ilaha, El Allah Hu” is spoken or sung aloud, and means “There is no reality, except God”  The chant HU is the ancient name for God, a love song to God. When Soul has heard this sound, Soul yearns to go home. From this place I whirl around my axis. Then the Ney ends and the percussion builds up and the Ayoubi beat gets faster and faster. I become the Zaar, and I begin to release my bones, my thoughts, and my body vibrates to the beat – it is not just me is all of us. Till finally I hit the floor.

The Egyptian Zaar’s movements are common to many North African cultures. An example of this is the Hadra ritual from Morocco. The Hadra is a healing trance ceremony in which music and dance are aimed at the attainment of ecstasy. It has its roots in Sufism. The Haddarat women of Essaouria sing and chant invoking holy men and spirits, communicating with other worlds. Each rhythm has many symbolic meanings, from healing powers to exorcism.
“When the rhythm starts, you feel like something is coming into your body; like something shaking. You don’t remember anything when you are in trance. You will be sitting with people and when the rhythm starts, that’s the last thing you remember, until you come to, when the incense is smoked over you” Lala Aicha *

In our performance of Zikr and Zaar we cross cultures from Turkey to Egypt. We are inspired by the Whirling Dervishes founded by Jelaluddin Rumi, who was inspired by love to write spiritual poetry and to whirl. This is taken from The Essential Rumi translated by Coleman Barks with John Moyne.
“The Turn”, the moving meditation done by Mevlevi dervishes, originated with Rumi. The story goes that he was walking in the gold-smithing section of Konya when he heard beautiful music in their hammering. He began turning in harmony with it, an ecstatic dance of surrender and yet with great centred discipline. He arrived at a place where ego dissolved and a resonance with universal soul comes in – Dervish literally means ‘doorway’. When what is communicated moves from presence to presence darshan occurs, with language inside the seeing. When the gravitational pull gets even stronger, the two become one turning that is molecular and galactic and a spiritual remembering of the presence at the centre of the universe. Turning is an image of how the dervish becomes an empty place where human and divine can meet. To approach the whole the part must become mad, by conventional standards at least. There ecstatic holy people, called matzubs in the sufi tradition, redefine this sort of madness as true health.”

As an entertainer/performer I have performed whirling and the Zaar many times. It is very challenging to do this, as in its purity it is not a performance. When I am not performing and just in my dance it is a very different experience. Over the years it has been a huge challenge to go into myself and to marry the consciousness of performer with the abandonment of the moment.

Last year I performed at the launch of the film Dances of Ecstasy. I spent the week prior to the event preparing myself. I ate lightly, I made myself a special dress. My intention was to be centred and focused and on marrying these two elements: the performance and the trance. I did two performances one at the beginning and one close to the end. The whole evening was an incredible journey. It began with the whirling, me; a white figure appearing in the middle of a room full of hundreds of people. The people are watching; I am being watched, but I am also somewhere else. I then leave the venue for a while to then return and do the Zaar. I call upon the spirits of the Haddarat women featured in the film, and as the rhythm begins and I come out into the middle of the crowded dance floor, I come to feel my myself transported to the desert, to that place in my spirit memory and to the dance floor in 1975. When I finish I can barely walk off the dance floor – if I could have, I would have stayed there on the floor. Krusty’s speakers begin to pump a tech beat and everyone goes wild. Many hands help me off and I collapse on the floor back stage. I was as high as a kite, lying on my back with this euphoric smile on my face I don’t know how long I stayed there I know that for the duration of my dance, I had taken the crowd back to the Moroccan women and the Hadra.

Trance dance ultimately is a personal journey. There are no rules to your response. Two people could have a completely different response at the same time. I give workshops in Zaar, Whirling and Trance. Although there is no technique or steps as such, there are important things to consider. In my workshops I encourage participants to eat lightly or to fast beforehand. Before we abandon to the beat, we prepare. Firstly we need to Breathe. The breath is everything; the breath allows you to release tension in your body and your mind, to bring you into your centre and to feel where you are at on a cellular level. From the breath we begin to find ways to access release in our muscles, bones and thinking mind.  From there you are guided through various process to induce a physical and mental trance state.

I will leave you with one of Jelaluddin Rumi’s poems

Dance when you’re broken open.
Dance if you’ve torn the bandage off
Dance in the middle of fighting.
Dance in your blood.
Dance, when you’re perfectly free.

Reference
Barks, C. (trans.) with Moyne, J. (19  ) The Essential Rumi  Castle Books

* Quotes are taken from the film Dances of Ecstasy by Michelle Mahrer and Nicole Ma.
This is available on DVD. Go to http://www.dancesofecstacy.com/

Dance when you’re broken open.
Dance if you’ve torn the bandage off
Dance in the middle of fighting.
Dance in your blood.
Dance, when you’re perfectly free.
Jelaluddin Rumi – 13th century

Rumi understood the power of dance as a catalyst for transformation. Last year we celebrated Rumi’s 800th birthday and Yalla celebrated 10 years of bringing their love of Middle Eastern music and dance to Australia. Yalla has another incarnation which is called The Sanctuary Ensemble. It was formed in 2003 to celebrate the Spirit of Rumi, playing traditional and inspired Sufi music, reading his words and to dance. Yalla’s focus has been to bring upbeat Middle Eastern music and dance to its audiences, The Sanctuary Ensemble is a way that we can express the deeper connection and to embody the contemplative transcendental side of this music and dance that resonates so deeply in our hearts.

The traditional aspect of what we play in Sanctuary is called a “Zirk” which means remembrance of Allah. It is the music of submission and surrender that bonds humans to God and transcends all religious boundaries. The whirling which is a part of the Zirk is the dance of turning like the earth spinning on its axis. There is also the Zaar which is a dance of release done by rhythmically swaying side to side and then releasing the head, the neck and allowing it to roll vigorously round and round until the dancer falls to the ground. This is one aspect of Sanctuary. The other aspect is the improvisational pieces that accompany the poetry and some original compositions all interpreted through dance.

I have always been drawn to expressing the unity of poetry and music. When the three become one the dancer is no longer the soloist, she becomes the element that weaves the music and the words. The dancer is not a distraction, she is the embodiment – you can still hear the word and the music as the dancer weaves them together.

I asked Harb Gill one of our readers why Sanctuary is important for her; she said “it takes me straight to the heart, because, like any meaningful art, that is where it comes from. The mesmerising music, moving ancient songs, Rumi’s words and wave upon wave of whirling dance all combine to open the heart and still the mind. I come out of it refreshed, harmonious and invigorated.”
This is true for all of us this is why we chose to embrace the art and spiritual practice from another culture that is essentially a Muslim practice when none of us are Muslim.

The most important instrument in this Sufi practice is the Ney. The Ney is a flute, made from a reed cut from a river bed that is hollowed out in the middle. It has nine holes that are said to represent the nine orifices of the body. The Ney makes hauntingly beautiful sounds and it is said to represent the yearning the lament the wanting to return to source. As the Soul also yearns to be united and to return to the source. When I dance the sound of the Ney moves through my spine and as the notes move so does my spine travelling through me carrying the words. Each time the same poem is read the words take on a deeper meaning that in turn deepens my dance.

The Chants called Illahi’s are also accompanied by percussion. The chants are played in various Macams which are like musical scales, each with a different meaning stirring a different emotions, used for different reasons, and at different times of the days and on different occasions. We are all involved in singing Illahi’s. I asked Ngame Grzisik our principal vocalist and composer what the dance meant to her in Sanctuary, she said, “ In this Sufi music, the dance expresses the flow of thought, feeling and spirit. The dancer responds deeply and intuitively to the poetry the music and sounds and whole experience of the group.”

While the sound of the Ney flute symbolises the lamenting and longing for the Beloved, the constant rhythmic beat of the Daf is the heart beat the driving pulse. The Daf is a frame drum of which the circle symbolises the circle of love and each of the rings inside it is each one of us.

Mik our percussionist said that performing in The Sanctuary Ensemble is a unique experience. He said, “drumming, entrancing, witnessing connection between word, music and dance. Learning about self and the nature of all things. Realising this connection also has taught me a lot about what prayer actually is. The wisdom of the text of Rumi is universal and not of one religion. That each religion fundamentally is universal. That each method of prayer to his/her own is equal in outcome. The expression of the dancer is from the heart – their prayer”.

The Sanctuary Ensemble celebrates the connection to this music and dance that has helped to bridge the cultural gap between Australian and Middle Eastern cultural and religions beliefs. Art, Music and Dance can transcend these boundaries.

As an artist I have the privilege to share the beauty of another culture with the community at large.

“As waves upon my head the circling curl,
So in the sacred dance weave ye and whirl.
Dance then, O heart, a whirling circle be.
Burn in this flame – is not the candle He? ”
Rumi

Rumi Translations by Colman Barks

Maria Sangiorgi

This is what some of the women had to say about the last retreat:

Beautiful Maria the last couple of days flash back in my mind I smile and giggle with delight . . . and at your beauty. I bow down in honour & appreciation for what magic you have sparked in me by being you and sharing it. Thank you AT

I still feel the ongoing joys and peace of that weekend and especially of connecting in such a special way with such amazing women. (Very like the image of the card I pulled on the first evening: the three dancing fates. I remember saying there was so much music and harmony in that image.) It continues to feed a small sacred sanctuary within me: my home, my springboard for dancing, enjoying good food, connecting with an open heart, living with all the messy, noisy, loving, peaceful vigour which is being without boundaries. Thank you!! NM

What a beautiful few weeks since the retreat . . . I am exploding with creativity and possibilities Thankyou to all of you,
Love and sunshine and hugs C

I feel so blessed to have met you all and to have shared such a beautiful time with you! I came back feeling sooo refreshed and ready to look for new possibilities and to get more out of life than I have before. It was so special being with people who are like-minded and I felt that every woman I met connected with me, especially during our dancing! What a wonderful and liberating experience it was. Thank you all for your kindness and sharing your beautiful spirits with me!

Lots of love DD

For 15 years I have had a varied and colourful relationship with the MED community. It has brought out the best and the worst in me. Writing the Newsletter made me confront myself. Opening myself up and saying, well, here I am:  This is me. I’m going to tell you things I think, do, say.  I’m going to promote what I do and who I am.

A group of my close women friends (not involved in MED) are nicknamed after inanimate objects.  Mine is “Can Opener”. I like to get things out in the open, not something many people are comfortable with – not even me.

This industry is governed predominantly by women. With such a strong female base we could embrace the notion of operating our businesses in a less linear, go-getter, patriarchal manner. Many of us are trying, but alas I understand within the parameters of Western society we have a long way to go.

When women first come to this dance they find sanctuary in private women’s business. They talk, play, dance and dress up. A Sisterhood is formed. This happens primarily amongst students, the teacher may or may not be a part of it.  She may generate the sisterhood or it may be self-generating. Organically it blossoms week after week.  This sisterhood can be found in cities, towns and  rural communities all over the Western World.  In a rural town this can be the only outlet a woman has, away from her family and work. This can go on for years, especially for the student with no aspiration to become a professional dancer or women in rural areas. Some groups become so close that if one leaves, they all leave and remain friends.

As the dancer moves up the professional ladder and becomes a teacher and entertainer this sisterhood becomes more fraught with difficulty.  A teacher can maintain her sisterhood with her students.  However, in the outside world (with her peers and contemporaries), ego, money, status, power, jealousy can and does get in the way.

This industry, with a 95%** female content has the opportunity to develop the power of the feminine far beyond any other industry on this planet.

Thousands of women all over the world empowering each other.  A Matriarchy of strong women who use their intuition to guide them, who understand that the law of nature is cyclic and winding as sure as the moon is full every 28 days and the tides ebb and flow and our menstrual cycles occur.

I confess I am an idealist. We, as so many women in business, have the opportunity to change the face of success in this patriarchal world.  As teachers we can use the power of this dance, which in essence is so in tune with the rhythm of nature – more so than any other dance.

I have a teaching curriculum with a linear structure, but I allow my lines to curve somewhere along the way, then they grow other lines that end in spirals. And why not, this is a dance based on spirals after all. Accepting and allowing things to happen in cycles is not easy.  Let the movement find its way, organically, naturally.  Let the dance be, without the teacher getting in the way. To allow the natural grace of our body to happen.  After all dance, like any other art form, is intuitive, inspirational.

In this world that has become so caught up with the external, we have the opportunity for us women to guide other women back to our true nature.

Everyone wants something external, they want to feel they are achieving because they have learnt 10 moves in one lesson.  There is nothing wrong with that – but these moves should be subtle and organic and flow from one to the other. This is how I teach my students; I want them to discover their dance by knowing first their bodies, and then by letting the dance happen. The women who love my Mariaisms are very wonderful, brave, insightful women and a pleasure to teach and to be with. I don’t call things a lift or a shift or a flick because if I do, that is what they become and that is what they look like, all on the outside and nothing happening internally or emotionally. 

This is not a judgement of teachers that use these terms, I am just sharing what I know.

I put heaps of time and energy into advertising for a workshop.  I accept that one day you can have a full house and the next time no one books.  Is it because it is not well advertised?  Is it over- exposure?  Is it my competitors?  Or is it simply  because it is not the right universal time?  The planet Mercury is retrograde at the moment (that means in Solar Sidereal time it is going backwards).  Mercury rules communication.  Every day there is some problem to do with communication. I can’t wait till the 2nd of May when it goes forward again.  What to do? Stop, have a holiday until then? We can’t.   Our linear way of life won’t let us and everything today is about communication.  So I have to accept this and absorb it into my life.  This belief has deepened my acceptance of outcome. When I plan a workshop I often have a gut feeling about whether it will go ahead or not. Sometimes this gut feeling is tainted with fear of failure or fear of jeopardy, and I feel like just crawl into a hole and forget all about it. Every time I write this newsletter, is like going in a quest. What I do is try to move past all of that stuff in my head and get the feeling right. And then other times  everything falls into place, everything flows.  I’ve become more courageous with planning workshops, putting the work in and accepting the outcome.

I have recently become a MEDNET (Middle Eastern Dance Network) committee member. This is a big decision – to join a group of women from different tribes. To become a part of decision-making for an

organisation whose fundamental aim is to provide a network for its members and to work for the good of the whole MED community in Melbourne/Victoria. A committee meeting can be seen as very linear with all the protocol of a meeting. But it can also be seen as a ritual. Linear is not all bad anyway, it’s just overrated.

This is it folks, as you can see there is a subscription form on the last page and up and coming local regional and interstate workshops, along with where Yalla! is playing.

There are individuals and groups and organisations that I have reciprocal arrangements with, they are listed in the box below and also a note to those who have made contributions in the past 2 years.

The choice is yours.

May the Goddess be with you in the spiral dance of life

Many Blessings
Maria

* Mariaism was a term recently coined buy a friend when I was giving him some ideas with how to deal with his dislocated shoulder, which lead to a discussion about my teaching methods which he named Mariaisms.
 
** 95% is my random guess at the ratio of women to men in this industry. It is not a definite figure.

Written for the Spiralling New a Dancing Isis Dance Publication ©

I thoroughly enjoyed your workshop about dancing with the bones of the body.

After seeing my own drawings of the pelvis looking like a strange butterfly and the ribs a birdcage it was a real eye-opener. I have belly danced for 6 years but never really thought about the bones, just about muscles and weight etc. So it was good to bring it back to fundamentals of anatomy, and what moves when we do.

Also the simple principles of weight transfer with a bounce, rather than just ‘pushing up’ with the hip I really appreciated – because while I sometimes move into that step, I had never considered that much of our dancecan be broken down into those two simple movements. It frees things up a lot.

I did find the ‘bounce’ helped in the Yasmina workshops today (and more to go tomorrow). Also DEFINITELY for a performance I did in a show last night, I did a character stint as ‘Fifi Abdo’ complete with dark wig and scarf in big bow on my head, totally improvised to some great music I’d found that morning, HEAPS of bouncing and none of it choreographed. Definitely far more liberating! And a whole lot of fun

Thank you! The day was very worthwhile, and I enjoyed dancing with you.

Love & best wishes,
Vicki
Thanks again,

I would love to give you some feedback regarding the workshop! (I have been thinking of this everyday) I gained so much out of it and I think it took a week to really sink in. Since then I have not been able to stop dancing and I have a new perspective about moving my body and also a total revival of curiosity and need to learn more! I have been spending lots of time on the net and just a lot of time moving in a new way which feels really beautiful.”

I started my classes again on Monday night in a new venue that I sought out with great lighting and fantastic mirrors and sound system and the women loved it and had a great time. I also had a great time and was able to pass on new knowledge which really caught the imagination of some of the women. I just feel more enthusiastic and I think more privileged to be sharing this ability to feel as you do when you dance in this way. I think I could just rave on for ages and ages about it!

I just want to thank you again and to tell you that I become so energised and peaceful after attending workshops with you and I am still buzzing from it! It has been great to read your newsletter and read your ideas and feel your love of the dance.’

Sharon Stephens, Summer School

Geelong

Initially I’d been a little apprehensive, aware that part of the workshop involved performing in front of my peers (actually people I hold in high regard) and teaching them a dance technique. Having participated in a few of Maria’s gatherings in the past, I recalled the safe, non-judgemental space she creates and knew that this would be a valuable experience for me personally and as a dancer/teacher. I let go of my fear of intimidation and embraced the anticipation.

We were an intimate group of eight and with very different styles of dance and ideas (something to celebrate) and as I’d hoped, Maria’s calm, vibrant ways had us quite relaxed. Informative discussion and exchange of ideas flowed. Movement awareness increased as we studied skeletons and physically related them to our own bodies. Maria’s knowledge of anatomy and movement is enlightening. Learning about such things as Alexander Technique immediately freed areas in my body. She has the ability to take you within your dance and within your self where you can experience the internal source of each movement rather than the external outcome. Maria admits that this can be very challenging and is sometimes confronting, but to those who are open to accepting it and willing to work to integrate it, it is amazing. It changes all aspects of your dance experience.

Although this virtually means I’ll have to unlearn so much of what I’m already familiar and comfortable with, I can clearly see the truth in it when I watch Maria dance. Someone commented that her dance holds all the elements – Her feet are connected to the Earth like tree roots and fire is in her belly. Her dance flows like water and she radiates through the air. My desire has altered from “I want to look like that”, to “I want to feel like that”. If only I could wake up tomorrow and be so within my core and my breath, radiating outwards in my dance. For me this will take time, work and commitment to make it my own, although in ways it has been manifesting in me for some time.

My turn to dance came late on the first afternoon by which time we’d all become quite comfortable amongst each other and I wasn’t feeling at all concerned about dancing in front of the women sharing this journey with me. The music commenced and suddenly I experienced a severe attack of nervousness. No matter how calm my head was with the whole idea, my body certainly wasn’t and I began to shake and feel completely uncoordinated. I didn’t enjoy my performance at all. The final beat couldn’t come fast enough. Immediately after each of us danced we were asked how we felt. I felt like vomiting! (This was purely my experience. We all felt differently after performing.) Feeling this way had completely thrown me as I usually don’t have nervousness about me at all while I dance. As I began to verbalise my experience I realised that I don’t consider myself a performer. I’m completely uncomfortable with being the centre of attention. When I dance publicly I am very much of the mind that I’m dancing with people. Even though essentially they are spectators, I feel that they are sharing in the celebration of the dance. Perhaps this is why I feel connected to the Tribal, Gypsy aspects of belly dance rather than the Cabaret style. (Which I also admire.) I cherish the gathering of women in a sacred space, the experience of self discovery and growth, the sharing of a life journey which occurs when women come together to share this dance. As a teacher, to witness a woman blossom from inwardness to self acceptance, then self appreciation and beyond. It is such a catalyst. But that is a whole other story…

As we began to teach each other movements it became apparent that collectively, as a group of teachers, we had pretty well all been taught and were teaching ‘externally’. This still appeared beautiful but didn’t encompass the essence of Middle Eastern Dance. It wasn’t being expressed from within and after an education in the difference it was apparent. Maria gently coaxed us away from what we all felt comfortable with as our own personal dance and had us experimenting with different ideas and open minds. An opportunity to explore our own dance style with the aim of improving the quality of our way of being. Maria along with others is concerned that if Middle Eastern Dance continues to be taught the way it so often is these days, as a Western ‘external’ activity, it will lose the very essence of what draws us to it in the first place. It’s very much about being and not doing. Just thought I’d also mention that for days after the workshop I experienced a great sense of clarity and centredness. Lovely!

Lisa Craigen, Barwon Heads

Sumemr School

Dear Maria,
I am writing to you to thank you for the amazing workshop that you taught at my studio in late January this year. I was in a very stuck space, both as a teacher and a dancer. I needed an injection of inspiration, which I got from your workshop. I gained a deeper insight into you and how to connect the dance much closer to my body than ever before. Your ability to make bones and muscles, mind and emotion all connect as one totally blew me away.

Techniques like the Shimmy and the Egyptian walk have been the hardest for me to teach to my students, but since doing your workshop, I have utilised the way you break moments down, and my students and I are doing the best shimmies ever!

As the day went on and I started to absorb more of what you were saying, I began to understand that the more loose and relaxed my bones and muscles were the more vulnerable my mind and body became to the music.

This concept gave me a whole new insight into improvisation, which is truly the art of the dance, expressing yourself freely in the magic of the moment. From this vulnerable state the dancer transforms the music from sound into a visual tangible feeling form, therefore justifying the music. This is where the journey begins for the dancer and the audience.

In this space there is an abundance of movement, whereas, if the mind takes over, there are limits to what the body can do. When our negative inner talk takes over, the dance becomes a stressful experience and Belly dancing is not meant to be stressful.

I also especially love the way you really focus on the belly being our dance centre. I think for me this is what inspired me the most. It brought me back to my body and my feeling centre. I can quite easily lose my centre; a lot of stress everyday and running a business can be over whelming. When I move my energy to my belly and dance from there, my feet instantly become heavier and I feel more grounded. This felt really good and I felt more present in the moment and my dance became more natural, not so contrived.

I am an Oriental Dancer, not a Folkloric Belly dancer at all. Some people make the mistake of assuming that what you do only applies to a particular style — well it doesn’t.

I am defiantly applying the things you taught me and my students are benefiting a lot
.
I think you are really onto something and I have no hesitation in recommending you for workshops and private lessons. Thank you for your passion and true care and respect and love of the dance

Sincerely with love

Melissa Cristina
February, 2004

Hi maria,
My impression from the student’s point of view. my first impression is that you have a wide knowledge of body awareness & quite possibly need to elaborate more on that, as it is your own invaluable insights taken from different sources that is of great benefit to the student/ teacher.
Student Jenny Long  2003

Hi Maria
Thanks for your reply.
My experience on Saturday? For me – a 51-year old woman from a very constrained Anglo background, it was a very confronting decision to attend a trance workshop! However, over the past few years I’ve been trying to challenge myself in relation to voice (singing workshops) and body (dance classes, yoga etc) For me, it was both challenging and incredibly exciting.
I had momentary glimpses of its potential for transformation at a deep level, followed quickly by my ego wanting to check what others were doing -
‘Do I blend in?’ Am I better / worse than others?’ ‘Do I look ridiculous?’ etc etc….
Your gentle yet confident voice and instructions, combined with the music were a wonderful gift for participants. So, I want to challenge myself some more with your work.
Warm regards
Jill  March 15, 2005   After Trance Dance Workshop at  Pt Fairy Festival 2005