Suhaila Salimpour - Picture Obtained From http://rootmag.typepad.com/root_magazine/2006/08/suhaila_unveile.html

Review of Suhaila Salimpour’s Weeklong Intensive

Written by Sahira

I attended Suhaila’s weeklong workshop last summer (2007) and was both impressed and disappointed. To understand where I’m coming from I’ll first give a little background about myself. I have been belly dancing for the last 10 years, and teaching for the last eight. My sport and dance background involves a wide range of activities from Highland dance, to mountain biking, Muay Thai kickboxing, and skiing, many of which I have had the opportunity to be an instructor in. My educational background includes a Bachelor’s degree in Kinesiology, a certificate in Level 1 and 2 coaching, certification as a personal trainer, and I am currently working on a Bachelor’s degree in Geomatics Engineering. In short, I have a strong background in anatomy and safe exercise practices.

Suhaila’s workshop is unlike any other Middle Eastern dance workshop I’ve attended. I found she structures her classes like Muay Thai classes in terms of having an intense warmup, drills, and then combinations. After twenty minutes my clothes were literally soaked through. By lunch I was seriously wishing I had brought a change of clothes for the afternoon. Suhaila provides a greater emphasis on muscular endurance and flexibility training than other instructors I’ve seen. I was impressed by this and intend to include these aspects into my own classes. However, I found that performing many repetitions of intense exercises such as squats and pushups at the start of class was detrimental to technique in a five hour workshop. Many of the muscles required were too tired to be used properly for the remainder of the day.

Following warm-up we moved into a series of drills. These included basic hip movements such as pelvic tucks and drops, “squares”, hip twists, etc. Once the movement was done at the appropriate tempo in place, these movements were added to western foot work patterns such as walking in releve, chasse’s, and pas de bouree’s. I found that these drills were very useful in developing muscle memory, or neuromuscular facilitation. Muscle memory is the process of the neuromuscular system memorizing movement patterns. Following lunch we worked on one of Suhaila’s choreographies, which I really enjoyed.

The primary disappointment in Suhaila’s workshop was the occasional incorrect usage of applied anatomy. A few times in the workshop Suhaila would recommend a certain muscle for a movement and it was the antagonist, or opposite, muscle to the muscle you should be using. For example, she recommends using the hip flexor to pull the hip forward. The hip flexor is not designed to pull your hip forward. This caused a lot of frustration as people could not get the movement when following her instruction. She also instructs students to use the muscles in the lower back when executing a pelvic drop. While this is the correct muscle group, I find that instructing students to use their lower back generally results in hyperextension of the lower back which in turn puts a lot of pressure on the nerves that run through the spine. I would keep in mind that her knowledge of anatomy is not perfect and listen to what your body tells you.

Overall I found that Suhaila’s workshop could have been somewhat better structured with the initial workout and warm-up being too physically demanding to properly compliment long intensive hours of intricate and consecutive dancing, with the purpose of instruction and proper technique being paramount. The intensive squats and conditioning could have been done at the end of the day, thereby allowing the body to remain loose and relaxed during the technique portion while maintaining the physical conditioning. All in all, I enjoyed the workshop from the perspective that it was an extremely good workout, from a well known, highly praised dancer, with a contemporary and refreshing take on the Art. I would recommend this experience to those who are interested in a modern style of belly dance and who can differentiate for themselves which moves are effective for their body. For those of you who would like some guidance differentiating muscles used, I recommend Hadia's Teacher Training.

"A view of the Blue Mosque from the roof of our hotel in Istanbul"

Watch Me

Written by Aramira

This past September I had the opportunity to further my study of belly dancing in the beautiful middle-eastern country of Turkey. My trip started with a few days in Istanbul, then a week long dance camp in Bodrum, and finally a stay in Oludeniz to round out the trip. For two weeks, our group of fourteen dancers had the opportunity to experience belly dancing in a culture where it is a way of life.
In Istanbul we were treated to a workshop-type performance from Sema Yildiz (http://www.turkishbellydance.net/semaclasses.html), a gypsy-born dancer who has performed in television, movies, and of course live all over the world. Few of us could keep up with her amazing floor work and it was stirring to see how earthy the movements could be even though they were being executed with perfect form.
In Bodrum we took Turkish Rom (Rom is the correct term for gypsy) classes twice a day from Hadia (www.hadia.com), a world-renowned dancer who travels to teach the dance for which she has such passion. In the evenings we practiced our skills at various venues, including clubs and the hotel dining room where we took our classes. We seemed to be the highlight every evening (how could fifteen foreign dancers not be?) and the locals always joined in to play or dance.
It also seemed that everyone in Turkey danced, played an instrument (or instruments) or did both. The people of Turkey grow up with the music and atmosphere we in Canada ordinarily only experience at a hafla. It was an incredible treat to sit back and watch as the whole room belly danced. The men typically play drums. However, they also dance with the women in the masculine form of belly dance or in the local style of a line dance, where the participants link pinky fingers and go from side to side in a larger circle.
We were also treated as honored guests at a party in the village of Camlik which is part of a co-op for the rug-makers. The night began with a traditional dinner, then a dance, and it ended with a showing of the rugs. One of the village children, a beautiful girl of about eight years performed for us. She danced with the flexibility of a child, the execution of a studied dancer, and the attitude - if not the more specific adult movements - of Turkish Rom.
In Rom, the dancer portrays a feeling that what she is doing is the biggest deal in the world and why on earth would you be looking elsewhere? The movements are simple and inspired by mundane things. Washing your skirts, when turned into dance, becomes a sexy task that should bring applause when you finish.
The rhythm is typically nine eight and the footwork is no longer secondary to the rest of the body’s movements. The stomping rhythm adds to the earthiness of the dance and many movements incorporate ‘hitting’ yourself to accent your sharper movements. Despite the seemingly unsophisticated style, execution still requires the muscle control and practice of traditional oriental dance.
Learning Turkish Rom in a place where dance grew up was an experience I will never forget, and the friends I made there are very dear to me. It seems a requirement of any serious dancer intent on their study to take classes in the middle-east where this style of dance was born. I hope to make Egypt my next dance-filled endeavor…

Dance class in Bodrum in the hotel dining room !