Pressure.   In 2009, our dance company won the Belly Dancer of the Year Competition, and we've been chasing the "1st place" title ever since.  During 2010, we won awards (1st runner up, 2nd place, etc) at several events, but the winning title alluded us.   Luckily, we reversed the trend in 2011 and won two big competitions -- Belly Dancer USA and Yaa Halla Y'all.  

I wanted to sit down an figure out what we did differently,  and here is what I think changed our trend : we had fun and really enjoyed dancing together.   Okay, I'll admit it, this isn't the epiphany you were probably expecting, but I really believe that is the secret sauce for all dance groups.  

I've now logged tons of hours watching performers and troupes at competitions  -- the work and skill of all these dancers is always evident when they take the stage.  The ones that get my attention are the ones that engage their 'hearts' and get out of their 'heads'.  They also are clearly enjoying dancing together (that energy is always felt by and audience)  AND you can't tell who the troupe director is which is a big plus for me.    I also really like the ones that break the mold and do something unexpected.  

So back to 2010 -- we had all the right stuff -- great choreography, beautiful custom-made costume, great dancers -- we performed everything exactly right, but were not dancing to have fun and entertain --we were dancing to win -- I think when you take on that type of perspective your body, your attitude and your energy changes.    

As we entered 2011 -- it wasn't about the win, it was about performing our best, entertaining the audience, enjoying the dance, and sharing lots fun and laughter along the way.  That attitude helped fuel the year of the Troupe-A-Doop



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*whew* The life of a Weekend Warrior!!!

Tabitha and I had the opportunity to be partners in crime this past month.  Nearly every weekend in October, we partnered up to do private party gigs (in addition to our regular nights at El Morocco and El Mansour).  After all was said and done, I felt like I shimmied my butt off!  
The first weekend was Tabitha’s gig, but I got to tag along to get the lay of the land.  It was a big birthday party full of boisterous Russians in the heart of San Francisco!  Tabitha looked absolutely stunning, the energy from the music was contagious, and the birthday boy was thrilled to dance with such a charming dancer.  The crowd was really caught up in the excitement, snapping pictures at every opportunity, and they “oooed” and “ahhhed” at all the right times.  The kids kept following Tabitha around, and they didn’t want to miss a second of the show.   Success!  
The second weekend, Tabitha and I teamed up to be the entertainment of a surprise 50th birthday party in Montclair.  The event planner, birthday boy’s wife, was set to keep us a secret until the very moment we entered the room, and judging from the looks on all the guests’ faces, she succeeded!  We had 45 minutes of non-stop dancing, pulling out all the props (veil, zills, fan, sword, and double veil).  We also debuted a brand-new choreography that we worked on together.  Both the hostess and birthday boy were such good sports, getting up to dance with us with little to no coaxing.  The guests were also very enthusiastic and lovely!  The restaurant’s staff members were so gracious; the compliments flowed all night ... along with the sweat down my face from all the dancing!  Success! 
The next day, I had to get geared up again to do my regular night at El Morocco, while Tabitha and the other Divas (Iman, Majah, and Le’Ana) had another gig in Burlingame.  Giving out so much energy two nights in a row was .... exhausting.  Thankfully, only two customers were at the restaurant to witness a somewhat flawed performance (my halter top decided that it wasn’t going to stay hooked for the duration of my set).  Nevertheless, they were very gracious and generous with their tips.  A special thank you to those two kind souls!!!   
                    
The third weekend, Tabitha and I teamed up again to be the surprise entertainment of a 40th birthday party in Sunol.  The party was at a large event center, bursting at the seams with friends, family, and kids!!  Per the client’s request, we were only performing two choreographed routines, and the rest of the time, our task was to get the guests up to dance.  We were only supposed to stay for 30 minutes, but the “get up and dance with us” part was so successful that we ended up staying for over an hour!!  People eagerly jumped up to join the dance circles, taking turns to show us their best shoulder shimmies or hip drops.  The husbands were showing off their moves, the wives were very amused by their enthusiasm, and the kids couldn’t take their eyes of the sparkly costumes!  Both of us kept getting pulled into picture after picture; I hoped and prayed that the sweat wasn’t making me look like a dribbly mess.  When we finally escaped, Tabitha and I ran into the bathroom and literally peeled off our costumes (eww).  Success!
Reflections ....

  • Gigging can be somewhat lonely (and potentially dangerous).  With all the driving to unknown locations and waiting in random backrooms/bathrooms, I’m glad I didn’t have to go alone.
  • No matter the ethnicity or age group, people love belly dancers.
  • You have to air out your costumes as soon as possible, otherwise they’ll still be damp from sweat the next day.  Grossie.
  • Grabbing a drink after a gig in full hair and make-up will bring you attention .... in the form of free drinks. :) 
  • Grabbing a drink after a gig in full hair and make-up will also make you look like a woman of the night. :(
  • Belly dancers have to be cool, confident, and full of life – there is no room for fear or uncertainty.
  • With the right enthusiasm (and delusion), it is possible to choreograph a routine from scratch, and get it gig-ready, in two weeks time.
  • From Tabitha: If you’re a barefoot dancer, make sure you have cheap shoes specially designated to wear to and from gigs.  You never know what you’re going to trek home …
 
Taryn and Tina = TNT = dynamite!  And I felt dynamite after performing with Tabitha – she’s an amazing dancer, a great teacher, and a wonderful friend! 

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Last night, my dance partner and I had a rather interesting adventure.   We had a great first set, got everyone up to dance and danced forever-- a grand and sweaty time and finished around 8:20.   The proprietor got a call about 8:45 for a party of six who would arrive in 10 minutes....so we waited, and waited and waited.   Around 9:25 two women arrived with two kids in tow (7 & 5) and said their husbands were due in....by 9:40 everyone was there....little did we know we know a belly dance wanna-be DIVA was about to take-over....  

Three signs of trouble brewing. 
1.  When you see a customers start rolling up their tank top while seated...
2.  When you invite kids up to dance, and up leaps uninvited company
3.  When the tank-top rolled, belly-exposed, belly-dance wanna goes to the middle of the dance floor and marks her territory --and proceeds to stay there for 20 minutes.      

This type of thing has happened to me before -- someone who wants to show off in front of a boy friend, etc.    I asked members of our dance company for their recommendations on how to handle: 
 
Tip One:  have the lady follow the leader,  and then make her spin, bow, applaud and point to her seat.... unfortunately, I tried that technique and she stayed right in the middle of the dance floor. 

Tip Two:  go and entertain other guests or try to get them up to dance.... (we did all that too -- the Diva kept dancing in the middle of the floor).    

Tip Three:  Go sit down and wait her out with arms crossed so she gets the hint  (we didn't do that....thought it wasn't fair to the other customers).  

I ended up doing my drum solo in circles around her...she was lost because the drum solo has huge variation in the music and she just stood there watching and doing hits in the air.   The group never ordered dinner, and just split one bottle of wine so it was much ado over not much.     


Urk Deluxe !   
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Okay.  I'll admit it.  I love competing.  It started early in my life when I'd rush to finish off a pile of pancakes before my brother...proudly spinning my fork after my last bite.   I paid for those pancakes later.  

On to the subject at hand --Preparing for Belly Dance Competitions   

There are so many different types -- friendly hafla-type competitions, quasi-pro competitions and amazing international competitions.  

If you're in a troupe, make sure that all your troupe mates share the same goal .... competitions are a huge commitment for everyone, and you've got to make sure that you all share the same passion.   You also need to be prepared to take criticism --- Competition judges score your performance and give you very direct feedback -- not to easy if you have a big ego.       

Preparing for competition:  Getting into competition mode is not for the faint at heart... Step 1 of our process starts with picking our theme for the year -- a style of dance we haven't done before that we all want to learn --that is the easiest part.  Step 2 is to decide on our budget for the year, determine the competitions we'd like to try and make sure that we are clear on the time limits for the competitions.  (There is nothing worse than spending countless hours working on a choreography, only to find you need to change it all because of a time limit you didn't realize).   Step 3 is about music selection -- OMG !  We go through hundreds of songs, trying to get music that has the right combination of pacing --with moments of drama, jubulent celebration and hand clapping fun.  Our mentor, Leea Azziz,  always stressed that we are entertainers first, and we've found that the music truly determines everything !  So pick your music carefully.  
Step 4 of competition preparation is about costuming -- we sketch out ideas on our costume  based on our themes & music, and work with an extraordinary costumer to bring it all to life.      Steps 1-4 generally take about 1 1/2 months to sort out.... then comes the creation of choreography.  

Step 5 is choreography creation which really needs its own complete blog post, so I'll just say-- urk deluxe !    Plan on months of time in the creation, hand off and perfection of choreography.  To all the folks that create lots of choreography -- my hat goes off to all of you extraordinary people....it is soooo tough to do.    Step 6: Practice, practice, practice.   It's not just about getting the steps, it is making sure that you all look like one unit-- arms, heads exactly in unison--and try to visualize the song so you can dance to it.  In one song, we actually all imagine we are aliens landing on hostile soil, and that our armpits are our breathing apparatus... the entire song has a story-line that we know which makes it lots of fun to dance to.      Step 1-6 takes about 6 months of time, and lots of time together getting everything unified.    

Competition Day: 
Note to self: we've got to plan to give ourselves more time to get ready. We always end up having to hustle at the 11th hour -- There's always something --a broken fingernail, forgotten costume part, loose bra.  Be prepared for DRAMA, and bring lots of humor.     You'll also find that your mouth becomes dry as the Sahara...don't know what is with that, so we always bring a supply of sucking candy so our lips don't stick to our teeth when we get on stage.   

The moment has arrived --you've just spent months of preparation -- your name is announced and your music starts. Sometimes you can see the judges faces, and sometimes you can't.  The crowd cheers you on and for seven remarkable minutes you feel like your flying !   That moment is worth all the trials and tribulations it takes to get there !  



Next Post:  The in's and out's of some of the big competitions.    
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Set One:  7:15pm   Full of energy and having a great time with three little kids who were having a marvelous time dancing too.   My favorite memories are the little two year old boy kept delivering one dollar bills and then somersaulting back to his dad, and a three year old practicing her snake arms and spins.  Dancing time: 25 minutes

Set Two:  8:30  Holy cow, got to dance again because 1 new couple has come in (and the girl is a bellydancer).    I do a new set, (Zamon joins me for one song) get people up to dance and complete my set....only to have Fadil come up and ask me to get the bellydancer up to dance....he turns my music back on and the 6' bellydancer proceeds to show off her shimmys for 4 minutes, as I tried to keep the sweat on my face from splashing on the customers.     Dancing time:  28 minutes

Set Three  9:00pm   Crapitola-khomeini !     I'm walking out the door, and Fadil comes up to me and says he has a problem.  Another bellydancer and boyfriend have come in, and have demanded to see a set and she will leave if I don't dance.  After giving me the mournful eye, I ask him if I can just do three dances.  He says of course, but the bellydancer overhears and says she wants a full set......anyway, I go to do my third twirl around the floor -- (note to self:  do not use a silk veil when you are sweaty --really sticks to you like glue) .   A gay couple wave at me that they want to dance, and I pull up one of the guys and he and I begin waltzing up to the front,  when the other guy fails in his attempt find my waistband...... I stop dead in my tracks, and turn around glaring at the offending male thinking about how to deck him gracefully in a way that Leea would approve ... in the meantime the happy Sidi Monsoor music is playing and I've got to keep dancing.    My drum solo begins, and up come both bellydancers (uninvited) to dance to my drum solo.  Amazing !   Dancing time:  20 minutes

I grumbled to myself all the way home --my hip a quivering lump of shooting stars.   I get home and I'm recounting the tale of the hip diving hand to my husband as I'm pulling off my wet costume.  My husband says "hold on there", proceeds to pull a sopping wet bill that was stuck in my underwear, and holds it up and says "at least it was a ten dollar bill".

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Raks A'Diva started as a social troupe -- our primary aim was to get to know other dancers, perform together and  enjoy spending time together.   The first adjustment was shifting from being 'soloists' to dancing together as a unit -- when the dancer next to you is six inches shorter -- you just have to adjust.    This took time as we had eight very strong soloists, each with their own style.... compromise and  persuasion took on new meaning.   

The first year of the troupe started as a  perfect dictatorship -- as we were ruled by our iron-feather-fisted Director Zamon who took care of everything.   We performed together for six months and entered a competition where we won THIRD PLACE.    This became a major wake up call for us, and we made a big shift in our focus and decided we wanted to make the effort to become a 
Professional Troupe.    

What is a Professional Troupe?    This is a group of very committed dancers who often invest 5 -10 hours a week in rehearsals to be at the top of their game.     Most professional troupes are run by an artistic director who conducts auditions, establishes choreography and sets tone for the troupe.  

Raks A'Diva troupe members made the commitment to be the very best we could be,  and we set our sites on seriously competing.   Unlike most professional troupes, all our dancers participate in decisions  -- helping select music, participating in choreography design, etc.  We're a family and a very hard working one at that.   Our troupe members often spent 6+ hours every week practice, plus attending classes or performing as soloists.      We set a goal of re-inventing ourselves each year so that we can learn new skills and grow as dancers.    We also have a strict rule that we must have fun in the process --sometime we have to remind ourselves about that one a lot !!      

We all love dancing, and we all love dancing together.  We also love to spend time together and have great fun in the process.   We're blessed because we genuinely like each other .  We don't have any formal rules or by-laws --just an incredible commitment to be the best we can be and enjoy the ride along the way.  

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Time to fess up -- dancing to live music can be about as popular as pulling rotting teeth out of an alligator.   Dancing to live music can be exciting, but it can also come back and bite you.  The clever dancers have an easy solution which I'll provide at the end. But to bring this story home, let me offer a couple of examples:  

Challenge One:  What can happen when musicians are bored? After an evening with dozens of dancers, one particular drummer looked bored out of his mind.   During my drum solo,  the drummer decided he was going to play 'test the dancer', and changed the rhythm every 8 counts.   With a maniacal grin on his face, he finally settled into a rhythm that precisely matched the rhythm of "jingle bells" --it was after all December.    I struggled through -- twisting, stepping, and pop, locking with everything I had -- I think I pulled a hamstring and distended my colon in the process (only kidding).  

Challenge Two:   What can happen when musicians get nervous? Usually musicians have played together numerous times before they are in front of a live audience.   However, I recall one dark evening when a substitute musician was called in and they all stared at each other trying figure out what they were going to do. (Really a bad sign).   When the music started, the anxiety was noticeable because the music was being played at 3x the normal speed -- always a challenge for the dancers.    

So is there a trick to live music?     The clever dancers typically will ask the musicians to play one song they know --so know matter what they are dished out they have one polished performance they can hang their hats on.    To help you in this process, I've listed a number of popular songs for live musicians that they will most likely know.   


:A Ya Zein
Alf Lelya WahLeyla
Al Atlal
Ana Fi Intizarak
Ayeela Tayha (Lost Daughter)
Ayoub
Aziza
Bahlam Beek (I saw You In My Dreams)
Banat Iskandria
Batwanis Beek (I Desire You)
Bir Demet
Yasamin
Dala'a el Helween
Daret al Ayam
Enta Omri (You Are My Life)
El Houbbi Koullou
Fakkarouni
Gamil Gamal (Such Beauty)
Gan al Hawa
Ghannili Shwayyi Shwayyi
Habibi Ya Eini (My Love, My Eye)
Habibi Ya Nour El Ein (You Are The Light In My Eye)
HaniHarrraml Ahebbak
Hazar Fazar
Hebbina
HIzzi Ya Nawaeem
Hoss Bass or Hes Bes
Istemen Babajim
Lamma Bada
Lissa Fakir (Do You Still Remember?)
Leylet Hob
Mashaal
Me 'Alli Oultilu
Nebtidi Menein el Heykaya
Nour el Nain
Noura Noura
Rezah Rezah
Rompi Rompi
Salam Allay (My Lover Greeted Me)

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We've had to create our own language for various things that help us improve our dance.     I've listed a few for your reference with new ones always in development 


Caterpillar in Heat
-Noun
1.  used to describe an unfortunate attempt at a straight line.    

Holy Buckets
-Expletive
1.  A sparkling and crackling word used with a powerful voice and wild arm gestures.  
 
Slaunter 
- verb
1.  to walk with ungodly slow pace to the point of no discernible forward movement

Erect Penguin
-verb
1.  to raise ones hands into a a highly erect, penguin-like stance

Salt the Pit 
-noun
1.  must be used with arm movements and reserved to reduce tension, to  deflect and disarm

Poop and Scoop
-noun
1. precision bellydance movement used during drum solo 

Regurgeria 
-noun
1.  just use your imagination 


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Drink Recipes:  Cozumel
1/2 oz Brandy
1/2 oz Coconut Cream
1/2 oz Pineapple Juice
1/2 oz Blue Caraco
1/2 oz  Light Rum
1/2 oz Vodka 

Blend really well,   And don’t drink and drive.  Served in a coconut adds to the look.  

Drink Recipe:  Lava Flow
 
1 oz light rum
1 oz Coconut rum
2 oz fresh or frozen strawberries
1 small banana
2 oz pineapple juice
2 oz coconut cream

Blend 2 rums and strawberries and pour into tall glass.  Blend separately banana, coconut cream and pineapple juice with crushed ice.  Pour into the glass with rum and watch swish around……cool !    Must be served with umbrella for full effect ! 


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Miracle Weight Loss Raks A’Diva Cruise
By Iman
“Utter indulgence and mad cap fun ”, reported Raks A’Diva cruise mascot Isis.   This article is dedicated to an accurate portrayal of the eating and drinking excesses and sleep deprivation of just one Raks A’Diva member.     I have to report that even with all the abuse and stomach-stretch carbs, I did not gain any weight.   The secret?  Three (3) hours of non-stop dancing a night, and absolute refusal to take elevators –with the exception of a bathroom emergency.     

So, with great embarrassment, here is my personal log of my excesses on the cruise.  (Disclaimer: my excess experiences don’t necessarily match other Raks members – you’ll have to get the others to fess-up. 

Cruise Day One –arrival on ship at 12pm. 
Exercise:   Pulling 50# suitcase on sidewalk for 1/2 mile to ship.  Triceps have never been as firm.    Disco dancing for 3 hours, and walking all over the ship.  

Food:  Salads, Pastrami Sandwich, Chips, Fish & Ice Cream (2x)

Drinks:  3 cups of coffee, a cappuccino and a Cozumel* 


Sleep:   5 hours  

Cruise Day Two – Catalina Island  

Exercise:   Walking all over Catalina Island,  2.5 hours of dancing, walking up and down stairs, laughing too hard.  

Food:  Croissant, Eggs Benedict, Chicken Teriyaki, Stuffed mushrooms with cheese, lobster & shrimp with mushroom infused rice, soufflé with Grand Marnier  

Drinks:  2 cups of coffee, a cappuccino and  TWO –Cozumels, 1 glass white wine

Sleep:   6 hours

Cruise Day Three – Esplendida 
Exercise:   Horseback riding for two hours,  walking around a Mexican town whose name I could never remember.   

Food: Ham & cheese omelets, bran muffin, top of a banana muffin, eggplant dish, beef, chocolate chip cookie, fried mozzarella cheese, fish, warm chocolate cake 

Drinks:  2 cups of coffee, decaf cappuccino, Iced Cappuccino and  One –Cozumel, 1 glass white wine 

Sleep:   6 hours

Cruise Day Four  – Parked in the Ocean – a Lazy Day 
Exercise:  Sitting up and down at least 12x from lounge chair on deck,  bending over a couple of times,  lifting food into mouth,  getting a ‘turkey baste’ massage,    Laughing exercises (1 hour), and dancing 2 hours 

Food: Veggie Omelet & bran muffin, slice of mushroom pizza, salad, crab cake, seafood pasta, 1/3 warm chocolate cake & baked Alaska 

Drinks:  1 cups of coffee, Iced Cappuccino and One Lava Flow

Sleep:   5 hours 


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