Oasis Middle Eastern Dance

My dance instructor, Layla, has decided to form a troupe: Oasis Middle Eastern Dance. I'm completely delighted that she's asked me to join and feels confident enough in my dance skills that I can master the choreographies and perform publicly. I have come a long way in a short time, but I have loads to learn yet, and my isolations could always use improvement. To that end, I have ordered a scimitar and am practicing dancing with a silver tea tray on my head, since it forces you to have good isolation between upper and lower body. In the spring I'll dance a sword dance to show my balancing skills. At this point, if I take it slow, I can actually get down to the floor with the tray still balanced on my head (bareheaded, without anything to help keep the thing up there), and I can get part of the way back up, but as of yet, I can not make it all the way up without a flash of silver leaping towards the floor. The tray is loud, but once the scimitar arrives, I'll have even more incentive to keep it balanced, since despite being unsharpened, it can still inflict a good bite if it hits a foot or something on the way down!

At any rate, we have our first troupe performance (and my first public performance ever) fast approaching. October 14th we will be performing at a hafla in Montpelier, and I'm incredibly worried about not having the choreography memorized adequately. I have parts of it down, and it is coming along nicely, but there are a couple of parts I always forget or completely screw up. I'm going to try and schedule some extra practice sessions in addition to regular troupe practice in order to help firm it up.

I'm having a blast with costuming, and have just finished my first ever dance bra. The photo is poor in quality, but it'll at least give you an idea of the finished bra. Every stitch, bead, and coin were put in by hand, and there are 100 coins on there. The top border on the cups is all hand beaded in silver and dark grey. It has fabulous support, and I could do a cartwheel or handstand in the thing, and still stay well secured, which is exactly what I want out of a dance bra. *grin* The next photo is of me practicing a layback--I can *almost* reach 90 degrees now, and I'm very pleased that all the bellyroll practice sessions have given me enough core strength that I can come back up easily.


Finally, to be professional, dancers should have a good cover-up to wear between performances. This is respectful of other dancers, since your wandering about in your dance costume would understandably distract the audience from their performance. I took a silk sari and sewed myself a Khaleegi Thobe to use as a cover-up. As soon as I get the opportunity, I will take a Khaleegi workshop to learn that specific type of dance (its a Saudi women's dance, notable for the HUGE and elaborately decorated dresses which are manipulated during the dance, and also for the tossing about of the dancer's hair.) I still have to embellish mine with all sorts of fun glittery stuff, but even naked, its a beautiful garment. I'm going to make more to sell, as they are very well received.

Take a look-see: