Dec. 28th, 2007

Oooh!

Dec. 28th, 2007 12:48 pm
alonewiththemoon: Drumlin Farm Banding Station 2016 (shinymaia)
From Morocco's latest newsletter:

April 19/20 - BOSTON, MA with TARIK

Very exciting, I've heard Tarik is a great teacher but I've never taken any classes with him.  I'd already asked Za-Beth if I could dance in the show after Morocco's workshop*, so I'm really going to be looking forward to this weekend!

*my very first solo performance doing traditional stuff was at the birthday bash Za-Beth held here in Boston for Morocco a few years ago, so it would mean a lot to me to be able to perform for her again, as sort of a marker of time.

oye!

Dec. 28th, 2007 04:49 pm
alonewiththemoon: Drumlin Farm Banding Station 2016 (Default)
One of my holiday gifts was this samba dvd from World Dance New York--I'm so impressed with the DVD!  The teaching is clear and straightforward, and I really appreciated the way the instructor would demonstrate steps at a slower tempo several times before moving up to full speed (which in the beginner choreo, the one I did today, I'm sure is still not full speed as samba goes).  It definitely was to my advantage to be accustomed to a dance form that relies on free movement of the hips, so it's a little hard for me to guess how this DVD would be for a non-dancer or somebody from a strict ballet or jazz background.  Movements are demonstrated clearly and cleanly, but there is not much detailed breakdown of how to achieve specific movements.  A particular movement described as a hip circle was totally confusing to me until I realized it was really a vertical hip circle with a sway to it taken in a bigger circle while pivoting on the non-vertical hip-circling leg (see?  confusing!).  I would totally take classes with the instructor in real life, if that were ever an option.

You *cannot* dance behind the beat in samba, so this is going to be very good for me in terms of making me move fast and on the beat while not looking/feeling chaotic, something I feel I need to work on.  It's a fun challenge to listen to a different style of percussion and find the patterns in it.  I'm really looking forward to getting some of this stuff down so that I can make the correct nod to the samba rhythms that frequently pop up in drum solos, not to mention pretend I'm Tahia Carioca ;-)  Plus, it's a great aerobic workout, much more strenuous than belly dance, even saidi.  My foot handled it pretty well; my knee was a little twingy, but I think that's more a result of not enough stretching over the last few days and some knee pain was inevitable today no matter what type of dance or exercise I did.  Some yoga afterwards helped clear it up.

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alonewiththemoon: Drumlin Farm Banding Station 2016 (Default)
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