Air Art - Air Dance company teaches new technique at ETSU workshop

Published: 10th Jul 2008
By Rex Barber
Press Staff Writer
rbarber@johnsoncitypress.com


Mary Jones takes part in the Aerial Dance Workshop being held at ETSU. (Ron Campbell / Johnson City Press)


Nina Charity wrapped herself in purple silk and twisted, twirled and flipped 20 feet up in the air.

She was practicing air dance, a new and popular art now capable of being taught at East Tennessee State University. The school recently purchased the equipment for air dancing — silk ropes and trapeze bars — that were suspended from the massive steel ceiling beams in the lower level of Brooks Gym.

Charity is a member of Jayne Bernasconi’s Air Dance company. Bernasconi and her crew were at ETSU to instruct about a dozen women from across the eastern United States on the art of air dancing in ETSU’s first Air Dance Workshop.

Charity began a routine on the silk ropes, bending and twisting and hurtling and flipping while wrapped in the strands of purple fabric. She performed various routines, including one called the “scary dragon.”

“ ... It looks like a scary dragon, I guess you could say ... where I grab the fabric and I swung my legs around, came back up, locked my knees and then pulled myself up to fall and dive through again to catch the fabric on my way down.”

The thought that she could fall only adds that much more to the experience, Charity said.

“Oh it’s exhilarating,” she said. “I’m an adrenaline junkie, so it’s fun to fall all the way from the top.”

Delbert Hall, a professor in ETSU’s theater department, organized the workshop. He hopes the workshop, the only one of its kind in the state to his knowledge, will become an annual event.

“This is the first year of this, and something we’re planning to do for many years as it grows,” he said. “We wanted to do things we don’t normally teach,” Hall said.

Hall said the equipment for air dancing is fairly inexpensive, consisting of ropes, silks, bungie cords, hooks and attachment riggings. He utilizes some of the same equipment in the theater department.

“Since I do a lot of the riggings for these types of performances, I suggested we do an aerial dance workshop for the summer,” he said. “We’re hoping to bring in a lot of people who normally wouldn’t come to ETSU to think, ‘Hey, this is a neat place. I’d like to come here.’

“We think this is something that’s going to continue,” he said. “It’s good exercise. It’s a beautiful art form.”

Bernasconi, who has a dance company in Maryland, has also written a book on the art. She said the dance is complex, but allows much more freedom of movement because it essentially defies gravity.

“What we’re doing is low-flying trapeze on single-point traps,” she said. “ ... It’s called aerial dance and we use the ground and the air. So what (the students are) doing right now is they’re exploring motion, conical shapes. There’s a lot of physics involved in it.

“ ... They’ve learned some vocabulary, skills or tricks and we’ve been learning that for the past two days. And now we’re actually taking it into motion. And they feel the dynamics of how light they can be. When you’re just static and trying those tricks gravity just pulls you down. But when you take it into motion and you use the dynamics of the lines it frees you up, so they begin to dance and that’s why it’s called aerial dance.”

Claire Phillips dances at her high school in Chattanooga, but has never done aerial dance. She said she has learned “tons” of stuff that will help her in her dancing back home.

“My aunt is a professor here at ETSU and so she brought back the news. I was very excited when I heard about it. It’s a very cool experience.”

She said the motion she gets while in mid-air creates a feeling of exhilaration.

“It’s very fun,” she said. “It’s kind of scary because you’re off the ground and there’s a secure bar on the trapeze, but then when you let go and you’re not on the bar anymore, it’s like leaning back and you’re not sure if you’re secure anymore.”

The workshop participants will perform a finale showcasing aerial dancing for the public this Saturday at 10 a.m. in Brooks Gym.

Source: Johnson City Press, Tennessee

Adult Entertainment Industry Feels Pinch Of Tough Economy

By NICOLA M. WHITE | The Tampa Tribune
Published: July 8, 2008


TAMPA - Jessica Mann and Rebecca Massicotte swiveled around a pole in high-heeled platforms and bikini tops.

Two men in velvet chairs looked on.

The women are used to sparse crowds on weekday afternoons at the Deja Vu strip club on Adamo Drive. But not like this.

As the economy slumps and gas prices rise, Americans are tightening belts. That means even here in Tampa, the self-professed "Lap Dance Capital of the World," the area's adult entertainment venues are taking a hit.

Profits are down 25 percent to 30 percent this year, said Deja Vu general manager Eric Terrell, who goes by the name Ice.

Guys in suits out to entertain their clients no longer have such plush expense accounts. The customers who once thought nothing of plunking down a few hundred bucks - even a grand or two - on credit cards for private dances in the champagne room now balk at their monthly statements.

Mostly, the clients just don't walk through the door.

"What we are seeing is there's a trickle-down effect because of the subprime mortgage crisis," said Angelina Spencer, national executive director of the Association of Club Executives, a group that represents adult entertainment clubs. "This is resulting in less people going to all sorts of entertainment venues, not just adult entertainment venues."

Spencer, who used to run a club in Cleveland and now lives in Naples, fields calls every day from strip club owners feeling the pinch of a bad economy.

"Entertainment is one of those luxury items; it's one of the first things people give up," she said.

While an ailing economy may bring fewer customers to local strip clubs, it often, however, will bring out more women willing to give pole dancing a try.

"If it's hard to find even a regular job out there, I'll get more dancers," said Joe Redner, owner of Tampa's iconic Mons Venus club on Dale Mabry Highway.

His club's business is down 25 percent in this struggling economy, he said.

Most adult entertainers work as independent contractors, meaning they pay club owners a fee to perform and then pocket the money they earn from tips and private dances.

Because it doesn't cost club owners extra cash to take on new dancers, club managers lose nothing by adding more women to their dance roster. This, of course, means more competition for tips and private dances among the women.

"They're having to work longer hours and actually work a little harder," Redner said.

Mann, 28, worked at Deja Vu 10 years ago, bringing in big cash for the then-18-year-old dancer.

"It was wonderful back then," she said.

She made $400-500 most nights. But she didn't want to dance forever so she left the business to go to school and become a certified nurse's assistant and medical technician.

The problem: She earned $9.75 per hour and found herself living paycheck to paycheck. Three months ago, she came back to Déjà vu and started dancing again.

Massicotte, 24, who started dancing at 18, earned $2,200 a week during the good years.

Those payouts are over.

"The regulars we used to have three to four times a week, we don't have that anymore. They're looking for dance specials," she said.

Neither woman, however, wants to leave the business any time soon. Although some nights they don't come home with much money, in what is perhaps a bigger indictment of the local economy, dancing pays more than a traditional gig.

"It's still more than a 40-hour-a-week job," Mann said.

There might be a bright spot on the horizon, though: football. Particularly that one big game in February.

"We're all holding our breath for the Super Bowl," said Monica Fox, a manager and consultant at Deja Vu.

Source: Tampa Bay Online

Dancers using the tango to fight off depression

A research trial is finding out if concentrating on dance steps keeps negative thoughts away.


Published: June 28, 2008


What flamenco is to Spain, or what jazz was to the United States, tango is to South America.

Its sensuous formality has inspired poets and composers and an art form thought to have begun in Argentinian brothels has fans around the world.

Now there is new research in Australia which suggests that tango may help people fight depression.

A University of New England researcher has been running a trial to see if concentrating on dance steps keeps negative thoughts away.

Long-time tango teacher Jackie Simpson instructs a class of about 20 people in an old church hall in the inner Sydney suburb of Surry Hills.

One of Ms Simpson's female dance pupils says she decided decided to get involved in tango therapy to try to overcome depression.

"So I read about this and although I don't dance, just my whole being went, yeah! You know, yeah, I want to learn to tango, I want to learn to do this," she said.

"It just sounded, just something that I wanted to do.

"After the first night I got home and I just felt so energised and for the next two days I just felt so focused and things that I was just feeling that I was overwhelmed about before, I just had the energy to do."

She says decided to take part in the classes to help deal with her grief.

"I was feeling really at a deep place," she said.

"I lost a son about two-and-a-half years ago and where I had done a lot of grieving I just found I wasn't getting up and getting back into life that much."

Rosa Pinniger is an honours student at the University of New England, where she is studying cognitive and behavioural therapy.

Psychologists use it to try to help people fight negative thoughts and see situations more positively.

Ms Pinniger says many studies have shown that meditation can be helpful in learning to do this.

While studying the benefits of meditation she realised the brain works in a similar way when dancing the tango.

"While you're doing tango you can only be in the present - you really have to focus, concentrate, and it doesn't allow your thoughts to drive into your mind," she said.

"And this is one of the things of meditation, the other thing is that for example in meditation people usually use their breathing, and this is something that people have done all their lives - they know how to breathe but they need to be aware of their breathing and they use it.

"The same with the tango - everyone walks and as long as you can walk you can tango, and this is the truth.

"The only thing is that usually we are not aware of how we walk and in tango you have to."

Positive changes

Ms Pinniger says the participants in her trial have kept coming back to the tango classes because they can see results.

"If people can have a break from their negative thoughts for three minutes - which is the time of the tango - they can realise that it is possible," she said.

"And sometimes we only need to know that something is possible. If we can do it once, we can do it again and again and again.

"I think that this is why people tonight, while they are doing tango, this is what it is, nothing else. So all their problems and their thoughts, they cannot be, they are not invited in the tango."

One of the participants found the tango helped take her mind away from a particularly painful event in her life.

"We've had a death in the family and I forgot about it while we were dancing and I guess the depression was all part of looking after someone that we knew was dying," she said.

"So I was very depressed for a long time but you come here and you forget about it, you know, so, for a moment."

But generally the people at the tango class enjoy getting together and learning something new.

"When you're learning and you're practising and you get, well, you're sort of achieving things, I think that makes you feel good about yourself. So I think that's helpful," one pupil said.

"I noticed a huge improvement in how I was feeling during the classes - particularly after maybe doing three or four.

"I think it has a blend of a social element. There's a closeness to other people so you can learn to trust again and there's a physical exercise in it but it's so subtle that you don't really notice.

"So it's the subtle blend of many things."

Ms Pinniger says learning to tango will not cure depression but can be used with other therapies.

She also says it is not for everyone - meditation may be better for some.

"Let's not forget that meditation although it has many things in common with tango, but it's still an individualistic activity while tango it is more social," she said.

"For some people maybe they are not in the state that they want to go that step further of connecting and then it's okay.

"We are all individuals and we have to choose which one is better for us, that's all."

All of Jackie Simpson's tango students have decided to continue learning to dance the tango - and even Ms Pinniger says she might take up learning the exotic art form herself.

Based on a report by Carly Laird for PM

Source: ABC News, Australia

Sensuous Shimmy Faces Jab and Jostle

Dance was an intrinsic part of the culture of the ancient Egyptians, with people of different social classes enjoying music and dancing.


By Ramadan Al Sherbini, Special to Weekend Review
Published: June 13, 2008


To the West, it is the belly dance. To Middle Easterners, it is raqs sharqi or the oriental dance. Whatever the name, the dance continues to be popular worldwide despite changes over the centuries in its form and perception.

There has been much debate as to when and where this form of art originated. Many researchers date it to Pharaonic Egypt, citing inscriptions on temples of dances performed during religious rituals.

Dance was an intrinsic part of the culture of the ancient Egyptians, with people of different social classes enjoying music and dancing.

Labourers worked in rhythmic motion to songs and percussion and street dancers entertained passers-by, historians say.

Some researchers, however, argue that the belly dance originated in Greece and came to Egypt when Alexander the Great (356-323BC) built the coastal city of Alexandria. Others trace it to northwestern India and Uzbekistan.

Apparently looking for a compromise, some other theorists say the belly dance has different origins, referring to its diversity of styles.

Because of this ambiguity, the dance has come to be scorned by some people and admired by others.

From the Middle East to the US and Australia, the belly dance has become a popular performing art as well as a mode of self-expression and entertainment.

Classes teaching the dance continue to be conducted in many parts of the globe.

In Egypt, where the belly dance has thrived over the years, it is popular among foreign visitors and locals alike. Egypt boasts the world’s best-known dancers.

“Despite restrictions triggered by a revival of Islamism in this predominantly Muslim country, the belly dance is still a major item and attraction in most wedding parties,” says Khalil Sadek, a folk-arts researcher. “This art is a form of self-expression and a way of exercising.”

In recent years, gymnasiums have sprung up in major Egyptian cities, offering classes for women interested in learning it.

“We have a high demand particularly in the summer, when girls do not go to schools and mothers have enough time,” says Hossna Jamil, an instructor at a gym in northern Cairo.

“Despite the scorn poured by Islamists and conservatives on the belly dance, it is still popular with the local women, who want to perform it for their husbands or on happy occasions such as weddings,” Jamil says. “It also helps them to be in good shape.”

She says the belly dance is beneficial to both the mind and the body.

“Dancing boosts mental health and helps increase flexibility and strength. It activates blood circulation and makes the body more supple and controllable. It also rids one of feelings of fatigue and depression.”

Many belly dance styles emphasise muscular “isolations”, and enhance the ability to move various muscles or muscle groups independently, experts say. Belly dancing, they add, tones the arms and improves flexibility.

As a form of exercise, it can burn as many calories as jogging, swimming or riding an exercise bike. “Belly dancing is less strenuous than lifting weights and more uplifting than working out on a bike at the gym,” said researcher Sadek.

There are two forms of belly dance. The first is raqs baladi (a local dance), which is generally performed during festive occasions such as weddings and other social gatherings for fun and celebration.

The second form — a more theatrical version — is called raqs sharqi (oriental dance). Like raqs baladi, raqs sharqi is performed by both male and female dancers.

According to the Wikipedia encyclopaedia, the exact origin of this dance form is actively debated among enthusiasts, especially because of the limited academic research on the topic.

Much of the research has been done by artistes attempting to understand their dance’s origins.

However, the often-overlooked fact that most dancing in the Middle East occurs in the social context rather than the more visible and glamorous context of professional nightclub dancers has led to widespread misunderstanding of the dance’s true nature and has given rise to many conflicting theories about its origins.

The best-known theory is that it descended from a religious dance. This idea is usually the one referred to in mainstream articles on the topic, and has enjoyed a large amount of publicity, according to Wikipedia.

In the West, raqs sharqi was popularised during the Romantic Movement of the 18th and 19th centuries, inspired by the Orientalist view of harem life in the Ottoman Empire (1288-1922).

Although there were performers of this type of dance at the 1876 Centennial in Philadelphia, it was not until the 1893 World Fair that it gained national attention.

At the fair, there were authentic dancers from Middle Eastern and north African countries, including Syria, Turkey and Algeria, but the dancers in the Egyptian Theatre of the Street in Cairo exhibit gained the most attention.

With belly dancing generating admiration bordering on a craze in the US, Thomas Alva Edison made several films focusing on the dancers in the 1890s.

The list included Turkish Dance and Ella Lola. One of the earliest films made on belly dancing was Fatima’s Dance, a short that drew criticism for its “immodest” dancing, and was eventually censored under public pressure.


Some Western women began to learn from and imitate the dances of the Middle East, which at the time was colonised by Western powers.

The famed US dancer Ruth St Denis (1877-1968) also engaged in Middle East-inspired dancing, but her approach was to put “oriental” dancing on the stage in the context of ballet, her goal being to lift all dances to a respectable art form.

Egyptian belly dancing was among the first styles to be witnessed by Westerners. During Napoleon Bonaparte’s 1798 invasion of Egypt, his troops encountered the ghawazee tribe.

The ghawazee (itinerant dancers) made their living as professional entertainers. At first, the French were repelled by their heavy jewellery and hair, and found their dancing “barbaric”, but were soon lured by the hypnotic nature of their movements, according to Wikipedia.

The classical belly dance is still popular in the West. Still, many dancers have created fusion forms such as the American tribal style, inspired by the folkloric dance styles of India, the Middle East and north Africa and even flamenco.

Dancers in the United States, while respecting the origins of the belly dance, apparently innovate to address their requirements.

In fact, many women in the US and Europe view belly dancing as a tool for empowerment and a boost for bodily, mental and spiritual faculties.

Issues of body image, self-esteem, healing from sexual violation and self-fulfilment are regularly tackled in belly dancing classes there.

The interest in belly dance has given rise to diverse names for the same simple movements and the need to have a “style” as instructors try to accentuate distinction and differences in their ways of teaching.

A recent movement in the US called the American Tribal Style Belly Dance (ATS), represents everything from folklore-inspired dances to the fusion of ancient dance techniques from north India, the Middle East and Africa.

Launched in the early 1990s by Carolena Nericcio, founder of FatChanceBellydance in San Francisco, ATS has a format consisting of a vocabulary of steps designed to be performed improvisationally in a lead-follow manner.

Pure ATS is performed in a group, typically with a chorus of dancers using zills, or finger cymbals, as accompaniment.

The music can be folkloric or modern and the costume is heavily layered, evoking traditions of one or all of its cultural influences.

Multicultural trends that have shaped Western and US belly dancing are still at work.

Constantly evolving, this dance keeps absorbing a blend of influences — modern fashion, film and television imagery, the world of rock and hip hop, underground subcultures, and many others.

Like the United States, Canada also has a thriving belly-dance community with many different styles ranging from raqs sharqi to gypsy.

Many schools teach the dance in Canada, which has produced some of the finest belly dancers in the world, including Yasmina Ramzy.

She is the driving force behind the International Belly Dance Conference of Canada, regarded as the country’s largest belly dance gathering.

Belly dancing is equally popular in other Western countries, including Britain and Australia.

While social dancing on certain occasions such as family functions is accepted and even encouraged, many people in Middle Eastern and North African societies frown upon the performances of professional dancers in revealing costumes and dismiss them as morally objectionable.

Some have even gone so far as to suggest that such performances should be banned altogether.

Last month, Dina, Egypt’s celebrated belly dancer, drew scathing criticism from members of parliament and the media for performing at a school prom.

The country’s official TV broadcaster stopped showing belly dance performances two decades ago.

Since the early 1980s, big-name belly dancers in Egypt have been quitting the profession, deciding to “repent”.

The list includes Sahar Hamadi, Hala Al Safi and Azza Sherif. Others, such as legendary Najwa Fouad, have either retired or shifted their sights to TV drama and cinema.

The heyday of this art form in Egypt was in the 1940s and 1950s.

The Emad Eddin Street, Egypt’s version of Broadway in those times, was famous for its nightclubs where top as well as not-so-well-known dancers performed.

During those years, King Farouk, Egypt’s last monarch, reportedly hired the Russian ballet instructor Ivanova to teach his daughters.

Ivanova later taught Egypt’s iconic belly dancer Samia Jamal how to use the veil to improve her arm carriage.

Most Egyptian dancers would use the veil as an opening prop, which they discarded within the first few minutes of their routines.

In Egypt, dancers also wear full, beaded dresses to do folkloric and baladi (local) performances. Such outfits are also used by the American and European artistes for folk dances.

However, in Egypt these dresses are designed according to the dance and the tradition. Western dancers have more freedom and may choose freely according to taste and imagination, experts say.

Tahya Karyouka, one of Egypt’s most talented dancers in the first half of the 20th century, is remembered for popularising baladi dance in her movies.

Soheir Zaki and Najwa Fouad dominated the belly dance scene in the 1960s and 1970s. Other dancers such as Fifi Abdou and Lucy rose to fame in Egypt and far beyond in the 1980s and 1990s. Now they devote most of their time to acting on TV.

In recent years, Dina has been the most famous name in Egyptian belly dancing, where the art form is now dominated by foreign performers from as far as Argentina, Mexico, Poland, Russia and Ukraine.

In an apparent reaction to protests from local dancers, Egypt imposed a ban on foreign belly dancers in 2003. The ban was, however, lifted a year later.

There are 150 licensed foreign belly dancers in Egypt, according to official figures. Insiders, nonetheless, confirm that the figure is far higher because of the low fees requested by the foreign performers compared with their Egyptian counterparts.

A famous Egyptian dancer would demand $10,000 a night compared with $500 by a foreigner.

Egyptian agents started to hire foreign belly dancers in the years following the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s.

Originally ballet dancers, the newcomers from Eastern Europe were quick to acquire the skills of raqs sharqi.

They soon proved to be serious rivals to the local performers in nightclubs and in programmes hosted at fashionable hotels in Cairo and thriving resort towns such as Hurghada.


Foreign dancers, such as Asmhan of Argentina, the Ukrainian Sally and the Brazilian Camellia, are now big names among Egypt’s raqs sharqi performers.

In an apparent bid to enhance their allure and renown, these foreign dancers have taken purely oriental names.

Belly dancing consists of movements that are executed throughout the body.

The focus of the dance is the pelvic and hip area. It is, fundamentally a solo improvisational dance with a unique dance vocabulary that is fluidly integrated with the music’s rhythm.

The most admired performers of raqs sharqi are those who can best project their emotions through dance, even if their dance is made up of simple movements.

To some experts, belly dancing is not an inaccurate term. They point out that all parts of the body are involved in the dance and the most important part is the hips.

The dancer’s aim, they argue, is to convey to the audience the emotion and rhythm of the music.

Egyptian-style raqs sharqi is based on baladi, a style honed by legends such as Samia Jamal and Tahya Karyouka in the 1940s until the 1960s, deemed to be golden era of the belly dance in Egypt.

Its popularity was enhanced through local musicals.
In Egypt, three main forms of the traditional dance are associated with the belly dance: baladi (local), sha’abi (folksy) and sharqi (oriental).

The Egyptian forms of belly dance are rivalled by the Syrian, Lebanese and the Turkish patterns.

Turkish belly dancing may have been influenced by the Roma people as much as by the Egyptian as well as the Syrian and Lebanese forms, having developed from the Ottoman dance to the oriental dance known today worldwide.

Turkish law does not impose restrictions on dancers’ movements and costumes, unlike Egypt, where dancers are barred from performing floor work and certain pelvic movements.

With the surge in Islamism and the foreigners’ invasion of the trade in Egypt and some other Arab countries, experts are worried about the future of the belly dance.

“Now everyone who has nothing to do can claim she is a dancer,” Fouad told the London-based Arabic newspaper Asharq Al Awsat.

“Russians and Poles are now dominating the scene as female singers take up dance as well.”

Earlier this year, Fouad was on the jury of Hezy Ya Nawam (Wiggle, Chick), a contest produced by the Lebanese TV channel LBC to spot new talent in belly dancing.

The producers said their key aim was to protect this genre from extinction. Ironically, the contest drew competitors from France and Ukraine.

Ramadan Al Sherbini is a journalist based in Cairo.


Source: Gulf News Archive

Greenville High's Jernigan uses dance to teach art

By Kathryn McKenzie, City People Writer
Published: May 7, 2008


It's hard for Hilary Jernigan to hide her love for art.

"I knew as a freshman in high school that I wanted to be an artist," she says. "My passion was in art."

Jernigan teaches art I, II, III and IV at Greenville High School and is a working artist herself. Much of her personal love for what she does is shared with her students by showing them the endless possibilities and variations that art can bring.

"I'm a non-representational artist. A lot of my work is purely compositional. It doesn't have subject matter," Jernigan says. Non-representational art focuses on shape, color and space.

To incorporate her medium and to help the students grasp the concept of non-representational art, Jernigan brought in another art form into the classroom -- dance. Jernigan says that with the help of dance, the students were able to see the pure concepts of composition.

"I have real passion for modern dance," she says. "So overlapping those two concepts was to me, very natural ... and I wanted the students to see composition in modern dance and composition in modern art is very similar."

To teach the concept of compositional art, Jernigan paired up with a teacher from the Fine Arts Center, Jan Woodward, to teach a unit on dance and art.

"The kids drew from watching the dancers," Jernigan says. "We sent artwork over to the Fine Arts Center and the dancers created some original choreography off of the artwork. Then when we got together, they did the dance for us and the students continued to work off of the dancers choreography, so it was a reciprocal process."

There's always an aesthetic beauty to Jernigan's medium and she recognized that about dance, as well. Both art forms deal with shapes. "It's all about shape, a lot of positive and negative space," she says. "Dance is a composition that's always changing and moving. After college, as my work began to mature more, I began to see that relationship.

"The first time I really saw wonderful modern dance was when I watched Alvin Ailey's dance company, " she says. "The composition was so moving and shocking. It's three-dimensional art constantly changing, it's kinetic art."

Source: GreenVilleOnline.com

Danza Voluminosa, a Cuban ballet troupe

Plus-size dancers are crowd pleasers
By MIKE WILLIAMS
Published Tuesday, May 27, 2008

HAVANA — Barbara Paula looks nothing like a classical ballerina, but when she speaks of dancing on the stage, her face glows with confidence.

"I always wanted to be a dancer, but I was heavy and never had the opportunity," said Paula, 30, who weighs 275 pounds. "Becoming a dancer has changed my life 120 percent. It's given me confidence and helped me emotionally."

Paula is a member of Havana's Danza Voluminosa, a group of plus-sized women who have become a well-established and respected troupe on the Cuban arts circuit. Their performances draw large audiences and favorable reviews, challenging stereotypes about beauty and the arts.

Founder and choreographer Juan Miguel Mas, 42, came up with the idea in 1996, drawing on his own experience as a heavy-set dancer entranced by modern dance.

"The first performance was received with a lot of expectation and reservations," he said. "The house was full and some people laughed, but others applauded. At the end, there was a big debate about whether it was appropriate for the stage and whether it was aesthetic or not. But we have continued, and we are breaking down barriers."

The group has become quite popular in Cuba, its members' girth something of an anomaly in a country where food is expensive, rationed and at times scarce. Members of the six-woman troupe weigh between 200 and 300 pounds. Their art is also experimental, somewhat unusual in a country where many artists hold closer to classical and indigenous forms.

Mas scripts dances that follow classical themes, infusing touches from African, modern, jazz and Caribbean dance. He also creates plots around the challenges and discrimination faced by the overweight, who — as in other countries around the world — often endure exclusion, teasing and insults from a young age.

And sometimes the performances are whimsical, including a parody of the classic Swan Lake.

"The idea is to expand dance and culture, creating respect for diversity," he said.

While most modern professional dance troupes are filled with lithe, muscular bodies swirling and twirling around and above the stage, the movements of the heavy dancers are, by necessity, more earth-bound.

"It's slower," Mas said. "There are gestures from pantomime but also some from ballet, depending on the characteristics of the play. The aim is to always make an intense visual presentation."

Mas says he has heard of other troupes of obese dancers in places as far as Moscow and London, but most seem to have put on a limited number of performances and none has continued for long or reached a professional status akin to what Danza Voluminosa has achieved in Cuba.

The group has official sanction, conducting practices and performances in the National Theater, and Mas receives a government salary for his work with the troupe and other activities.

But the dancers typically work regular jobs, squeezing in rehearsals and performances around the demands of their daily lives.

"We practice twice a week most of the year, but before a performance I lose track of how many hours we rehearse," said Paula, a homemaker. "After we perform, I feel such an excitement and happiness."

Expanding from his work with the overweight dancers, Mas also runs workshops and seminars, sometimes for visiting international groups.

Some of his work combines yoga and dance, and some of his seminars use dance as therapy, helping build self-esteem.

But the Danza Voluminosa troupe remains his main focus, an unexpected success that has been accepted with enthusiasm.

"This January we shared the stage with three thin dancers in a production called Alliances," Mas said. "We looked for alliances between these types of bodies, in the end creating one body with the bodies of six dancers. It was a call for respect of our differences, not just between body types."

With more than 30 dancers trained over the past 11 years, Mas keeps his regular company at six performers and enjoys no shortage of interest from women wanting to join the group. He also has no problems scheduling performances.

"Most of our dancers are afraid to appear in public the first time, but their confidence grows when they see the audience's reactions," he said. "And while that first audience laughed at the idea, now it's different. People come now to the theater with expectations to see a serious work. It's serious and professional."

Source: Palm Beach Post-Cox News Service

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Danza Voluminosa, a Cuban ballet troupe, fat dancers win respect
Published: 29 July 2007

Formed a decade ago by Juan Miguel Mas, this company of obese dancers has become a cultural phenomenon in Cuba, breaking stereotypes here of dance, redefining the aesthetics of beauty and, along the way, raising the self-esteem of heavyset people.

The prima ballerina of the Danza Voluminosa troupe weighs 286 pounds, and as she thumps gracefully across the floor, she gives new meaning to the words stage presence. Her body is a riotous celebration of weight - of ample belly and breasts, of thick legs and arms, of the crushing reality of gravity.

"I always liked to dance," said the dancer, Mailin Daza, who weighs the equivalent of about 130 kilograms. "I wanted to dance in the classical ballet, but my mother told me fat girls could not dance. I always dreamed of being a ballerina. With this group I feel I am a ballerina."

While the troupe is not the first to employ larger dancers, its popularity comes as a surprise in a country known for its muscular, lean dancers in every genre from classical ballet to salsa.

Mas, a choreographer and dancer who moves like a pampered cat and weighs 136 kilograms, acknowledges that he often uses the stereotypical humor of his dancers' proportions to bring in audiences. The troupe is well known for its parody of Swan Lake and it engages in hilarious renditions of the Can-Can.

But Mas and his troupe are serious about dance, and once the laughter dies down, they are capable of performing moving pieces that drill into the universal themes of love, death and erotic longing. The audience forgets the joke and begins to feel the dance, he said.

"We use humor to get the public in," he said. "Then we can hit them with something stronger."

Mas, 42, also choreographs pieces on themes like the tragedy of gluttony, love between obese couples, the prejudice that fat people face and the psychic toll of obesity.

One of the troupe's recent successes is called "Sweet Death" and tells the story of a woman, rejected by her family, who tries to commit suicide by eating huge quantities of candy. The work has surreal elements, the dancers using their bodies to create furniture in the performance. Another piece, "The Macabre Dinner," explores gluttony.

Mas says it would be a mistake to think that his work is intended to glorify or sanctify obesity, or even to deliver a moralistic message that one should not discriminate against the overweight. Rather, he says, the troupe's art tries to face the reality of obesity while giving larger people a chance to express themselves through dance, a chance they are denied from youth in most dance classes. "Although we are obese and dance, we are against obesity," Mas said. "We are always trying to lose weight."

But something strange happens when the troupe takes the stage. Classical and modern dance often give the impression of human beings flying, freed of the earth. The female dancers are like nymphs, the men like Greek statues. They soar, spin, leap and reach for the sky.

Because of the size of the dancers in Mas's troupe, however, the work of Danza Voluminosa conveys something more earthy and human. Fat people move differently, he said, and the choreography must change.

"We are more mountainous," he said with a smile.

The dancers' movements are often slower than those of their slender colleagues. These dancers favor limbs swinging in pendulous arcs and wavelike motions that seem to ripple through their bodies. They seem to grip the floor rather than to abandon it, keeping a low center of gravity, often crouching or dancing while kneeling or lying on the ground.

And when their dance becomes frenetic, the sheer weight of the dancers thudding across the stage conveys an excitement akin to a stampede, something out of control and wild, yet made of human flesh and blood. It can be a riveting sight.

Mas says he has borrowed from the work of Martha Graham and José Limón but also incorporates moves from African dance, jazz dance and the folkloric dance of the Caribbean, often with West African roots. "I use whatever I can," he said.

For the dancers, working with Mas has changed their lives. Several said they suffered from constant embarrassment and guilt over their weight before they began dancing. But dancing has taught them to accept, if not love, their bodies. They also say that after a performance they feel self-esteem that is foreign to most them, having suffered from the gibes of their peers since childhood.

Barbara Paula, 29, weighs about 125 kilograms and has been dancing with the troupe for five years.

She says it still feels strange at times to be on stage, as if she is constantly discovering the potential beauty hidden inside her body, which for years was a source of shame for her.

"It's something new," she said. "I don't have this complex anymore that because we are obese, we cannot dance, we cannot walk in the street."

The reaction of audiences here in Cuba has been immensely positive. The government now lets the troupe practice and perform in the National Theater of Cuba.

Mas now receives a state salary to continue his work. The dancers who have been with the troupe for years say that the when the group started in November 1996, they faced ridicule and laughter. But these days people take them seriously.

"We have always had those who laugh at first, but by the end of the show there is a standing ovation," said Xiomara González, a 43-year-old mother of two who gave up her job to dance and weighs about 80 kilograms. "And this is a beautiful thing, a very beautiful thing."

Source: Cuba News Headlines
(Original Source: By James McKinley Jr., International Herald Tribune)
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

A montage of clips from Danza Voluminosa's performances

Coffee with Raqia Hassan

by Layla Taj

Almost behind every successful Egyptian Style Dancer is the name "Raqia Hassan".

I had the opportunity to meet and take a class with Raqia when I was invited to perform in a Gala show in Stockholm Sweden Belly Dance Festival ..June 2000. She made a great impression on me. I want to share with you a question/answer article I wrote for a Middle Eastern Publication.

Layla: Raqia where were you born?

Raqia: I was born in Cairo and my father was born in Alexandria.

Layla: When you were a young girl in school , what type of student were you?

Raqia: I was a very good student, very quiet and honest.No one needed to push or beg me to do my homework. I wanted to do things right.

Layla: When did you begin dancing?

Raqia: When I was 4 years old, I started to move to the music. I rememember when I was young and sick in bed and suddenly I would hear the music ..and I would move to the music, even in bed while I was sleeping" she laughs.

Layla: Did you know as a little girl that you would become a professional dancer?

Raqia: Yes , many times and I'm sure others feel the same. If you love dance, the dance is always with you. It's in your blood. All Egyptians have dancing in their blood but some know their fate will be a life of dance.

Layla: Who inspired you the most as a young girl?

Raqia: When I was a young girl, I always wanted to go to the movies, the cinema. I always liked to watch the dancers. Samia Gamal , Tahia Carioca, etc. There were many good dancers during this time.

Layla: Who was your favorite?

Raqia: Nemat Moktar. Her movements were fantastic, it was as if she were singing.

Layla: Were there any obstacles which you encountered with your dancing career? For example government, boyfriends , your parents etc..?

Raqia: No, No. Nothing stopped me! I had a free life. I started dancing in a small group when I was 14 years old. Everyone around me knew how much I loved dance and no one tried to stop me.

Layla: What was it like dancing for the famous Reda dance troupe?

Raqia: It was a great experience for me! All this experience really helped me with what am doing now.I learned ballet, folkloric and gained alot of experience being on stage! I learned much from Reda, as he dealt with us as dancers. This is where I also learned my vocabulary! I learned a lot.

Layla: You were also a solo dancer for the Reda Troupe. What was the difference between dancing as a solo artist as opposed to dancing with a troupe?

Raqia: At 17 years old , I started to be a solo dancer with the Reda Troupe. But it is not for everybody. At this time I was very gifted with moving my hips and so he used me. I was the first one.

Layla: In your opinion what are the elements that make up a good choreography?

When a dancer has good form with her arms, good posture in general, a good smile and personality.. it executes the choreography well. But before everything else, a dancer must have a good ear for the music. Too many dancers don't have "the ear' and this is not good. When a dancer has a good ear for the music, the choreography will come automatically.

Layla: What is your opinion concerning choreography verses improvisation?

Raqia: I prefer choreography when it doesn't look like choreography.

Choreography should flow from the dancer and look natural. It should be a secret of the dancer that her music is choreographed. No one should notice. As a master teacher I have an eye for great detail, and my eyes cannot help capture the mistakes that a dances makes during her performance. And sometimes this makes me very tired. But when a performance is good it is as though I am in a dream.

Layla: What should dancers never do in front of an Egyptian audience.?

Raqia: A dancer should never sit, lie down or roll around on the floor. This is Turkish style but not Egyptian. I feel a dancer is a queen and a queen never sits on the floor! She should always stand up with a majestic posture. This is the Egyptian way.

Layla: Some dancers remark, "I dance for myself when I perform". What is your opinion about this remark?

Raqia: Never should a dancer dance only for herself. She can dance for herself at home in front of a mirror. When you are on stage you can dance some from your own feeling but mostly for the people. Some people really go out of their way to see you. How can you dance just for yourself? Can you just forget your audience? Never!

Raqia is a generous teacher giving of herself completely. I remember fondly during a class in Stockholm Sweden, she boldly walked over to me and put her foot on my foot to keep it down during a combination. She said "okay, now move the other foot" I did so. She replied "There, you've got it!" That's Raqia ..hands down simply the best!

Source: Layla Taj

Dancers get style tips from Egypt workshop

Published: December 24, 2007

CAIRO (AFP): Some 80 professional dancers from around the world have gathered this month at a luxury hotel overlooking the pyramids in the Egyptian capital Cairo to take part in an intensive dancing workshop, aimed at improving their technique and offering them style tips.

From Kazakhstan to Brazil, Italy and Indonesia, lovers of oriental dance flock to Egypt to pay homage to the cradle of this ancient art.

"If you haven't danced in Egypt, you are not a real dancer," said Raqia Hassan, Egypt's most famous dance teacher who organizes the winter workshops and who is also responsible for the Cairo Dance Festival held every summer since 2000.

"It is absolutely necessary to be trained here. Egypt is the source after all," said Nadia Sement, a French oriental dance instructor attending the workshop.

With colorful sequined scarves jingling around their hips, the dancers who each spent 1,000 euros (1,437 dollars) for the workshop, train vigorously for eight hours a day and listen to lectures on the dance's history in the evenings in order to truly capture the spirit behind the moves, the organizers said.

And cursed be those who reduce the ancient art to a simple form of seduction or who dare call it "belly dance", says Carolina Vargadinicu, who goes by the stage name Morocco.

"That would be a false, colonial and racist interpretation by the West," says the 70-year-old New Yorker whose family roots lie in Romania and who has been dancing professionally for 47 years.

Legend has it the dance was originally an ancient fertility rite. And while Egyptians like to trace it back to the Pharaonic times, the dance actually comes from India and was brought over to Egypt by gypsies.

In Mexico some still believe that the dance has the power to help fertility, says Grinnelli Sandoval who runs a dance school in Ensenada in Baja California.

"I have some students who have been sent by their gynecologist, because the movements help massage a woman's internal organs, which helps support the uterus better for childbirth," she said.

The workshop has also drawn local creative talent eager to showcase the accessories that must accompany the perfect dancer.

Displays of shiny, sequin-studded or pearl-embroidered costumes hang on display next to stands overflowing with music CDs and dance DVDs, and posters of the dance legends.

Not only has the golden age of the dance, embodied in the legendary Samia Gamal or Tahia Cariocca, long gone but foreign dancers working in Egypt are subject to strict restrictions aimed at keeping the art in Egyptian hands.

For Raqia Hassan, the dream would be to set up an oriental dance academy granting recognition to an art that she feels has not been given its rightful dues.

Actors' Guild Threatens to Penalize Male Belly Dancers

Published: 11 May 2008
Written by: Mona Madkour, AlArabiya.net


Renowned male dancer Tito Seif performs at a Giza hotel

CAIRO: As tourist season approaches, Egypt's professional belly dancing association has reported a surge in the number of professional belly dancer applications, including for the first time, from men.

The men who applied for permits already work as belly dancers on an unofficial basis, the head of the permit committee of the Egyptian Actors' Syndicate, Sami Nawar, told AlArabiya.net, adding that many have feminine- or gay-sounding names.

Nawar said the syndicate – which he descried as a "respectable" organization – would reject applications from men on the basis that it violates the social norms of the country, and said it would penalize male dancers.

"The syndicate will never encourage them [male dancers] to become part of the social fabric and will not play a role in creating controversy about how religion accepts what those men do and wear," Nawar said.

Male belly dancing, a centuries-old Egyptian tradition, is making a comeback despite suppression by government and religious officials due to its association with homosexuality, news agency Bloomberg reported.

Male dancers were in fact preferred by 19th-century Cairenes who thought women should not to expose themselves, it said, adding that from 1834 to 1849, women dancers –ghawazee -- were banned from the city.

Male belly dancing all but disappeared in the 1950s during the reign of Gamal Abdul Nasser because it smacked of monarchical decadence.

(Translated from Arabic by Sonia Farid)

Source: Al Arabiya News Channel

Belly dancer wows Britain's Got Talent team

Published: May 3, 2008

A BELLY dancer thrills the judges on Britain's Got Talent tonight - and catches the eye of presenter Declan Donnelly.

Sophie Mei, 19, tells hosts Ant McPartlin and Dec backstage how she turned to the Middle Eastern dance six years ago.

Speaking at the Manchester auditions, she says: "I've always loved dancing but I've never been that comfortable with it, and then I saw some belly dancers and I found out my curves could be useful for once."

As she steps on to the stage, Dec can barely keep his eyes off her.

And Simon Cowell is also transfixed by her curves.

Fellow judge Amanda Holden jokes: "Is it a yes or a no, Simon?" before Sophie has performed.

An insider said: "Dec was completely gobsmacked when he met Sophie and couldn't keep her eyes off her.

"He really wants her to do well in the competition."

And student Sophie, from Sheffield, is not the only one to win the judges' approval this week.

Grandad Leonard Henry Bennett, 72, impressed them with his strongman act.

Britain's Got Talent is on at 8.05pm on ITV1.

Note: The judges obviously haven't seen a professional bellydance performance before... but I'm glad that bellydance is getting some publicity, at least. :)



Source: The Daily Record