It's been a busy weekend for our dancers! Spring is in the air and that means the season for workshops, performances, and more has begun. It's the start of a beautiful season, which promises to be a busy one, especially for me!
The weekend started with probably our most fun ATS class yet! We kept it real and on target with Tribal Fusion, but by the time we got to ATS, we decided to just play. It's been a session of really hard work, and we've all earned a break. We through on some music and just rocked out, ATS style! It was a lot of fun. It gave us all a chance to kick back and relax before the weekend really kicked off.
Then came Saturday, a day that promised to be quite lovely in sunny, warm, beautiful Mass, yet what do our dancers do? Journey north, to beautiful, scenic Vermont! It was a long drive up for all of us, and the weather was not quite as pleasant as it was to the south, being dark, gloomy, and threatening rain. However, it was all worth it when we shook off the cold and damp to get moving.
Now, if you've never taken a workshop with Neylan and you get the chance, take it! She is absolutely lovely. We all enjoyed her knowledge of flamenco and Spanish stylings, and she's just so much fun to work with. We learned some really great new moves, as they're incorporated into Gypsy Caravan improvisations. There was definitely an elevated level of challenge for our ATS dancers, given there were a handful of new moves for all of us, but we learned a lot of really cool stuff that may just have to be incorporated into future tribal fusion choreographies. The dancers of Element are already considering how they can modify a current choreography to include some of these fantastic moves! It was well worth the drive and so much fun!
On a personal note, I've realized why there was so much of a learning curve when I was reintroduced to ATS! I'd known for a while now that some of what I'd originally learned as ATS was not actually ATS. This was back in time before there was a formal plea to codify ATS as "FCBD format only" and all other forms of "ATS" would take another name. This was in part because all ATS dancers no longer knew the same language as moves were added and dialects were created. There are still dialects within ATS, but there have been other formats that have broken off and taken their own very distinct directions, such as Gypsy Caravan (sometimes referred to as GCBD) and Hot Pot ITS. Can you imagine how I felt when I realized most of what I'd learned in the early days was actually GCBD? No wonder it was such a hard transition to get back into ATS when I started up in classes of my own last October! It was interesting to see how much of a blend I really learned, and how much had changed in the time I took off of dancing.
And there were so many of us at that workshop! I wasn't expecting quite the turnout from Belly Dance MetroWest! We had a couple of members of Element World Fusion and one of our students! It was a great show of support for the belly dance community, as well as a great opportunity to learn something new! It was also a great application of my philosophy on dance. Learn it all, as much as you can. You never know what you might want to pull out for a choreography one day, or what will really appeal to your spirit. If I didn't live by that philosophy and only learned what I thought would directly apply to my career, I would have missed out on experiences with some amazing instructors and learned quite a few things that I unexpectedly added to my own dance career.
The very next day it was time to shoot down to Spring Frolics, a part of Danse Salmagundi. As all of the dancers at Belly Dance MetroWest know, I've been taking classes at The Dance Space in Worcester. That is also a huge part of my dance philosophy, never stop learning and taking classes. There is always something to learn. I'm honored to be included as a part of Amrah Qawiah. These dancers are nothing short of amazing, and I'm always excited for an opportunity to get out and dance with them. This time was no exception. The video of the event turned out amazing! We had so much fun putting this together, and Baseema Moirae's vision was perfect to open the show!
This piece was, well, I'll say 90% improv. The only thing planned out were the transitions, where every new dancer joined the group. There are some beautiful moments in this piece, and I love how it all came together. It is (in my extremely biased opinion) perfect! This is the kind of magic that can happen when a group of ATS dancers come together to make a vision come to life.
Of course, there were also the fantastic connections made with other dancers. I got to meet some seriously wonderful people this weekend, which was amazing. It was great seeing people outside of class, and connecting with dancers I don't get to see outside of shows. There is something fantastic about connecting with the dance community (even if I am exceedingly shy and prone to not actually talking to anyone unless they talk to me first. I hide it well, but seriously, I'm painfully shy!)
I hope all of you had a weekend as wonderful as mine! I'm looking forward excitedly to the next event, once again back to Rhode Island. I'll be sharing the stage with the wonderful dancers of Amrah Qawiah again, and it will be the debut performance of Element World Fusion! And that's not even mentioning the Zoe Jakes workshop on Thursday, and Beats Antique, where I'll be seeing some of my fellow dancers in the real world. I'm super excited and looking forward to that too! One more thing to check off the bucket list!
Being a part of this amazing community has been so fulfilling. There's so much to learn and so much to experience. I missed a lot of the action when my kids were young, back when all the big festival events were happening, but now I'm getting back into the world.
It's officially been a year since my business and dance career have been relaunched and it's all starting to come together. I'm so happy to have all of you along for the ride!
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