Tag Archives: penn state

RECAP! Rakkasah Spring Caravan 2012 (Accio Belly Dance: Harry Potter and the Bothering of Snape)

17 May

WHERE DID APRIL GO?! Eh, I’ve been a bad kid with some internet issues for the past month… so let’s post “ALL THE ARTICLES”  I’ve wrote for the past month in one day! Huzzah!

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Two weekends ago was Rakkasah Spring Caravan near NYC.

 

As mentioned in previous posts, there are 4 Rakkasah events, each unique and different on their own.

“Rakkasah West” in California in March.

“Rakkasah East” in Somerset NJ in October.

“Rakkasah Winter Moon” in California in Jan/Feb.

“Rakkasah Spring Caravan” in Somerset NJ in April/May.

Rakkasah Spring Caravan is a belly dance fusion festival/convention in Somerset NJ (Rak East is more for the “traditional” style Bdance). Last year we performed a 7 min version of “Super Mario Belly Dance World”. This year we performed “Accio Belly Dance! Harry Potter and the Bothering of Snape”.

It was so much fun! We set up the dance to be in a “double potions class” with Slytherin & Gryffindor students with Snape as the professor. When class is over, Snape was supposed to touch his dark mark while Harry’s Scar is reacting, all for Moldy-Voldy to come out and battle Harry. Snape was supposed to come in at the end and do the spin sequence with two fanveils in the middle of the battle… but sadly 2 weekends before Termariel broke her foot! Eep! I had to step in and do Termariel part, and rewrite the story a bit. I think it still turned out great! In the video you can’t tell, but when we came out for the 1st song everyone was SUPER confused and muttering- “Are they witches? Are those wands? Is that Harry Potter?” wondering what was going on. During the 2nd song when the theme for HP came on, it was hilarious that quite a few people started to laugh or scream out as they realized we were doing Harry Potter (one of those light bulb/ “Ah-ha!” moments). For the 3rd song, “The Mysterious Ticking Noise” I was a bit nervous and trying hard to suppress a laugh- especially when a woman shouted “I LOVE SNAPE”, my beat was definitely thrown off. Totally worth it.

After our performance Anasma (left) went on  she did a cat themed belly dance, I can’t explain how amazing her style of dance is! She bring comedy to the dance world, and we love to help out!

We were also invited to dance in the Penn State Belly Dance Club time slot that night. Merika & I did a Poi & Double veil duet (respectfully). It was a bit of a stressful weekend jammed with workshops everyday, practice, amazing shows, shopping, and 2 performances… but it was fun.

I’ll have to post the Professional Photos when I get them! 😀

Thanks for reading!

Cheers,

Ayla

P.S. We got our photo in another blog! ..and now that I put up the 4th post that I’ve been slacking on- it’s time to read Nara’s posts! Huzzah!

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Penn State Raqs: PSU BDC Hafla Spring ’12

17 May

WHERE DID APRIL GO?! Eh, I’ve been a bad kid with some internet issues for the past month… so let’s post “ALL THE ARTICLES”  I’ve wrote for the past month in one day! Huzzah!

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So a few weekends ago I went back to my Alma mater,PennState, to perform at the Penn State Belly Dance Club annual Hafla.

***ANTIPODE:

Antipode performed “Harry Potter and the Belly Dance” (Harry BOTHER! And the Belly Dance). It’s still a working title. ^_~ Sadly, Termariel broke her other foot at LARP the weekend before (Note: AFTER the event was over. Sigh, poor girl). I had to step in last min for this show. (You’ll get more details in the next post!)

***Alumni SOLO:

From some issues that I had to take care of, sadly I didn’t really have enough time to work on my solo (which originally was supposed to be an Alumni Group Piece). I decided to impromptu quite a bit of it- since I love the music. I have practiced zilling to the base beat; it’s stead and not too fast for my novice zill hands. I sometimes switch it up to the melody, or certain rythms I’m learning.

Maybe if I have a set choreography, I could even take it to a competition! There might need to be a few more musicality changes though, and I am pretty rough in the video (my posture!)… hum.

***Haboussou:

Here is a version of a Cane Piece NARA and I choreographed, as our first duet. We were flat mates in college (lived in a few dorms down). She has an AMAZING BLOG, and runs Tiger Claw Belly Dance Studio about how to improve yourself as a dancer (and she’s also who got me into Doctor Who).

***Zombie Nation

Here is a beginner piece I wrote to Zombie Nation, since ZN is one ofPennState’s Foose ball tailgating songs. They used it as the closing piece, and had Sesquhenna dance it with us. (Technical difficulties in the beginning, sad panda.)

*** Over all there were many wonderful dances that I got to watch, especially “Just One Thing“! Such a lovely Trio.

The other guests, Susquehanna Belly Dance Club, were such a wonderful group of girls (and good dancers too!).

It was fun, and entertaining… and really nice we had live drumming as our curtain call.  I got to spoon!

Thanks for Reading!

Cheers,

Ayla

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Weak Weekend? Broken Lappy, Saidi Cane, & Photos

22 Mar

Oh noes! So this past weekend my Lappy’s Power Jack broke on me, and sadly I could not post 😦 But today, through the wonders of Amazon, I received a new USB/WIFI/PowerJack/”Daughter Board”! Huzzah! I’ve never ripped apart a laptop (just standard towers), but luckily youtube and google has wonderful photo instructions. It was so SUPER EASY, I’m surprised the manufacture wanted to charge me 358$ vs the 1hour & 57$ I spent! I know they have to run a business, but sheesh!

—————– SUBJECT CHANGE —————–

So what happened this past weekend?  Antipode had their main practice before The Penn State Belly Dance Club’s Hafla (sponsored byPennState’s Late Night). Even though it’s a month away, we want to make sure everything works out! We will perform the same pieces (and more) at Rakkasah Spring Caravan, 2 weeks later. Hint for the pieces: I recently bought a Levi Stick/ Flow wand from Flowtoys. Check out this cool vid:

I hope to be able to dance with it as a Saidi Cane Dance (Raks Assaya), but let’s see how much practice I can get in before the performance… and how well it can be seen from stage.

So what is Saidi? Well it’s pronounced Sah-EE-dee, and can be spelled  Sa’idi, Saiidi, Sayyidi, and Saeedi.

The Saidi dance is a folkloric dance from the Sa’id/Said region, or Southren Egypt. (aka Upper Egypt, since it’s further up on the Nile). I really enjoy this dance since it’s bouncy, sassy, energetic, playful, earthy… and interestingly enough, it can be performed by both men and women! The men tend to have more of a martial arts feel, while the women is more light & flirty (almost making fun of the men) & their canes have a crook. For females, Saidi dancing with a cane is called: Raks Assaya, Raks Al Assaya, or Rakset Assaya. (Raks = Dance, Assaya= cane/stick)

Here is Karim Nagi performing Tahtib (Male Saidi Dance)- the 2 min mark is where it feels more martial arts like. At 3 mins he uses 2!

Here is Aziza Performing Saidi (Female, but w/o cane). She’s amazing!

I wanted to take this idea to “ Belly Dance Nationals Competition”, but the website made it sound like there will NOT be the standard competition this year. 😦 Nationals and Belly Dancer of the Universe are the only two competitions I know of that have a prop-centric category- “Proptastic”. In 2009 Valentina won for hooping- that video IS CRAZY! Oh well, I will still make it rock out on video, at Rak, or maybe a competition at a later time. ^_^ I bet there are more out there >_>

Coincidently enough I taught (via youtube) another Saidi Cane Piece to Hakim’s popular song Haboussou. If you don’t know Hakim… he’s an EXTREMELY popular folkloric Egyptian male singer. You know how Justin Timberlake had every song released as a #1 hit? Well  that’s Hakim’s status but even more (I think he has 11 albums, or more!). He’s more of a “man of the people” type singer- lot’s of love songs. It’s also who you will probably hear blasted from every speaker on every corner in Cairo. 😀 No qualms there.

Here are some of my gals and I dancing to Haboussou at their Hafla in 2010. My sis made all those Dresses!

Anyways, I got to clean Haboussou this past weekend, but sadly didn’t get to clean a beginner song I choreographed: “Zombie Nation”- a “Zombelly”-stylized dance (No I am not witty enough to come up with “Zombelly” myself). Nor did I get my cues for Adele’s “Set fire to the Rain” (I was asked to perform Double Veil). ^_^;;

Whoops.

What did we do instead? PHOTOS of course!

I don’t have a huge amount of professional photos of myself- let alone Antipode. Katie (Katie Montella), a fellow dancer and friend, took some photos preparing for the Penn State Hafla. She lent her services for some awesome group shots of Antipode. I had a hard time trying to get them, so I will wait patiently (or crying) till the next time I see her. I did however get 2 shots of myself in my Kaylee Cosplay, and my (not finished) Kaylee Belly Dance Cosplay. More on that in the next post!

Photo Taken By Katie Montella (at InterventionCon Sept 2011)

Yes this weekend was “weak” and full or “1st world problems”- haha! I had fun!

Thanks for your reading & your time!

Cheers,

Ayla

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