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
Ayla, The 8-Bit Belly Dancer 