Thursday, March 23, 2017

Belly Dancing

I've been taking belly dancing classes for a while now. These classes are offered by the Sunnyvale Adult Education program. Beginner classes happen in Fremont High School.

 
Tracy was our instructor and for 8 weeks we learnt choreography for 2 songs-Perhaps Perhaps by Doris Day and Habibi Tal Aleya by Madonna. We learnt a lot of basic belly dance and Arabian dance moves which were quite fun. At the end of the 8 week session, Tracy had organized a student night where dancers from the beginner, intermediate and advanced classes perform and put on a show. Friends and family are welcome to watch. Potluck style dinner was served.


We were given colorful skirts and veils by Tracy who was kind enough to let us borrow them. Sandhya and I decided to do a duet Bollywood performance too. We met up a few days before the show and choreographed a dance sequence to 'Mauja Mauja.'


Our group was the first to perform. Since the audience was small (~40 people) and the fact that Tracy was dancing with us, I had no stage fear. The first dance went quite well. The Bollywood dance as I had anticipated lacked coordination as we barely practiced it and ended up looking messy. The audience still applauded and at the end of the show several dancers asked us to teach them the Bollywood moves and they seemed to have really enjoyed the dance.



For one of the songs, audience members and kids were called on to dance. It was a lot of fun. The best performance of the day was a solo dance with sword. The dancer balanced a sword on her head while belly dancing. She was so confident and her moves were perfect. The show ended with everyone coming to the floor and dancing away to the music.

Here are the performances:

Perhaps

Habibi



Mauja:


It was a wonderful experience to be a part of the show.

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