Summer 2024 Belly Dance Wrap Up, Part One

It’s been an exciting summer of belly dance with classes and performances. In the next few posts I’ll share some of what we’ve been up to!

First off, a small group of my students from Better Together Dance Theatre and I performed at Carnival of Stars 2024! It was our first performance together as Troupe Alisa and their first time performing at a belly dance festival. We had great time preparing for and performing in this show. I’m so proud of their hard work. We put our entire set together with very little time and they did a stellar job!

Alisa and students performing at Carnival of Stars Belly Dance Festival 2024

The following day I had the honor of performing the in Carnival of Stars Gala Showcase to live music with Pangia.

Alisa performs with Pangia at the Carnival of Stars 2024 Gala Showcase.

I’ll share video from these shows and more of our summer adventures in the coming weeks.

Tonight is our last night of summer classes at Better Together Dance Theatre. Then we take a two week break and come back refreshed for our Fall season. My fall teaching schedule is available on my Classes page - come dance with us!

Performance Video - SirensFest

Last week in virtual belly dance class we danced to the song Zay el Assal (زي العسل). It is one of my favorites and coincidentally I was cleaning out a cupboard over the weekend and found a DVD recording of a performance I did using this song in 2016 at the North Bay Belly Dance Bazaar! I thought I would share it here:

I am slowly adding more performance footage to my YouTube channel, please subscribe if you you’d like to see more.

The North Bay Belly Dance Bazaar has been renamed and is now called SirensFest. It is a wonderful, positive event that truly celebrates bellydance! I had such a great time there. The festival is scheduled to go on this year, October 3 -4, 2020, and the organizer, TerriAnne Gutierrez, is planning to build a stage outside, so I feel very hopeful about this and I will keep everyone posted as I learn more.

The song Zay el Assal is one of my favorites. It was originally sung by the Lebanese singer and actress Sabah. She is considered one of the greats. Here is a clip of her singing it complied with some gorgeous photos of her throughout her lifetime. She was a glamorous figure until the end! There are many belly dance versions of this song today.

In other news, I am working on the schedule for my Virtual Summer Belly Dance Classes. Please sign up to be notified of these and future classes as soon as the information is available. Thanks so much for your support and happy dancing.

Saidi Performance with Leila Farid

One more quick Saidi performance today as we will continue working with our Saidi routine tonight in class. This is the beautiful Leila Farid, an American belly dancer who lived and worked in Egypt for many years before returning the the US. She dances in a classic Egyptian style and I could watch her for hours!

This clip shows a belly dance Saidi performance in more of a nightclub setting, rather than a stage setting. Notice that it is more about a feeling of playfulness and fun and about involving the audience, rather than whirling the cane around at breakneck speed.

Leila Farid Saidi Performance at the teacher`s party of the Bellydance Camp Negum Cruise (Egypt, Luxor-Aswan, 23-28/01/2013)

If you missed it, I shared some clips that illustrate the progression of Saidi style dance from Tahtib to performance last week, and the week before I shared a favorite clip of a Saidi belly dance routine by the Egyptian belly dancer Lucy.

* * *

It was great to see some students at Carnival of Stars last weekend! I was lucky in that I got to attend both days and it was lovely to connect with so many dance friends, see some great performances, shop a little bit and just get inspired by being immersed in belly dance. I’m looking forward to talking about it in class tonight.

And then finally, I will be performing at El Morocco in Pleasant Hill on Sunday, July 28th. This is a live Arabic music and belly dancing show and it is one of my favorite things to do. Hope you can come!

Casbah Night at El Morocco this Sunday, July 28th!

Casbah Night At El Morocco

I am very pleased to be part of Khalil Abboud’s Live Music and Belly Dance Show this Sunday, June 23rd. I recommend this show to both those who know and love Arabic music and dance as well as those newer to the scene- beginning and intermediate students of belly dance who’d like to experience a live show :).

If you’ve never been there, El Morocco has beautiful ambience. You feel like you’ve entered another world as soon as you walk in. The food is delicious and it’s a really fun night. The band always plays extra songs for group audience dancing and this is an easy way to get up and try dancing to live music in a zero-pressure situation if you’ve never done it before and are dreaming of performing one day.

I hope you can join us!

Khalil Abboud Presents Casbah Night at El Morocco

Summer Belly Dance Classes

Hello Dancers!

Just a quick update this week to let everyone know that the Summer Session of belly dance classes at the South San Francisco Parks and Rec starts next Wednesday, June 20th.

Beginning Bellydance is from 7 - 8 and Intermediate is from 8 - 9.  Classes go through Wednesday, July 25th and there is no class July 4th.  You can register online through the SSF Parks and Rec in plenty of time to join us for a fun summer session.  Let me know if you have any questions.

And then for something completely different :).  I got to perform at Al Masri last Sunday with Nazir Latouf and the Al Masri Passion Band and my lovely friend Joumana took a video so I thought I would share it here.  The musicians are Musa Sababa on keyboard, Nazir Latouf on the oud, Reda Darwish on tabla and Linda Grondahl on backup percussion.  The music is incredibly beautiful - we are so lucky to have these musicians in the Bay Area and I encourage everyone who loves belly dance and Arabic music to come out and enjoy one of these nights!

Al Masri Passion Band and Alisa Greer

I hope you all enjoy the music and I wish you a great week!