INTERTWINE by Devi Mamak

An exciting new dance work has been brewing in the past several months within the Blue Mountains. The Winter Magic festival will host the “première” showing of this brand new & exciting production, “Intertwine” as part of this years Winter Magic Month program.

Devi Mamak has drawn together dancers, musicians and artists of varied disciplines and styles, braiding their talents together into a compelling and cohesive whole, creating a joyful, mysterious, colorful and diverse show that intertwines cultural traditions and an ebullient creative spirit. Audiences can expect to experience a visual & audio feast of dances and music from around the world from current re workings of the ancient Middle East, through to the gypsy dances of India, Temple dancers in Bali, the raw energy of African dance, passionate Flamenco styles, and right through to modern day Hip hop and back again.

Devi and her critically acclaimed Tribal Belly Dance troupe, Ghawazi Caravan from here in the Blue Mountains, have been working with other local artists including Emily Cooper from Hands Heart and Feet; Tarek Sawires & Jamie Bohm, Egyptian percussionists; Bronwyn Kirkpatrick, shakuhachi master; Colin Berryman , Sitar player: Keith Kempis, Balinese/Hip hop dancer, as well as Sydney artist, Jrisi Jusakos of Hathor Dance Company.

"It has been a dream of Ghawazi Caravan's to not only work with other dancers from various dance genres but to also work with fantastic musicians. “Everyone in the show is so hugely talented and this project has been so much fun to work on. These mixes of dance styles & musical instruments have never before been put together in this way so we all feel extremely excited about it.” Says Devi

"Intertwine" will be a joy for all ages, so come and see what happens when gifted people come together to share, collaborate and make a show supremely beautiful to the senses!

For further information, please check http://www.ghawaziaravan.com/

How's Bellydance at Taiwan? - Part I. Portugal Custard Tart vs. Bellydance

photo from sundeyahgo.pixnet.net/blog/post/22918710

When I travel aboard, particularly encountering with people from bellydance circle, they always ask me:“how's bellydance at Taiwan?” Well, it is a big question and it is not easy to answer in just few sentences.

In general, it was very big one time and now it is still hot, just not that big.

As an island with so many colonial experiences in the past – Holland, Portugal, Spain, Japan, immigrants from Mainland China after 1949…, we have such open-minded and welcome attitude toward anything new and exotic and we are also easily to be attracted by something much newer and different. In sum, it is a fast cycle of consuming: we find something new, we take it, and then it is done: we give it away for other things.

I still remember there was time when Portugal custard tart was first introduced to local consumers. All of sudden everyone was talking about this tart and the Portugal custard tart shop was everywhere. People even waited in long line for hours just for a dozen of tarts! It was such irrational fever. Few months later, people got crazy about other stuff and now we did not have many Portugal custard tart shops anymore. People didn’t mention it anymore and they don’t want to taste it anymore. It just totally disappears from our life.

When people learn that I am a bellydancer and I teach bellyadnce (I teach ATS), four from five people will say that someone they know also learn bellydance or involve with bellydance – it could be their family members, relatives, colleagues, classmates, friends, girlfriends…. Almost all who told me someone they know are learning bellydance or learned bellydance before said that those bellydance learners are so contented with their learning. I personally meet with some bellydance students and they project the same reaction: they first giggle and then smile shyly saying that they just really enjoy the bellydance class even though the class sometime is very challenging, regardless of their occupations, education or social status.

I am quite amazed at such high hitting rate. By statistics, it probably implies a huge consumer base of bellydance learning.

In the meanwhile, the local bellydance community gradually develops to reach its mature period in the past few years. It is consisted by bellydancer, bellydance instructors, and bellydance fans. I will say it is a quite tight-associated target group, almost like a secret underground cult. We only meet with each other like bats flying out of dark cave, at certain occasions: master workshops, local dance troupe recitals or foreigner bellydancers’ shows like BDSS.

There is a huge gap between the huge bellydance learning population and much-committed bellydancer community, in terms of knowledge and capacity of technique, concepts and information of bellydance.

It is very neutral. From my training of fine art marketing in the States, the whole market is like a pyramid (Pyramid means a lot to bellydancer!): the bottom section is much general and diversified while the top section is always more focus and targeted. What I refer to as “targeted,” is the fact that they are willing to spend a lot of money for classes and workshops, especially those certification workshops. We really love certification and there are many interesting facts behind this trend. (I should write another article just for this topic sometime!)

Tide comes and goes. Portugal custard tart is gone. Donuts are gone. So many stuffs passed. I definitely do not wish that someday my beloved bellydance would face a similar fate, totally disappearing from our life.

Somehow, bellydance, this art form of age old, has its own charm. It stays with us in a way we didn’t expect. Perhaps the fact that bellydance is a dance for women of all ages, sizes and live experiences, is also applied to this Confucius-dominant society.

A Night of Arab Music, Culture & Dance with Karim Nagi -A Charity Event for Children in Rural Area

Date: Thursday, June 11, 2009
Time: 19:30-21:00
Speaker: Karim Nagi
Location: B1 Auditorium, Taipei City Council
(No. 507, Section 4, Jen-Ai Road, Hsinyi District, Taipei City)
By Appointment only, NT$200 per person

Well renowned musician Karim Nagi, a native Egyptian as well, will give a 90-minute lecture on the dominant role of music, dance and drumming at Arab culture. He will start the lecture by giving audience the geographical introduction of 23 countries in Arab world. Several Arab percussion instruments will be introduced and demonstrated during this lecture. Nagi will also introduce two Arab folk dances: Tahteeb (a martial dance with stick) and Dabka (Arab line dance) to give audience a general vision of the tight association of dance and life in Arab world.

Nagi is born at Cairo and grew up at America. Carrying both Western and Eastern culture backgrounds and life experiences, he truly wishes to bridge between the two worlds for better understanding with each other. He hopes to present his beloved Arab culture to the world and let people know the fact that Arab world is not merely terrorism and wars: there are beautiful things worthy of sharing too.

The income of lecture will be donated to benefit children in rural area for their meals and textbooks. We accordingly invite all to share a night of wonderful cultural feast while support those children in need!

For further information please check Hand Dance & Drumming Sky at blog: http://blog.yam.com/crazydrum
For booking enquiry please contact Christine Du at HandDrum@gmail.com or 0952-523-235/ Lisa Chen at lisachen806@hotmail.com or 0970-071-411

Prolog - How I started My Blog and have another one…

When I first started my Chinese blog "Little Eye Lisa's OS on Dance" (http://atsforeverlisa.blogspot.com/), I simply wished to share my passion and love of ATS and tribal bellydance to my local dance colleagues: there was not much information and knowledge in Chinese available then. Honestly, it pretty much remains the way it used to be few years ago.

It all started with journey notes. I travel a lot for my own leisure before and I always write something to share with friends. Once I began to learn bellydance, I would search for bellydance classes or events wherever my travel destination is. I would write down my observation and experiences with other bellydance classes or events. For me, it begins like my other journey notes and as I gradually felt for bellydance, I started to travel for bellydance exclusively: I want to have more classes, more shows and more costumes! My journey notes thus become more bellydance and Middle East culture-oriented.

As a professional translator and freelance writer, writing something I truly love and share what I firmly believe to be beautiful and soulful is a dream job. I really enjoy writing and translating for my blog everyday. While writing and translating, I learn more and more about the dance I felt for so much. It makes me feel so completed in a way.

I am very lucky to meet with many kind dance friends through my blog project. They generously grant me permission to translate articles from their blogs or websites. Occasionally I am much honored to be asked for writing something local for them in return.

Little by little, day by day, I build up reputation and credits with pen name Little Eye Lisa. Sometimes after classes, people will approach me and tell me they really enjoy those articles on my blog. It is very flattered at first and then it gradually becomes a mission: being a bridge between the world of bellydance and local readers. Sometimes I received feedbacks from readers faraway at Mainland China joking me not doing my due diligence to update my blog. Then I realize my dream job is not only for myself, but already expanding as a crusade for people out there in need.

In the meanwhile, I continue traveling for bellydance. On many workshops or festivals, I am often the only one or very few Taiwanese dancers in that event. I have to say bellydancers are often very nice and friendly. They talk to me for what I want to know and ask me a lot about where I come from and how bellydance develop at my home town. They all are very excited to learn that I write about bellydance and have a tiny blog for bellydance till they learn all information and articles are in Chinese. Again, I realize I not only introduce information and knowledge from outside world, but also present my homeland to the larger global community.

So I decide to write some local scenes in English in order for those who cannot read Chinese while continue write/translate in Chinese for those who cannot read English. It sounds very complicated and challenging. I have no idea yet about the contents of my English articles and I believe I would be led to the destination I mean to go for, just as how I started my blog. I could see it as another great journey ahead…