Amira Jamal's Student Recital 2010

On Sunday, May 2nd, Amira Jamal hosted her annual Student Recital at the Pacific Arts Center of Metro West, in Framingham, MA.

I love her student recitals for many reasons, including the opportunity to see my amazing classmates dance and to see some of the newcomers perform.  This might sound horrible, but (and I mean it in a really positive way)it's nice to watch the newbies because it reminds me of where I came from.  A closet full of belly dance clothes later, I can proudly say that I'm no longer a newbie.

Mainly, I love the student recitals because it's been great practice for me.  I've always been exceedingly nervous about performing in public, especially around other, more professional dancers.  But this year, I felt different.

In a way, the recital snuck up on me.  I had been extremely busy, and with a new kitty, it has been difficult to do much dancing around the apartment.  Next thing I know, it's April and the recital is a month away.

When I'm working on choreographing a piece, I usually just play the song over and over on my mp3 player.  Strangely, I find it really productive to choreograph while riding the T.  This time around, I really tried to focus more on where the music was taking my movements and build upon that, instead of trying to incorporate every little step that I knew into a dance.

But the real difference was that this year, I danced to an actual Arabic piece.

In the 5 years that I've been taking classes with Amira Jamal, I've danced to Tori Amos' "Sweet the Sting," Queen's "Crazy Little Thing Called Love," Bjork's "Bachelorette," The Beatles' "Something," and Pink Martini's "Never on Sunday."

I've always loved the idea of fusing different concepts together to create something beautiful, which is mainly why I've focused on dancing to different types of music than traditional Middle Eastern music.

The great thing about Amira's classes, however, is the fact that we're exposed to so much Middle Eastern music, from classical Arabic to more pop tunes.  She encourages us to keep broadening our understanding of the dance by understanding the music.

So, this year, I danced to "Balady ala Accordion" by Hassan Abou el Seoud (This song can be found on Shik Shak Shok and 10 Songs Every Bellydancer Should Know).

Oh, ya.  Another difference was that my costume wasn't completely green.  It was mainly purple, and only had the tiniest hint of green.

Most of the pictures were taken by my boyfriend, so they're a little blurry.
This was my entrance.

Shocker!  I know!

Oh ya, baby...those are zills!

I couldn't really tell you why I finally decided to dance to an Arabic song for the recital.  I have talked in a previous post about doing a Filipino/Middle Eastern fusion dance, but I haven't learned enough about traditional Filipino dance to put something together in time for the recital.

I had already danced to "Balady ala Accordion" at an event I organized, and I really love the song itself.  Also, in the past, I had been dancing to somewhat slower songs.  I figured it was time to up the tempo, and go for playing my zills.

Confident and smiling!

Overall, though I know I needed to improve my zill playing, I actually felt extremely confident about my dance.  Since we got the chance to perform for each other in class earlier that week, I had received really great feedback from my classmates - dancers I really respect.

I am really proud of myself for a 6th recital under my belt, and for feeling not as nervous as I stepped out onto the stage area.  It was also quite nice to get complements from some of the audience members, of whom were mainly family members of the performers.

It was also great to have my boyfriend there supporting me.  Though he isn't so good at taking pictures, it's always nice to be reminded that I have someone in my personal life that enjoys and supports this hobby.