On Saturday, March 12th, 2011, the ever-amazing duo of *Samantha* and Baseema Moirae hosted their fifth Shimmies (previously known as Shimmies For A Cure) entitled Shimmies V: Peace Love and Shimmies.
The day was jam-packed with workshops and a show featuring amazing local dancers. This year, I had the pleasure of being the Stage Manager for the show.
It was great to see so many familiar and brand new faces from the New England belly dance community.
Workshops
Ooey Gooey with Najmat
One would think that having weekly class with Najmat is enough to build up some strength. But in the following week, she will help you find muscles that have basically been dormant since you were born.
This workshop was no exception. Najmat taught us how to "milk it" and stressed the importance of "squeezing your princess" as you do so. We worked through several movements that really focused on making sure that our ab muscles were always engaged.
As always with Najmat's classes, time flew by. But I would be lying if I didn't say that many of us breathed a sigh of relief at the thought of being able to relax for just a short amount of time.
Ballet for Belly Dancers with Aurel
If we knew how much more of a workout we were going to get in the second workshop, we probably would have wanted a longer break! I was personally excited to take a workshop with Aurel, a gorgeous dancer/singer/performer.
I have very minimal experience with ballet. For middle school, I attended a performing arts magnet in Los Angeles, and we were required to take a dance class as opposed to regular gym. So, I know about pliés, arabesques, and basics about the feet positioning. Aurel stressed the importance of the form and the lines that ballet hammers into its dancers, especially about pointing the toes and hiding the heels.
My thighs were burning after the workshop! It actually made me want to do a bit more practice on my own to work on the beautiful form that ballet can give to belly dance.
So You Think You Can Fuse? with Neylan
I have only watched Neylan perform, so I was interested in taking a workshop with her. It was great that she started with talking about the importance of knowing the origins and basics of the dances that you are fusing. It would indeed be strange to try to fuse Filipino traditional dances, let's say, with belly dance without knowing the moves and music of each.
She then taught us 2 short choreographies which we danced through several times using different types of music. We got to play around with making the movements go faster and slower, depending on the music she played for us.
I have to admit that my mind wasn't fully at this workshop. With the show soon after, my brain was wandering over to my stage managing duties, and I kept glancing at the time to make sure I had enough time to do all that I needed and fit in a tiny bit of shopping before I needed to refocus my energy.
Shimmies Show!
The show featured about 19 dancers from the New England area, including the 3 wonderful workshop instructors.
There were many new acts that I had never seen perform before (such as The Belly Dance Collective and OmBellyCo), and some acts who were debuting for the first time (such as Serpenour and Shimza!). And of course, there were so many of my favorite performers gracing the stage.
For the most part, even though I was managing the staging, I got to see the majority of performances. As stage manager, I was in charge of keeping track of the music and relaying the information to the DJ's (who were late and not very accustomed to belly dance shows), making sure the performers and their props were prepared, and keeping track of the time.
I'd have to say that the Shimmies Team did a pretty great job. For the most part, we were running on time with room to spare! At some point, however, we took too much time to get the raffle distribution started, so the final set of dancers had to wait a bit longer than scheduled. At the end, we ended a half hour later than originally planned. Really, not a bad thing at all.
Truth be told, I thought the show was amazing. There was such a great variety of performers and styles. It never felt like a dull moment, though of course my feelings are heightened because I was helping out. But the audience, who filled up the house, really seemed to be enjoying themselves.
To further prove how much fun people were having, when the DJ's started playing music that was more akin to a wedding reception, so many people were on the dance floor. From the Cha Cha Slide to I Will Survive, the night ended as though we had been partying all day.
Thanks to *Samantha* and Baseema's ingenious organizing and event planning skills, I think we really all were having the time of our lives.
The day was jam-packed with workshops and a show featuring amazing local dancers. This year, I had the pleasure of being the Stage Manager for the show.
It was great to see so many familiar and brand new faces from the New England belly dance community.
Workshops
Ooey Gooey with Najmat
One would think that having weekly class with Najmat is enough to build up some strength. But in the following week, she will help you find muscles that have basically been dormant since you were born.
This workshop was no exception. Najmat taught us how to "milk it" and stressed the importance of "squeezing your princess" as you do so. We worked through several movements that really focused on making sure that our ab muscles were always engaged.
As always with Najmat's classes, time flew by. But I would be lying if I didn't say that many of us breathed a sigh of relief at the thought of being able to relax for just a short amount of time.
Ballet for Belly Dancers with Aurel
If we knew how much more of a workout we were going to get in the second workshop, we probably would have wanted a longer break! I was personally excited to take a workshop with Aurel, a gorgeous dancer/singer/performer.
I have very minimal experience with ballet. For middle school, I attended a performing arts magnet in Los Angeles, and we were required to take a dance class as opposed to regular gym. So, I know about pliés, arabesques, and basics about the feet positioning. Aurel stressed the importance of the form and the lines that ballet hammers into its dancers, especially about pointing the toes and hiding the heels.
My thighs were burning after the workshop! It actually made me want to do a bit more practice on my own to work on the beautiful form that ballet can give to belly dance.
So You Think You Can Fuse? with Neylan
I have only watched Neylan perform, so I was interested in taking a workshop with her. It was great that she started with talking about the importance of knowing the origins and basics of the dances that you are fusing. It would indeed be strange to try to fuse Filipino traditional dances, let's say, with belly dance without knowing the moves and music of each.
She then taught us 2 short choreographies which we danced through several times using different types of music. We got to play around with making the movements go faster and slower, depending on the music she played for us.
I have to admit that my mind wasn't fully at this workshop. With the show soon after, my brain was wandering over to my stage managing duties, and I kept glancing at the time to make sure I had enough time to do all that I needed and fit in a tiny bit of shopping before I needed to refocus my energy.
Shimmies Show!
The show featured about 19 dancers from the New England area, including the 3 wonderful workshop instructors.
There were many new acts that I had never seen perform before (such as The Belly Dance Collective and OmBellyCo), and some acts who were debuting for the first time (such as Serpenour and Shimza!). And of course, there were so many of my favorite performers gracing the stage.
For the most part, even though I was managing the staging, I got to see the majority of performances. As stage manager, I was in charge of keeping track of the music and relaying the information to the DJ's (who were late and not very accustomed to belly dance shows), making sure the performers and their props were prepared, and keeping track of the time.
I'd have to say that the Shimmies Team did a pretty great job. For the most part, we were running on time with room to spare! At some point, however, we took too much time to get the raffle distribution started, so the final set of dancers had to wait a bit longer than scheduled. At the end, we ended a half hour later than originally planned. Really, not a bad thing at all.
Truth be told, I thought the show was amazing. There was such a great variety of performers and styles. It never felt like a dull moment, though of course my feelings are heightened because I was helping out. But the audience, who filled up the house, really seemed to be enjoying themselves.
To further prove how much fun people were having, when the DJ's started playing music that was more akin to a wedding reception, so many people were on the dance floor. From the Cha Cha Slide to I Will Survive, the night ended as though we had been partying all day.
Thanks to *Samantha* and Baseema's ingenious organizing and event planning skills, I think we really all were having the time of our lives.
