This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 19th, 2008 at 7:17 pm and is filed under stuff i've made. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
long time no post! it’s been a super crazy few weeks and time has really flown by. last month i hosted my friend Astryd for a fab Raqs Sharqi workshop. two weeks after that, Sami hosted his friend Faisal Zedan for a workshop and bunch of shows one of which was Rakassah. Rakassah is a huge Middle Eastern dance festival in NJ. i have mixed feelings about rakassah these days. there is three times as much fusion as there is any kind of authentic Middle Eastern dance. We were they only Arabic ensemble! it’s a little bit disheartening. I don’t have a problem with fusion for the most part, it’s just there are so many baby dancers coming into it now, and have no idea what’s real and what isn’t. i guess i just feel like we are representing an already misunderstood underrepresented art so the least we can do is present it as authentically as possible. it’s ok to create your own thing, but maybe…call it something else?
the weeks before rakassah i did a pretty good job of stressing myself out (as usual!) i choreographed my first piece AND made costumes for the performance for yogi, me and sherine. they came out really beautifully, but i was literally sewing up until we hit the stage! immediately after i went back to my hotel room and took a 4 hour nap! i was so completely wiped out. as a result, i don’t think it was my best performance, but went over pretty well. the girls were really awesome and it was the most fun i’ve had actually in a long time. vive banat zikrayat!
here is dimitri doing a hilarious robot dance to tribal fusion music at rakassah while bridget looks on…