Raks Al Asaya has been sitting on my shelf for a bit, and I’m sorry that I hadn’t gotten to it sooner! This DVD by Virginia of Miami is a wonderful resource for more cane. The instructions, both visual and verbal, are very clear. The material was easy for me to follow along from the [...]

If you love cane and can get your hands on it, you should. This is one of those DVDs that everyone recommends and after managing to get my own copy, I can see why. Nourhan Sharif, who is an internationally famous dancer and instructor of Middle Eastern dance, manages to cram in a lot of [...]

Last week’s Yasmina Ramzy workshop was simply wonderful. Najmat and Hanan, both of Boston, were excellent hosts. Very organized, chose a great space (Melina of Boston’s studio in Waltham). The first part of the workshop was working on technique. There were some good moments within that, my favorite being the idea that in Middle Eastern [...]

Yesterday, Kay Hardy Campbell taught a Khaleegi workshop here in the Boston-area. She is yet another person I consider to be a hidden jewel in our area. Kay works with the Arab Dance Seminar, which ran by Karim Nagi. I have heard warm things about her Khaleegi teaching but hadn’t experienced it. I wrote on [...]

Karim Nagi’s Arabized CD was just released this week and is one of his finest, in my opinion. The concept behind this CD is that he “Arabized” popular “Western” tunes. For instance, Low Rider appears on the CD with a distinctly Arabic sound. The CD is a fun listen, because not only is it interesting [...]

Last Saturday, Nepenthe of Boston (a friend of mine) and I drove from the city to NH to take the Outi of Cairo workshop. Although the trip was quite long (I think 2.5-3 hours?), it was worth it. The workshop, which was hosted by Amity of NH, focused on Egyptian technique and meleya leff. The [...]

The part of my experiments of organizing and restructuring things has been exploring new software. My latest discover has been a new word processing software, Scrivener. This software is available for Mac, Windows, and Linux OSs. When looking for software to ease dissertation writing, I stumbled upon Scrivener. So far, I really enjoy it as [...]

Nourhan Sharif hosted Raqia Hassan this past weekend in NYC. Raqia Hassan is the instructor/mentor of many of the great Egyptian dancers nowadays: Dina, Randa, and more. Raqia also hosts Ahlan Wa Sahlan, a huge raqs sharqi festival. Getting to NYC was an interesting experience in itself. My plans kept changing, and I ended up [...]

Middle Eastern dance workshops are not easy, mind you, but there is a sense of familiarity with them. I know how to shimmy, hip drop, and so on. I’ve been to enough that I know how my body handles them. Ballet workshops were completely foreign to me. However, I figure why not try one out? [...]

A day after I had written about my lack of ereader updates, I received one via phone. Sony had shipped a refurbished ereader out to me. Today I received it! Yay! I can finally begin some much craved summer reading, as well as some much needed to academic reading. I’m especially excited because it appears [...]