UKC Belly Dance Society's Second Showcase

Last night was Kent University's (UKC) Belly Dance Societies 2nd ever showcase and the troupe and I had a lot of fun performing. It is always great when I see Belly Dance being celebrated for the dance that it is since it is such a great way to bond with other females, dress up in the style of costume that feels right to you and dance using what you have got. The students all have quite a way to go in terms of performing and feeling the music but they certainly worked hard to put the whole show together when are about 30 students in the society. Sorting out what dances each student is doing, costumes and setting up extra rehearsals takes a lot of effort but the final show came together nicely. The only problem I see is that as new students come into the society they want to perform to Western music rather than Middle Eastern music (including Arabic Pop). The finale was choreographed by a member of the society committee to Akon's 'Bananza (Belly Dancer)' and while the choreography was good for a first timer I am not a big fan of this song. The way it talks about Belly dancers since most are trying to get away from the sexy image. Hopefully in the next term I can encourage them to try out some Shaabi or maybe even Oriental music. The show had performances by beginner and intermediate students from the society which included drum solos, oriental music, veils and Western pop. Also included in the show were the Bollywood society who look great when I watched them in rehearsals, a Salsa duo (which was pretty raunchy but the dancing was fantastic) and a hiphop group. Of course I also performed as well as Eastern Delights. I performed a Turkish piece which I learnt off Ruby Beh's dvd 'Totally Turkish' (www.bigfunbellydance.com) since the song got stuck in my head and I love Ruby's style. Of course I was unable to play zills with the choreography like she does but even the dance alone takes a lot of energy. I was finally able to wear my orange costume with arm bands which was great.

My troupe performed our usual drum solo to 'The Captivation' (which can be viewed in a video on this blog from a past performance) and what was interesting was trying to work out where to start our dance. We wanted a close together look but when you have a big stage you also want to fill it. Not only that but we often travel forward as we are dancing so we had to make sure to start far back so we weren't sat on the audiences laps by the end. This showcase last year was a big deal for me. I finally felt ready to call myself a professional dancer (even though I had been in business for about 4 years by then). I just never thought I was that good to call myself professional but when I had audience members come up to me after and say 'You were really really good' my reply was 'I hope so because I am a professional Belly Dancer' This year I was pleased to receive even nicer comments from the audience such as one guy who said II reminded him of the saying 'Don't dance to the music, be the music'. When I hear music (especially Middle Eastern music) I feel passionate and love to make the sound visual and dance with emotions.

So another successful night and today I am going to be chilling out ready for the beginning of next week.