Using Mid-Eastern Dance (Oriental Dance or Belly Dance) to Invoke Your Inner Goddess of Love, Pleasure, Romance, and Sensuality
Yesterday’s class was held on the first day of autumn. We shifted our attention and energy to emotional expression using Mid-Eastern dance. We’ve entered the Season of Cups: the metaphysical Element of Water that governs autumn.
For the next six weeks, our focus is especially on using Oriental dance to access our inner Hathor: our governing archetype for love, pleasure, romance, sensuality, and everything that makes life juicy, sweet, and delicious.
We think now of harvesting the grapes that have been ripening during summer’s heat; of drinking the first wines of the season.
Recommended YouTube Video Study for Autumn – Lesson 1: Emotional Belly Dance with Veil by Imei Hsu
Throughout our long existence – we are coming on a twenty-year anniversary for the Alay’nya Studio – we’ve included watching videos as part of our classes and our recommended practice-at-home support curriculum. We’ve selected and encouraged first videos, then DVDs, and now YouTube clips; on topics ranging from “core conditioning” and various technique and practice vids to performances by various artists.
Yesterday, we kicked off the autumn season by watching a very lovely YouTube vid posted by Imei Hsu, a dancer based in Seattle.
Imei showed lovely lyrical sensibility and a great softness and depth in her emotional expression with a veil choreography. Her beautiful work magnificently combines movement across the floor with turns and spins, a variety of well-known and classic veil moves (all beautifully executed), and a great sensitivity to nuance and expression.
I particularly like her opening – a classic study of expansion/contraction using the veil. For her opening alone, I recommend this vid to all dancers who want to bring greater emotional richness and depth to their dance.
Imei Hsu’s YouTube vid is Bellydance Veil for Emotional Performance.
Music for Autumn: Dancing with Your Veil
There are three pieces that I love and recommend for emotionally-expressive veil dance:
- Sweet Demure by Beats Antique on their Collide album,
- Sweet Trouble by Brian Keane and Omar Farouk Tekbelik on Beyond the Sky, and
- Misirlou – there are many performances of this; I like the one on Gaia: Earth Goddess by Desert Wind.
Here are links for both YouTube recordings and MP3 downloads for each piece.
Sweet Demure
You can listen to the entire song Sweet Demure on YouTube.
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MP3 Download
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CD
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You can also order the songs from Collide from Apple’s iTunes store.
Sweet Trouble – on Beyond the Sky by Brian Keane and Omar Farouk Tekbilek
You can listen to the entire song Sweet Trouble on YouTube.
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MP3 Download
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CD
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You can also order the CD songs from Beyond the Sky from Apple’s iTunes store.
Misirlou on Gaia: Earth Goddess by Adam Bachman and Desert Wind
Listen to the first 30 seconds of Miserlou on Rhapsody.
You can listen to the same Miserlou track on CD Baby, and download the MP3 version directly from them.
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MP3 Download
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CD
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You can also order the songs from Gaia: Earth Goddess from Apple’s iTunes store.
Very best wishes as you use Oriental dance (belly dance) for personal growth and healing!
Yours in dance –
Alay’nya
Author of Unveiling: The Inner Journey
You are the Jewel in the Heart of the Lotus. Become the Jewel!
Founder and Artistic Director, The Alay’nya Studio
Bellydance a courtesan would envy!
Check out Alay’nya’s YouTube Channel
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Copyright (c) 2013, Alay’nya. All rights reserved.
Related Posts: Veil Dancing
- Vintage-Style Oriental Dance: Veil Dancing and Floorwork (A YouTube Resource – Alay’nya performing a veil dance to Desert Wind’s Diaspora)
- Seven Tips to Make Your Veil Your Friend (Multiple YouTube Resources)
- Dancing With Your Veil: YouTube Resources
Related Posts: Autumn – Esoteric Energy Dance for the Season of Cups (Metaphysical Element of Water)
- Autumn Lesson 4: Breaking Through Emotional Resistance (Lessons from the Minor Arcana’s Four of Cups – Moving Out of Stuck Situations)
- Autumn Lesson 3: Unifying Our Energies (Lessons from the Minor Arcana’s Three of Cups – Bringing Three Types of Vital Energy Up Our Spines: Ida, Pingala, and Sushumna)
- Autumn Lesson 2: Filling Our Energy Well (Lessons from the Minor Arcana’s Two of Cups – Filling Our “Energy Well” Using Circular, Rolling, and Snake Movements with the Chifti Telli Rhythm in Esoteric Belly Dance
- Autumn Lesson 1: Energy Dancing with a “Water Feeling” – Flowing and Swirling Motions (Lessons from the Minor Arcana’s One of Cups – Playing with Water Energy in Dance: Flowing and Swirling and “Fluid” Motions