Vintage-Style Oriental Dance: Veil Dancing and Floorwork

Alay’nya – Veil Dance and Floorwork – YouTube Link

Alay'nya performing improvisational veil dance with floorwork
Alay’nya performing improvisational veil dance with floorwork, Tiraz Dance Network 7th Annual Belly Dance Convention, Herndon, VA, May 11, 2013.

Improvisational Oriental dance – vintage-style: veil work, moving across the floor, floorwork: Alay’nya in veil dance.


Alay'nya - author of "Unveiling: The Inner Journey"
Alay’nya – author of Unveiling: The Inner Journey

Very best wishes as you use experiment with your own improvisational dance!

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!

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Energy Dancing with a "Water Feeling": Flowing and Swirling Motions

Playing with Water Energy in Dance: Flowing and Swirling and “Fluid” Motions

The Autumn Equinox marks the transition from the fire energy of summer to the water energy of fall. The notion of having different “elements” (air, earth, water, and fire) comes from our classic Western European esoteric tradition, which teaches that each quarter is governed by a “suite” (swords, pentacles, cups, and rods), and that each of these “suites” is respectively associated with an “element.”

This is important for us not just because of our Western European cultural heritage, but because these various “suites” also connect us to growth stages identified in the Kabbalah, which is the earliest known “roadmap” for personal growth (leading, potentially, to God-realization). In a much more immediate and practical vein, these various “elements” connect us to a feeling of what is going on in our environments, and to how our bodies react to the changing seasons.

 

The “Ace of Cups” – the ultimate symbol for water energy.

It makes sense for us to invoke water energy into our lives after the fire energy of summer. This often correlates with what is going on in our weather, as well. After a late summer drought, we get rains once again. September is, in fact, a prime time for hurricanes!

And whether or not we’ve quenched the fire energy of our summer by going to the beach (getting a water energy infusion), by the end of summer, we’re often “burned out.” We desire not only the coolness, but the “swirliness” of water.

Practically speaking, how do we take this into our dance?

There are certain kinds of movements that almost shout water energy to us:

  • “Rounded” movements such as hip circles, rib cage circles, and figure-eights,
  • “Snakey” movements such as snake arms,
  • “Flowing” movements such as many veil patterns – whether done around our bodies while we are in one place, or as we move across the floor.

There are also certain rhythms – or musical sections – that speak a “watery” language to us:

  • Chifti tellis,
  • Taxims, and
  • “Lyrical” beledis.

This autumn, we’ll be studying and building choreographies with each of these different “watery” feelings.

Anahid Sofian Labor Day Weekend Workshop – Beautiful "Patterns in Space"

Anahid Sofian, Master Teacher of Oriental Dance, Hosts Four-Day Intensive Starting Thursday, August 30, in New York City

If you’ve read Unveiling: The Inner Journey, you’ve read about Anahid Sofian. She’s responsible for several of my most significant breakthroughs in Oriental dance – both in the technique and the “psychology” of the dance.

Here’s just a sample:

“… What she had just shown me was not something new. I had not only known it: I had taught it to my students. And here I was, taking my new creation in to my master teacher, and realizing that I’d forgotten the basic lessons.

“What was it that Anahid had, and that I had totally forgotten?

“Simply, it was the power of holding something back.” (Unveiling: The Inner Journey, Chapter 26: “Unveiling: Selective Revelation,” p. 359)

This week, from Thursday, August 30 through Sunday, Sept. 2nd, Anahid will be holding an Intensive Workshop in her studio in NYC. This will be a magical time!

One of the things that Anahid teaches, and which I’ve learned from very few others, is the mystical, elusive art of creating beautiful, flowing patterns in space as you move with your veil. Most veil work that we see today is stationary. Anahid excels at the earlier version of veil art – the kind that is mesmerizing, captivating, and infinately memorable.

 

Alay’nya showing veil techniques that she learned from master dancer teacher Anahid Sofian

Anahid will be teaching her special veil movements this coming Sunday, Sept. 2nd. There’s possibly still room for one or two more to join her class.

On Saturday, Eva Cernik, Anahid’s protege and a master teacher in her own righ, will be teaching, and this is another stellar opportunity. I’ve adored every single thing I’ve learned from Eva, and have watched her videos time and again. (Showing an Eva video, and then trying to capture her “essence,” is a staple part of my class curriculum.)

If you live in the Greater DC Metro Area, or in Baltimore or anyplace up the I-95 corridor, you can get to Anahid’s studio easily using Amtrak. It’s a bit of a long day, but very doable. And totally worth the doing!

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