April 2008 News

Greetings from Amsterdam on my way to Istanbul!

I’m laid up here for 5+ hours on my way to Istanbul for this years marvelous Music and Dance Tour to Turkey.

Immediately following the tour I have been asked to teach a workshop April 6th at the new Fazil Studio NYC in Istanbul. The legendary dance studio has closed in New York…but reopened in Istanbul. Check it out at: http://www.residance.net/index.php?option=com_frontpage&Itemid=1

March is the month of flowers bursting forth in Seattle and it is hard to go…but I am looking forward to a month of interesting work. My students gave a spectacular debut performance to a standing-room only audience in Seattle’s Town Hall…and the audience went wild. Ahmad and Kamand did a wonderful job of creating a community event and Pangeo and the St. Demitrios Dancers as well as Karavan Ensemble helped to create a really wonderful evening. I can’t wait until my students have their upcoming performances at NW Folklife, tour to Nepal and then their 2 evenings of recitals June 13-14th in Seattle. You can order tickets online now at: www.brownpapertickets.com/event/29931

 

March 2008 News

Greetings from Mexico!

I’m here in Mexico City for a performance this Friday and 2 workshops on the weekend.  www.almosharabia.com/matriz/03seminarios.htm 

I arrived a few days to see a little of the city.  Selene and Alex are great hosts…we have had fantastic food and already visited a traditional dance hall “Los Angeles” which is one of the last to still have a big band playing live music…and that on a Tuesday night!  Last night we went to watch a very interesting group of people dance their traditional Aztec dances…for almost 2 hours it was non-stop high energy stamping, jumping and turning…everyone from young kids to middle aged ladies and wizened old guys…I know I wouldn’t have lasted 30 minutes at that pace!

Later this month my Seattle ensemble will be having its first performance debuting a Persian dance at the Noruz celebrations at Town Hall on March 15th.  Pangeo and Kamand will both be performing and I will be dancing with both groups.  Please come down!  www.brownpapertickets.com/event/26005

The Introduction to 9/8 Rhythms workshop I gave in Seattle last month was so much fun that we decided to continue with the theme and do an intensive workshop in Turkish Roman ( also in 9/8 ) on the 28-29th of June this Summer.  Later in August I will be the guest teacher at Tamalyn Dallal’s weeklong Seattle intensive teaching an overview of traditional dance styles from Rajasthan to North Africa.

Four new intensive training programs will be starting this year: 
The project in Worms, Germany just started but it is not too late to join.  
The other projects begin:
April in Zagreb, Croatia
April in Montpelier, Vermont, USA (please note we have changed the town)…people will be coming from all over the East Coast for this.
September in Seattle, Washington, USA

Tickets have already gone on sale for the final recitals of my Seattle training project “Dances under the Crescent Moon” in the Rainier Valley Cultural Center June 13 and 14th.  www.brownpapertickets.com/event/29931

I had so many requests for the new “Nailiyat Source Book” with many, many historical photos and paintings of the Algerian Ouled Nail dancing girls as well as texts, that it sold out almost immediately. I have printed the next round so if you are interested in a copy, please contact me!

Next August I will be in Malaysia…it might still be possible to squeeze in one more gig in the Far East…contact me soon if you are interested. 
Otherwise, my planning for 2008 is now totally full…but it’s NOW the time to plan for 2009…so contact me soon if you would like to reserve a date!

January 2008 News

Happy New Year 2008!

Wishing you all peace, love, prosperity and lots and lots of good music and dancing!!
I have a lot of really exciting news to start out 2008…this is a new year with lots of exciting new beginnings and new projects!

Very exciting news is that my dance ensemble in Seattle has been asked to perform this coming June at an international festival in Nepal! The dancers are all really excited. We will be showing our work at the Northwest Folklife Festival in Seattle and then in June at two evenings of recitals at the Rainier Valley Cultural Center. Plans are already underway for the next project which starts in September. We are planning on making this a serious performing ensemble…so contact me if you are interested.  If there is enough interest then we we will have two groups: the ensemble and a training group for the ensemble.

Actually four new intensive training programs will be starting this year: 
January in Worms, Germany
April in Zagreb, Croatia
April in Johnson, Vermont, USA
September in Seattle, Washington, USA

My last tour to Germany, Italy, Croatia and Slovenia was a lot of work but really great.
Rome was fantastic…as was the lovingly restored renaissance palazzo where I taught in Castel-Franco (with a heated dance floor!)…and we had temperatures in the 20’s C. (in December!) and sold-out workshops. We are making plans for me to be back in Italy again this year.

Croatia was lovely as usual and in April we will be starting an intensive training project which will culminate in a dance performance
at the end of 2009.

In Ljubljana my show sold out just two days after going on sale. It was a fun show and we are planning another performance for this coming November.

I had so many requests for the new “Nailiyat Source Book” with many, many historical photos and paintings of the Algerian Ouled Nail dancing girls as well as texts, that it sold out almost immediately. I have printed the next round so if you are interested in a copy, please contact me!

November 2007 News

The project performance in Worms in October was wonderful and now the performance of my training program “Dances of the Roma: From Rajasthan to Romania” will have it’s recital this coming Saturday in Meerbusch-Lank close to Düsseldorf. There will be dances from Rajasthan, Afghanistan, Turkey, Egypt, Macedonia, Romania and Hungary. The dancers look really good and the costumes are incredible! Don’t miss this show!

Immediately following the project show I will hit the road for Rome, Venice, Zagreb and Ljubljana for Workshops and shows.

Please note that we have changed the themes for the workshops in Zagreb.
We have also had to postpone the introductory weekend for my new training project starting in Vermont.

We have moved it from January to April…looking forward to seeing many new faces there!

If you would like to see a few photos from my recent tour to Algeria last summer you can see them at: http://www.gildedserpent.com/newsgraphics/ComKaleidoscope.htm
(scroll down until you find me)

I have just finished a new “Nailiyat Source Book” with many, many historical photos and paintings of the Algerian Ouled Nail dancing girls as well as texts. If you are interested in a copy, please contact me!

October 2007 News

Greetings from rainy Heidelberg!  After non-stop dancing for almost 3 weeks now I have a day to sit and do some administrative work!  We are in the middle of the last rehearsals for my Maghreb dance training project’s final recital this coming Saturday, October 6, 2008 in Worms.  The group is looking really great and it is going to be a wonderful finale from 1 1/2 years of hard work.  The women look stunning in their amazing reconstructions of costumes for the Guedra dance from the West Sahara.  Group dances in this program are : Tunisian, Raissat (Morocco), Kayble (Algeria), Guedra, Andalusian (Algeria), Scheikaht (Morocco) and Nailiyat (Algeria).  In addition I will be performing Tunisian, Naila, Sahraoui (West Sahara) and Scheikhat Raqs es Senneya.  

September 2007 News

Greetings from the beautiful Pacific Northwest. I am in Seattle for a brief time before hitting the road again in a week. This has been a long and eventful summer. I spent 3 weeks in Algeria in July and August. I was invited to be a juror at two international folklore festivals. At the first festival in Sidi Bel Abbes in western Algeria it turned out that I was the president of the jury and was also asked to perform Algerian dances at the festival. That was of course a bit scary…but a great honor…I performed Naila (dances of the Ouled Nail tribe) and Andalusian to very appreciative audiences. I was also asked to do innumerable interviews for newspaper, radio and TV…all in French. I really loved the men’s dances “alaoui” from the western regions of Tlemcen and Sidi Bel Abbes in which the men stamp and toss a red tassle on the back of their shoulders to very groovy rhythms. From Sidi Bel Abbes we had a very hot all day bus ride to Tizi Ouzou, which is the main city of the mountainous Kabyle region to the east of Algiers. This festival only presented groups from Africa and the Arab world. There were spectacular groups and it was a great opportunity to discover more about Kabyle traditions, including visiting a village hadra (trance ritual) and buying costumes for my training project in Worms, which will be performing a Kabyle dance in their upcoming recital on the 6th of October. If you are in Southern Germany, please do come and see this performance of dances from the Magreb which will include Algerian Nailiyat and Kabyle, Andalusian, Moroccan Sheikhat and Raissat as well as the Guedra and Tunisian.

I already have my first registrations for my yearly dance and culture tour to Istanbul. If you have been considering coming, don’t hesitate too long. This is a great experience to delve in deeply to the rich traditions of this many-faceted city and learn Roma dance at the source! Please see the Turkey Tour page on my website for more information.

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