Everyone Can Dance

Earlier this month, I thoroughly enjoyed watching an evening of ballet performances, at Edinburgh Ballet Circle’s annual showcase, at the St Bride’s Centre, Edinburgh. 

Edinburgh Ballet Circle

Edinburgh Ballet Circle is an entirely amateur ballet troupe, consisting of dancers who regularly attend one of the many adult ballet classes across the city.  This was set up in 2011 by director Jonathan Burnett and is the first entirely non-professional ballet company in Edinburgh for some 50 years.  I've been attending Jonathan's classes for a couple of years now and I went along to support some of the people from my class who were in the show. 

The production consisted of 3 ballets.  The first part was my favourite, Act 2 of The Nutcracker, featuring a fun circus themed twist together with some fine comedy touches.  I particularly loved the ‘sugar plum fairy tight rope dancers’, with brave tutu wearing amateur ballerinas, showing off pointe work skills.  There were also ‘chinese plate spinner dancers’ with their pirouette free for all.  And I can't omit to mention the small group of male ballerinos who appeared in almost every scene and were game for anything, even a tongue in cheek clown routine.  The second ballet was a dramatization of the Little Mermaid, with wistful and dramatic story telling, ably danced and very atmospheric.  The finale was the ‘Ballet of the Nuns’, a quirky show that lived up to its bizarre title.

Nuns in tutus

I absolutely loved the whole thing.  Overall, the night showcased everything I love about community dance, whatever the genre.  It’s fantastic to see dancers of every ability, age, shape and size giving it their all.  There was always something to look at, whether skill, drama and finesse, or smiles of joy coming from the corps de ballet for just being there. 

It really reminded me how great it is within the Egyptian Dance or Belly Dance community, to have performing opportunities for student dancers to express themselves, whether at a local hafla, festival or community show.  It is so important that these showcases continue, for dancers of every skill level to work hard for, enjoy, and share with friends and family. 

Learning from Baby Liv

I want to share this amazing video with you.  My teacher Merav first shared it with us students whilst we were in the middle of a classic series of Feldenkrais lessons that focused on relearning developmental movements like rolling.

These are all movements that come naturally in the first year of life, including this little baby called Liv:

To read my other related posts, click on the label Feldenkrais. 

A Fabulous Bellydance Day Out

I'm so glad that the unseasonal snow and zero degree temperatures didn't keep me from attending the first ever Miss Fabulous Bellydance in Peebles in March. 

Oriental winners Tammy, Sarah and Beata

It was a lovely day out and a fabulous celebration of all those dancers who dance just for fun.  The one rule for the competition was that it was entirely amateur - in fact anyone who had ever been paid for performing or teaching any kind of dance was not allowed to take part.  Dancers came from near and far (well far meaning Edinburgh, Dundee and Glasgow) to show off their skills in 4 categories - groups, oriental, tribal and comedy.  There was plenty of glitter, beautiful costumes, big smiles and a few surprises.

Tribal winners Nihoma, Kaz and Aileen

Congratulations to all the winners, all their proud teachers, and a big thank you to Celia Buchan for putting on such a fabulous event!  And I'm already looking forward to next year! 

Aara

Kaz

Lene

The Helwa Hurdies, second place in the Groups

Louise

Winning comedy duo the Gummi Bears

Quick Middle Eastern Style Side Salad

Lemon and mint give this easy salad a characteristic flavour reminiscent of those plates of finely chopped crudités you get when traveling in a Middle Eastern country. 

I thought I'd share this recipe alongside my usual dance themed blogging, as it looked really pretty and was very quick to prepare.  It makes a great side dish, or healthy lunch along with some pitta and humous. 

Instructions

Mix together:

• Halved cherry tomatoes
• Chopped red pepper
• Chopped fresh mint
• lots of lemon juice
• Freshly ground black pepper

Enjoy!

Top 10 Ways to Market Your Belly Dance Event

After successfully organising and hosting the sell-out NADA/Baladi Blues event in Edinburgh last year, I had some nice comments about my positive approach to the marketing of the event.  I'd never done anything quite like this before – an afternoon of workshops, followed by evening concert and party with musicians – but I had the advantage of drawing on some related experience from the non-dancing part of my world. 


Daughters of Isis by James Campbell

At the time, NADA's convenor asked me to pass on some marketing advice to their members, so I wrote them an article for their magazine. 

Here are my 'Top 10 Tips' for marketing your dance event, first published by NADA:

1. Find the people that matter.  Word of mouth can mean a lot in our world and personal approaches count.  Your fellow teachers, friends and students can make a huge difference and an event that brings the dance community together is one which people will want to support.
2. Identify all the reasons why people might be interested in coming to your event, they are your unique selling points.  For example, what’s different about your event?  Is there something special about the teacher that students will learn from?  Is there something that isn’t on offer elsewhere? 
3. Use a range of tools that are at your disposal.  There are lots of ways to tell people about your event.  Take advantage of the internet, Facebook, classes, posters, flyers and anything else that captures your imagination.  These tools are usually cheap and often free – although you do need to invest your time to make them work for you. 
4. Create a timeline or countdown to the event.  Along with all the other stuff that needs to get done like organising the venue, programme and selling tickets, think about when you need to advertise your event.  Time your mail outs and other updates to fit with your plan.  Too few messages and people might miss the event entirely or just not get round to booking.  Too many and people get annoyed, unsubscribe or simply hit the delete button. 
5. Don’t sound like a stuck record.  If you are updating people about an event, do it in an interesting way so that your potential audience don’t lose interest.  Think about what you are saying and pick out different themes and messages to make it engaging.   
6. Put in a bit of personality into your campaign.  This one’s harder to convey, but what matters here is a friendly approach that makes others want to join you.  It’s about showing it’s real people that are behind the organisation of the event.   
7. Be honest about participation levels and ticket sales, and when it’s really time to book.  This helps people to plan when to book and pay for each part of the event.  And helps the organisers respond quickly if the numbers don’t pick up when they should. 
8. If there is one part of the event that isn’t selling so well, target some extra effort.  We had only had a few early registrations for our free beginners’ belly dance workshop.  In response, we targeted some Facebook activity at this part of the day, specifically to engage with non-dancers. 
9. Make it easy for people to participate.  A few extra touches can help someone decide to commit to the event.  The first question is often “where is the event, and how do I get there?”  Provide helpful information like maps and transport information and use a dedicated webpage if you can.   
10. Finally, create something that people want to be part of.  No matter how much muscle or self belief you put behind your campaign, it’s never going to work unless people are interested in what you are doing.  Our creation was an easy sell thanks to NADA – an amazing opportunity to learn with, listen to and dance to authentic live Egyptian music.  Or in the words of the Baladi Blues Ensemble band leader Guy Schalom, “spread the Baladi love!”

What do you think about this advice? 

I'd love to know, how do you spread the word about your belly dance events?