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Raqs Congress - workshop review
Since there's a lot to go over, I'm splitting the review into seperate pieces and I'll send a non-lj friendly email to Artemisia. On to the workshops! For those of you who don't want to read all the details, here's a rating overview:
Farida Fahmy - saidi choreography: nice
Randa kamel- modern cairo style: technique: mwah
yasmina- baladi: loved it
Nour - baladi technique: mwah
Oranit - costume workshop: nice
Fathiem: shimmy layers/combinations: loved it
Asi Haskal - egyptian style mix : nice
Farida Fahmy - saidi choreography
I came in half an hour late on this one, but managed to catch up. Lovely combinations in the classic Reda Style, Farida is good at explaining dance technique. Her superior english skills might have something to do with it. What I didn't like was that Farida was obviously unhappy with the organisation, people dropping in late and how she explained the basics of her technique in the workshop yesterday and there were new faces on saturday. I didn't interview her because she had a very obvious 'leave me alone'vibe hanging around her. She signed Daughter of Egypt book in the hallway and told us a small anecdote about how people try to take advantage of her by saying that they were her personal drummer. I got some nice combinations out of this.
Randa kamel- modern cairo style: technique: mwah
I love Randa. Since I've seen her performance on the Nile Maxim in 2007 I completely fell in love with her energy and personal style. But... I think this workshop was too complicated for most of the participants (granted, it was announced as level 4/master) and there were way too many people to practice the sweeping arms that we needed. When I say most of the people, I also mean for myself. It's a bitter pill to swallow when you're confronted with your own limitations, but that's how it is: I'm out of shape and don't have enough balletskills to create the correct lines to make the moves look right. Halfway I sat down and took notes: I definitely want to look into taking more workshops, bu't it's not what I need right now. God, she's amazing to watch all the time, so never a dull moment! Her teaching style is a combination of following her moves, watching her showing you one detail, then practicing it over and over. She has a nice sense of humor, but she too was angry at the organisation, this time for not providing her with a helper to handle the cd player.
yasmina- baladi
Yasmina of Caïro is one of the dancers that combines a lovely dance style with structured lessons. It was arelief to not learn choreography: I had four hours of choreo already and my brain was fried. She explained a bit about baladi to us (all the other workshop teachers climbed up on their platform and started teaching), we went through the oves (got some nice ideas for hipoves out of it) and went into improvisation. What I liked most about the workshop is that it was a safe environment to try improv. Yasmina made sure to answer individual questions, showed different ways to dance to the same piece of music (then we tried) and I think all the students and the teacher obviously liked being in her class. Next time I'm in Caïro I'll try to visit her.
Nour - baladi technique
Nour has a very personal style, a mix between Egyptian with a hint of ballet. Very solid technique. What I didn't like was that her workshops was supposed to be level 1&2 and it obviously wasn't (lot's of layering, direction changes and travelingsteps). I also didn't expect choreography, since it was announced as technique. It was a choreography, and we all looked like crap while doing it because we are not her. Her teaching was okay and I got a couple of interesting moves out of it, but it felt like a drill class. If I'm taking three workshops a day, I don't want to be rushed in every one of them just to finish a choreography. Besides, finishing is not the point: I rather have several combination drilled well to work with.
Oranit - costume workshop
I was the only one who showed up for her workshop, two other dancers joined in later. It got me a chance to talk to Oranit, sit down and enjoy the creative process of decorating a top. I can't really judge her workshop because it was obvious that she went with what the three of us wanted to do. She convinced me that glueing is a nice technique to use, so there's something I didn't expect to learn!
Fathiem: shimmy layers/combinations
Fathiem is a pro. She's the best, and considering the circumstances I think she was a real trooper. The gala show on saturday was two hours late on schedule, so she had to perform after midnight after teaching workshops during the day. This was the last workshop and she still was amazing. No choregraphy, but a drum solo cd and several shimmie techniques and layers to practice with. Most important, we had fun while doing it. Fathiem has a nice sense of humor whcih she uses to explain things and lighten the mood. The students left this workshop energized and excited. I got some really nice ideas for combinations and layers out of it, not to mention the didactic principles that she used. I supporter her by buying two bootcamp dvd's and a t-shirt. That's what workshop teachers have to earn extra money on and I was happy to buy directly from her.
Asi Haskal - egyptian style mix
I've seen Asi perform in Eindhoven in 2008 and I like the energy that he's projecting. His dance style looks a bit rough and unpolished for me, but I new that I wouldn't learn anything from going to a heavy choreography/technique workshop because I was too tired to absorb. Asi has a very nice cstructure of learning by chopping the choreo into chunks, then repeating it several time, giving us input on the details as we go along. He gets extra credits for using a cd with edited music, so he didn't have to run back and forth between cdplayer and stage. He's also a clown on stage, in a good way. Using jokes and a lot of examples, he got through to us. I sat for the last 15 minutes and took notes. He finished class by dancing in a circle, doing fun improvisational stuff. That was absolutely brilliant, because it was what the students needed: if you work hard, you get rewarded by doing crazy fun stuff. I have no intention of using his choreography, but it was fun to take the class and I learned some important things about expression during dance.
Farida Fahmy - saidi choreography: nice
Randa kamel- modern cairo style: technique: mwah
yasmina- baladi: loved it
Nour - baladi technique: mwah
Oranit - costume workshop: nice
Fathiem: shimmy layers/combinations: loved it
Asi Haskal - egyptian style mix : nice
Farida Fahmy - saidi choreography
I came in half an hour late on this one, but managed to catch up. Lovely combinations in the classic Reda Style, Farida is good at explaining dance technique. Her superior english skills might have something to do with it. What I didn't like was that Farida was obviously unhappy with the organisation, people dropping in late and how she explained the basics of her technique in the workshop yesterday and there were new faces on saturday. I didn't interview her because she had a very obvious 'leave me alone'vibe hanging around her. She signed Daughter of Egypt book in the hallway and told us a small anecdote about how people try to take advantage of her by saying that they were her personal drummer. I got some nice combinations out of this.
Randa kamel- modern cairo style: technique: mwah
I love Randa. Since I've seen her performance on the Nile Maxim in 2007 I completely fell in love with her energy and personal style. But... I think this workshop was too complicated for most of the participants (granted, it was announced as level 4/master) and there were way too many people to practice the sweeping arms that we needed. When I say most of the people, I also mean for myself. It's a bitter pill to swallow when you're confronted with your own limitations, but that's how it is: I'm out of shape and don't have enough balletskills to create the correct lines to make the moves look right. Halfway I sat down and took notes: I definitely want to look into taking more workshops, bu't it's not what I need right now. God, she's amazing to watch all the time, so never a dull moment! Her teaching style is a combination of following her moves, watching her showing you one detail, then practicing it over and over. She has a nice sense of humor, but she too was angry at the organisation, this time for not providing her with a helper to handle the cd player.
yasmina- baladi
Yasmina of Caïro is one of the dancers that combines a lovely dance style with structured lessons. It was arelief to not learn choreography: I had four hours of choreo already and my brain was fried. She explained a bit about baladi to us (all the other workshop teachers climbed up on their platform and started teaching), we went through the oves (got some nice ideas for hipoves out of it) and went into improvisation. What I liked most about the workshop is that it was a safe environment to try improv. Yasmina made sure to answer individual questions, showed different ways to dance to the same piece of music (then we tried) and I think all the students and the teacher obviously liked being in her class. Next time I'm in Caïro I'll try to visit her.
Nour - baladi technique
Nour has a very personal style, a mix between Egyptian with a hint of ballet. Very solid technique. What I didn't like was that her workshops was supposed to be level 1&2 and it obviously wasn't (lot's of layering, direction changes and travelingsteps). I also didn't expect choreography, since it was announced as technique. It was a choreography, and we all looked like crap while doing it because we are not her. Her teaching was okay and I got a couple of interesting moves out of it, but it felt like a drill class. If I'm taking three workshops a day, I don't want to be rushed in every one of them just to finish a choreography. Besides, finishing is not the point: I rather have several combination drilled well to work with.
Oranit - costume workshop
I was the only one who showed up for her workshop, two other dancers joined in later. It got me a chance to talk to Oranit, sit down and enjoy the creative process of decorating a top. I can't really judge her workshop because it was obvious that she went with what the three of us wanted to do. She convinced me that glueing is a nice technique to use, so there's something I didn't expect to learn!
Fathiem: shimmy layers/combinations
Fathiem is a pro. She's the best, and considering the circumstances I think she was a real trooper. The gala show on saturday was two hours late on schedule, so she had to perform after midnight after teaching workshops during the day. This was the last workshop and she still was amazing. No choregraphy, but a drum solo cd and several shimmie techniques and layers to practice with. Most important, we had fun while doing it. Fathiem has a nice sense of humor whcih she uses to explain things and lighten the mood. The students left this workshop energized and excited. I got some really nice ideas for combinations and layers out of it, not to mention the didactic principles that she used. I supporter her by buying two bootcamp dvd's and a t-shirt. That's what workshop teachers have to earn extra money on and I was happy to buy directly from her.
Asi Haskal - egyptian style mix
I've seen Asi perform in Eindhoven in 2008 and I like the energy that he's projecting. His dance style looks a bit rough and unpolished for me, but I new that I wouldn't learn anything from going to a heavy choreography/technique workshop because I was too tired to absorb. Asi has a very nice cstructure of learning by chopping the choreo into chunks, then repeating it several time, giving us input on the details as we go along. He gets extra credits for using a cd with edited music, so he didn't have to run back and forth between cdplayer and stage. He's also a clown on stage, in a good way. Using jokes and a lot of examples, he got through to us. I sat for the last 15 minutes and took notes. He finished class by dancing in a circle, doing fun improvisational stuff. That was absolutely brilliant, because it was what the students needed: if you work hard, you get rewarded by doing crazy fun stuff. I have no intention of using his choreography, but it was fun to take the class and I learned some important things about expression during dance.