Tuesday, 18 June 2013

Photo du jour: Sherihan as a child

Sherihan: hand-tinted photo by Van Leo and found at No You Shut Up

One of my most popular posts ever* was on Egyptian star Sherihan (you can read it here) -- so naturally I just had to share this gorgeous image of her as a child.

*I know that's not saying much, but it's still true.

Wednesday, 5 June 2013

Stars of the 1990s: Amani of Lebanon

Happy birthday to Amani (Angel Nabil Ayoub), born this day in 1970. (It's kismet, Henry: only last night one of my teachers told me I should definitely check her out and lo and behold, it turns out today's her birthday. A post was definitely in the stars.)



I apologise for the video ticker all over this one, but I don't think I've ever posted a riq dance before. Apparently this is Andalusian-style:



Here's another tambourine dance, just to prove she has worn costumes in shades other than red. This costume gives me the wants:



Amani now runs her own Oriental Festival, and the YouTube channel (featuring her and performers from the festival) is pretty good.

Tuesday, 4 June 2013

DVD for sale

My apologies for interrupting our regular service with this message -- but I figure if anyone I know would be interested in scoring a very cheap copy of Princess Farhana's amazing Bellydance & Balance: The Art of Sword and Shamadan it would be you (link is to the ebay auction).

Wonderful friends of mine gave me a copy without knowing I already had one, and the confines of my tiny home dictate that one copy must be returned to the wild.

By way of mitigating my embarrassment over briefly turning this blog into a tawdry billboard, if you're the winning bidder and send me a message via ebay with 'Occidental' in the subject line, I'll also send you a free copy of Suhaila Salimpour's Fitness Fusion Yoga DVD. How's that? The auction ends at 11:58:41 BST on Sunday, 9 June.


*Transmission ends*

Wednesday, 29 May 2013

That look U get...

...when U stumble across a selfie of a girl wearing two coin scarves (and nothing else!), and even worse than that it's captioned "I have the body to be a belly dancer", and even worse than that it's tagged 'skinnymini' and 'skinny':


(I've not linked directly to the offender's blog because...well. There's enough sadness in the world already. Found via A Little Song & Dance and This is Not Bellydance, and with love and apologies to Glitter Hips.)

Friday, 24 May 2013

The Uru Tribe at Tribal Fest 2013

This piece of history is the first-ever all-male performance at Tribal Fest.

Quoth an understandably breathless Steven Eggers, the Most Beautiful Boy in BellydanceTM:

...most of us met for the first time that week and many learned the choreography that week and we only actually ran it through with ALL the guys the day before. Considering all that I think it went well :)


:) indeed!


The Uru Tribe is: Paige Lawrence, Adrian Junez, Sasha Khetarpal-Vasser, Brian Pacheco, Eric Salazar, Leon Mancilla, Mark Bissell, Lorenso Silva, Frank Farinaro and Steven Eggers.

Choreography by Steven Eggers and Frank Farinaro.

Wednesday, 22 May 2013

Awkward


Just to prove to all of y'all that I actually am a real person AND actually a woman AND actually a dancer -- and not some weirdy little dude called Dale who has limited contact with the outside world and a strange, some might say unnatural, relationship with his mother -- here is a photo of me 'dancing' at Hafla on the Hill in Camden last Thursday.

The best thing about the whole performance was my nail varnish, which isn't done justice in this pic. I was very proud of it: layered black and gold glitter over lizard green, so as to match my bedlah and skirt. The worst thing was the woman in the front row who yawned conspicuously when I started and didn't cover her mouth. Rude.

Who knows what's happening with my hands here? Not me. On the plus side, at least they're not flopping around like landed fish.

[Pic by Yara Photography and uploaded without permission (but then, no one asked me if I wanted it slapped all over Facebook and tagged with my real name either. Fair's fair!).]

Sunday, 12 May 2013

Photo du jour: Star of Pinterest

With 43 repins and 13 likes, this publicity still of Dolores del Rio in the 1928 film Revenge is by far the most popular image Jilly has ever tacked on Pinterest.

Hint, hint people!