LUNCHTIME ACTIVITIES
This year we have lots of options for you to stimulate your mind while you refuel between workshops. The choices include panel discussions, a film screening, and opportunities to keep dancing (!!), all courtesy of our featured performers, presenters and teachers.
Discover our wonderful Vendors. They will be in Room 16 O from Friday to Sunday at Ripley Grier studios.
Lunch time activities are happening at the Ripley Grier Studios. To check our conference locations and transportation, please visit the Visitor Info page.
In order to have access to the Lunch activities, you either need to attend at least one workshop that same day or pay $5 at the door (please check in with our registration table). This lunch pass with give you access to any panel or presentation. The vending room is accessible without a pass.
THURSDAY
ROOM Q
1:30 – 2:00 pm Burlesque for Belly Dancers: “Shimmy, Wink, Blow a Kiss!” with Karolina
Both burlesque and belly dance accentuate the beauty and power of femininity. This workshop will celebrate the similarities and highlight the
differences of the two forms to keep your fusion flirty and fabulous, but also classy. We will start with some history of burlesque and its overlapping roots with belly dance, move on to some fun warm-ups
to pump your expressions up to larger-than-life proportions, learn a short choreography, and close with some techniques for converting your wardrobe easily and affordably into tastefully risqué costumes!
2.00- 2:30 pm Introduction to Emotional Tribal Bellydance with Francesca Pedretti
Dancers will gain tools to structure their choreography as they relate their story. They will explore the development and transformation of gestural movement with variations on the use of space, time, level, size and musical interpretation.
ROOM TO BE CONFIRMED: 16 U OR 16 O
1:30–2.30 pm Film screening of “Havana Habibi” and Q+A with Hanan and Joshua Alafia
Hanan has spent the last seven years travelling to her parents’ homeland of Cuba, teaching bellydance, collaborating on choreographies, festivals and performances throughout the island. This film follows the characters over seven years and explores and depicts their struggles, the bonds they form and the healing, transcendent power of Bellydance. The short film will be followed by a Q+A with Hanan and Havana Habibi’s Cinematographer and Co-Director Joshua Alafia.
FRIDAY
ROOM O
1:15 – 2:45 pm Shopping with our vendors
ROOM 16 T
1:30 – 2:00 pm “The Art of Making Dances” with Dalia Carella
In this lecture Dalia will be discussing creating a dance either solo or group choreography from inception to its finish and the steps to take to follow through with integrity and theatricality. Follow-through and keeping a THEME throughout the dance is essential when creating a dance, i.e., what music you choose, the music that goes with the movement, costuming, makeup, lighting design, the dancers you choose, training the dancers not only to dance in a piece but build a character in the dance and sustaining that character. Dalia will show a few works from The Dalia Carella Dance Collective repertoire to give examples of the Art of Making Dances.
2:00 – 2:30 pm “The dancing femme fatale & the myth of Salome” with Wendy Buonaventura
The femme fatale persona is very near the surface in Oriental dance, and the dancing temptress par excellance is Salome. We look at the mythical/ religious roots of the Bible story – and at differences of opinion regarding what it signifies. Wendy’s theatre production, “Revelations:The Testament of Salome” explored and rewrote the story, with live text and seven dances representing the seven ‘unveilings’ – of Salome’s life. Wendy will talk about the process of re-creating the drama of this story and about audience responses – as well as expectations! Note: Wendy will be performing one of the dances from Revelations at DNA on Saturday, July 10.
ROOM 16 U
1:30 – 2:30 Panel discussion: “The role of theatrical bellydance in the current dance scene”
Led by : Ranya
Panelists : Anasma, Zoe Anwar, Autumn Ward
SATURDAY
ROOM O
1:15 – 2:45 pm Shopping with our vendors
ROOM 16 T
1:30 – 2:30 pm Dancing the Other: “Early Twentieth Century Stereotypes of Middle Eastern Dance in 1920s Paris” with Najla
In this lecture, we’ll seek to understand how theatrical presentations of Oriental dances in 1920s Paris were influenced by presentations of “ethnic dance” at Colonial and World’s expositions, as well as by European ballet
and music halls. It draws from diverse sources to understand how these performances created a stereotypical summary of a culture via dance and a hyper-sexualized view of the foreign female body in motion.
ROOM 16 U
1:30 – 2:30pm Panel: “Story, imagery, character and the creative process”
Led by : Raqsie
Panelists : Elena Lentini, Yael Becker, Ayshe, Fayzah
SUNDAY
ROOM O
1:15 – 2:45 pm Shopping with our vendors
ROOM 16 U
1:30 – 2:30 pm Character Development with JeniViva
JeniViva will be holding a discussion about building your character. How to journal your vision alive! Through provocative questions, writing prompts and acting exercises students will learn how to add layers and depth to their stage personas. You will develop your character from idea spark to a complex living being.
ROOM 16 T
1:30 – 2:30pm Panel led by Wendy Buonaventura on “Orientalism and dance”
What is Orientalism, and has it helped or hindered our knowledge of Middle Eastern women’s dance? Is the term ‘Belly dance’ a useful name for this dance, or does this name perpetuate the Orientalism of the 19th Century? Is Orientalism simply a historical phenomenon or is there a new form of it today? And if so, how does this manifest itself in the dance world?
Panelists : DaVid of Scandinavia, Hanan, Andrea Anwar
