Melina’s “Tips from the Hip”TM

Melina’s 2009 Belly Dance Classes

Thu, 30 Oct 2008 16:57:37 -0400

Preregistration for classes and special seminars offered by Melina or her guest artists is now available online.

A Quick Peek at Melina’s 2009 SCHEDULE

Wednesdays
6:45 - 7:45 p.m. - Level 2 (Beyond Beginners)
8 - 9 p.m. - Level 3/4 (Intermediate)

Thursdays 6:45 - 7:45 p.m. - Level 1 (Beginners)
8 - 9 p.m. - Level 3/4 (Intermediate)

Location for Melina’s Wednesday and Thursday Classes:

Women’s Club
72 Columbus Street
Newton Highlands, MA 02461

Melina’s Upcoming Performance and Touring Schedule

BOOKING INQUIRIES: Email Melina
Visit www.daughtersofrhea.com for more info

The Helping Hips Belly Dance Charity Gala on Saturday November 15th

Fri, 3 Oct 2008 13:00:05 -0400

Benefiting the non-profit organization We Love Children.
Saturday, November 15, 2008
7-11 p.m., doors open at 6:30 p.m.
Roseland Ballroom at Hong Kong City Restaurant
Hong Kong City Restaurant
174 Broadway/Rt 138
Taunton, MA 02780

$35 - Reserve your tickets now by calling 508.822.6449. Tickets are limited and sold in advance only.

The event will feature...

...Breathtaking performances by some of New England’s finest belly dance stars
...Raffles and silent auction of massages, tickets to sporting events, dance classes and more
...Hors d’oeuvres, delightful cocktails, cash bar, and other surprises!

Performers include: Aurel, Chantal, Hanan, Melina of Daughters of Rhea with World Fusion Percussionist John de Kadt, Najmat, Panayiota, Phaedra and Susi.

To pay by credit car, call 508 822 6449

BOOKING INQUIRIES: Email Melina
Visit www.daughtersofrhea.com for more info

Melina’s Belly Dance and Circus Arts Workshop, Performance & Touring Schedule

Thu, 2 Oct 2008 09:12:55 -0400

Melina’s Fall Classes in Newton, MA. Info and Pre-registration is available now.

TOUR SCHEDULE 2008  Wellesley College, Wellesley MA March 1, 2008 SEMINAR: Melina's CLEOPATRA'S FRENZY choreography Technique, Drills & Choreography

 First Unitarian Church, West Newton, MA
Women’s Society March 14, 2008 Introduction to the Ancient Art of Belly Dance

The Roxy Nightclub in Rhode Island
Melina and Sacha in Cirque Passion Performance
Gala One Year Anniversary Party at The Roxy
Thursday March 27th & Saturday March 29th
Cirque Passion Aerial Performances throughout the night.

Quincy Marriott in Quincy, MA
Gala “Cirque Belly Dance” performances for Citizen’s Bank Award Ceremony
Sunday March 30th

The State Room, Boston, MA
Belly Dance Performance at Private Wedding Function
April 5th, 2008

Newton, MA April 5, 2008 Fool’s Folly Benefit Performance Fundraiser Performance for Mason-Rice School

Karoun Restaurant in Newton, MA
Saturday April 5th
9:30 p.m. belly dance show with live music

Finz in Salem, MA SHE Network Gala Event: Show & Seminar
Benefit Performance April 10, 2008
 Studio Rhea in Athens, Greece April 12 - 20, 2008 Seminars & Shows

Goddess Motion Studios in Singapore
Goddess Motion
April 29th, 2008 show at Victoria Theatre
May 1-4, 2008 Melina seminars

Turning Stone Casino Resort in Verona, NY May 14th, 2008 Greek Belly Dance Show with sister Piper Corporate Event

Circus Flora in St Louis, MO Circus Flora Tour June 5 - 22, 2008 
COCA in St Louis, MO Center of Creative Arts June 30-July 11, 2008 Circus Arts & Belly Dance Instructional Workshops

Kripalu: The Sacred Pulse Music Festival
Stockbridge, MA http://www.kripalu.org/program/view/SE/SPMF81/
Weeklong Festival July Jul 13-18, 2008 (5 nights, Sun – Fri) Faculty: Krishna Das, Mickey Hart, Wah!, Donna De Lory, Tracy Vernon, Shivananda Thomas Amelio, Toni Bergins, KDZ: The Drummers at Kripalu, Melina, John de Kadt and The Nanapowe Drum Group July 18, 2008: Ancient Art of Belly Dance Workshop with Melina

Circus Flora in Nantucket Island, MA Sat/Sun of the last weekend of July, 2008 Circus Flora Tour

Baltimore Museum of Art in Baltimore, MD Daughters of Rhea BellyPalooza Festival Johns Hopkins University Campus and BMA August 2-3, 2008 Festival, Workshops & Show

Kripalu
Stockbridge, MA
Saturday August 8th 2008, 7:30 p.m. Live Music Performance with HuDost and John De Kadt

Kripalu
Thursday September 4
Private Gala Performance with KDZ Kripalu Drummers

Melina presents:
Special Guest-Artist Seminars with Lisa Zahiya
2008 Tribal Fusion Belly Dancer of the Universe
September 27 and 27
Details and pre-registration at www.daughtersofrhea.com

Citizenship Private Gala Party in Providence, Rhode Island
Friday September 19

Saturday September 20
Karoun Restaurant

Saturday September 27 (with Lisa Zahiya)
Karoun Restaurant

Sheraton Boston Private Gala
Saturday October 4, 2008

Saturday October 18, 2008
Karoun Restaurant

Friday October 24, 2008
Cirque Passion/Daughters of Rhea performance featuring Sara, Melina and Troupe Moirae at Roger Williams University “Midnight Madness” Event.

Saturday October 25, 2008
Karoun Restaurant

Saturday November 1, 2008
Concert Performance at Kripalu with John de Kadt and Steve Gorn

Friday November 7, 2008
Karoun Restaurant

Saturday November 8, 2008
Private Party Function

Friday November 14, 2008
Karoun Restaurant

Saturday November 15, 2008
Hong Kong City at the Roseland Ballroom “Belly Drum Dagger Dance”
Featuring Melina and John de Kadt
and other Top Belly Dancers of New England
Fall Gala to benefit We Love Children
info@thehelpinghips.org

Saturday November 29, 2008
Karoun Restaurant

December 6 and 7 Melina presents her sister Piper, Belly Dancer of the Year 2000, in Boston-area seminars. Technique and certification in the PiperMethod.
Details TBA

Saturday December 6 Karoun Restaurant

2009 TOUR

Singapore
April 30 - May 4, 2009
Performances and Seminars with Melina and her mother Rhea of Greece
Info and details to be posted on Goddess Motion as date approaches

Athens, Greece
Mid-Late May 2009
Seminars with Melina at Studio Rhea and Dance 2 Dance in Plaka

Kripalu Workshops
Summer 2009

South of France Workshops Summer 2009

New Hampshire workshops
September 2009 

BOOKING INQUIRIES: Email Melina
Visit www.daughtersofrhea.com for more info

“Belly Dance as Empowerment” by Melina

Tue, 30 Sep 2008 09:42:08 -0400

BELLY DANCE AS EMPOWERMENT by Melina of Daughters of Rhea

My mother Rhea taught me – both explicitly and by example, that belly dance can be both a dance of empowerment and a way of life. I am very lucky to have inherited this idea as a birthright instead of having to beat a path to its discovery later in life.

My mother is quoted in a 1973 article on belly dance that appeared in the now defunct Venus magazine:

“When I dance, I don’t want to be seen as a sex object; I’m an artisan. I try to mesmerize, hypnotize the audience. I’m a sorceress, a magical trickster, the master of my body. I say to them: “Watch me do this over here, but did you see this move over here at the same time.” And I relate to the men and the women in the audience, and they relate to me. Belly dancing is not just a sensuous dance. Its an extravaganza, showing the feats of human capabilities.”

When a new student embarks on her belly dance journey, whether by choice or because their friend dragged them to their first class – it often becomes a profoundly transformative and integrative experience for body, mind and spirit.

Undulations, isolations, articulations, trembles, shimmies, flutters and rolls awaken the body and its deeply embedded ancient wisdoms.

Sometimes, for new students, the unfamiliar articulations of belly dance dredge up inarticulate anxieties of the soul – anxieties I see expressed on faces during class:
“My pelvis is tilting! My hips are hipping! My stomach is showing! My breasts are jiggling!”

But the remedy to these anxieties lies in the very movements that dredge them up. The anxieties are processed through practice, they are alchemized into a serenity and sureness that only sinuous training, passionate concentration and dedicated study of technique can bring.

In post-modern American Society, the ancient art of belly dance raises many important questions: Questions about gender, body image, ethnicity, emotion, art, entertainment, social roles and while we’re at it: the meaning of life. It is up to each student to answer these questions for herself. As a teacher, I see my role as encouraging people to think for themselves: to never bow to fear to never be tethered to convention. To use belly dance as a tool of empowerment and joy. Because I am a belly dance fundamentalist: I was born and reborn to belly dance, and I firmly believe it can change your life for the better.

When I have student recitals, I discourage the tense pursuit of perfection and encourage the enjoyment of process. Perfection is overrated. Process is golden. We work hard in class on technique, but in performance we want to present ourselves with our natural grace and personality, incorporating in more and more advanced technique as we grow as dancers. I like to pay homage to process and the journey, accepting ourselves as perfect just where we are along the way. We’re on this earth to have fun and dance, and we’ve found the secret to a joyful and empowered life: Bellydance.

A SHORT HISTORY OF MELINA’S RECITALS

I model my student recitals on the many inspired dance happenings my mother Rhea puts together in Athens, Greece. Basically, the formula goes like this: bring together a diverse set of dancers in a beautiful restaurant with a lovely large stage and let them work their individual and collective magic on a friendly and encouraging crowd that is intoxicated with good cheer. Mix in unbridled enthusiasm, fun, positive vibes, a few beautiful costumes, great music and a healthy spattering of nerves. Sprinkle in some creative solos, a couple of dashing duets and some group numbers. Practice as much as you can considering that you all have full-time jobs and/or are hardworking mothers, then put perfection to the side and just go for it. Spontaneity is encouraged: last minute entries are accepted. Experimental music is allowed. Self-expression abounds.

My mother and I differ in opinion on one point: I try to keep the recital short, about 1.5 hours. Hers can extend far into the night -- but then again, that’s in Greece, where folks are used to staying out until 3 a.m. on a regular basis.

The basic idea is: never bow to convention or fear. Just come on out and do some dancing.

Melina’s Upcoming Performance and Touring Schedule

BOOKING INQUIRIES: Email Melina
Visit www.daughtersofrhea.com for more info

Melina of Daughters of Rhea’s Belly Dance Music Playlists

Mon, 15 Sep 2008 14:40:06 -0400

Fall 2008 Playlist (I will update this as I add on new music to my playlists in class)

For warms-ups, stretches, hand undulations, body center circles, slow work, slow interpretive dance:

Omar Faruk Tekbilek: Ask and A Call to Prayer
Dalia Carella Presents: Shuvani. Oud and Ney taksims
Taksimler from Alla Turka.
Rumi’s Passion by Mosavo.

For drills and technique practice with steady 4/4 counts:

Saidi by Ali Arsoy from Ali Bi Ghanni li Rhea (available in class from Melina)
Saskin by Tanyeli - Turkish Belly Dancer
Shashkin by Omar Faruk Tekbilek
Tsiftetelli by The Toids from Unblocked Ears
George Abdo: Raks Al-Sultan
Karachi by Fat Chance Belly Dance
Earth Beat by Garden Play (My Fall 08 “Cultish Combo” is performed to this song)

Techno-fied remix fun for Dionysian shimmy practice:

Naked Rhythm: Babylon
Mosavo: Jil Al Hadis
Egyptian Disco

For fast Greek tsifteteli:

Check out the classic bouzouki-featured “Tsifteteli tou Bourneli” available for sampling on iTunes (Musician’s name is pronounced Vourneli in Greek). Tsifteteli is sometimes also spelled or pronounced chifteteli. The fast Greek tsifteteli - this is what Greeks love to belly dance to and the music I grew up with - is to be distinguished from the slow tsifteteli rhythm sometimes used by belly dancers in the slow work portion of their routine (with the ‘slow, slow, quickquick slow beat’).

More on music:
The twin forces of Music and Dance were present at my conception: My dad is a musician and my mom is a belly dancer. Live music was part of my daily life growing up, and when my mom moved to Greece, we danced every night in tourist tavernas with wonderful live Greek bouzouki bands. Music and rhythm is where everything begins for me. Love for - or connection with - a particular song lies at the heart of most of my dance creations and movement visions. When I am planning my belly dance classes, I put a lot of thought into what my playlist will be, and I like to change it up frequently. I like to expose students to a wide range of belly dance music and, whenever possible, talk in class about where the music I am playing comes from, what it means, and what belly dance movements would work best with it: from Turkish to Greek to Rai to Egyptian to Techno remix fusion to Gypsy to New Age to Trance, Indie and more. When my students first tell me that they’d like to perform a solo in an upcoming recital the first thing I ask them is “have you found a song you love to dance to?” In performance, you want your body to speak the music and speak your love of the song. The dancer’s emotion immediately translates to the audience, and music is at the heart of the art.

Here is a quick list of a few of my favorite albums, songs and/or musical artists for belly dance. It is by no means exhaustive nor is it in alphabetical order, but it can start your exploration. Most of these artists can be sampled either on iTunes or Amazon. You can also often find them on your local dance vendors’ tables.

CLASSICS

George Abdo
The Joy of Belly Dance
The Art of Belly Dance

Eddie “The Sheik” Kochak
Strictly Belly Dancing

John Bilezikjian (www.dantzrecords.com)
Belly Dance Classics

Bert Balladine
Bert’s Baladi

Setrak Sarkissian

TURKISH/MIDDLE EASTERN/GREEK/WORLD

Omar Faruk Tekbilek
The Sultans CDs
Fire Dance
Mystical Garden

Tanyeli
Turkish Belly Dancer

Asena
Asena CD

Tarkan
Karma
Dudu

Ali Arsoy
Ali Bi Ghanni Li Rhea
Karma

Dalia Carella
Shuvani

Belly Dance Superstars
Any of the Compilations

Hakim
Yaho

Natacha Atlas
Diaspora

Amr Diab
Nour el Ain

Khaled (king of Rai)
Aisha

Bourneli - or Vourneli -
Greek Tsiftetelli bouzouki music

Ozel Turkbas
Alla Turca

Neena & Veena
Essential Bellydance

REMIXED/TECHNO-FIED BELLY DANCE

Electric Oasis 2

Bellylicious

Oojami: Belly Dance Breakbeats

Jehan: BellyFuse - Arabesque Lounge

PERCUSSION ARTISTS 
Susu Pampanin & Cairo Cats
Dancing Drums

Hossam Ramzy
Immortal Egypt
Modern Egyptian Belly Dance Music

Great Musicians/Artists with whom Melina has collaborated in belly dance, circus arts, or other arts experiments. Listed here randomly in neither alphabetical nor chronological order:

Phil Marsh
My dad - Folkster, Songster and Snakecharmer extraordinaire

Harry Bedrosian Jazz, Arabic, Greek and Armenian music ... and more
Love that oud

Ali Arsoy
Middle Eastern/World
Great Arabic and Turkish vocals, dumbek, keyboards

John de Kadt  Drum Poetry -
I love and recommend all his percussive, poetic creations

HuDost
Alternative/Folk-Rock/Experimental
My daughter listens to their beautiful music as she floats into dreamland....

Telesma
Pyschodelic-electroaucoustic-rock
Our Telesma favorites Ian and Jason always rock the BellyPalooza festival and show on didg and drum
 Mademoiselle
Alternative-Rock-Indie
Incredible band featuring Sam Cabral - profound and poetic Azorean singer/songwriter

Aboudi Badawi
Lebanese/Middle Eastern Music and Rhythms

Mitchell Kaltsunas
Arabic Music and beyond

Jamal Sinno
Soulful Qanun player

KDZ Drummers
Wonderful band of percussionists at Kripalu

David Edelman Jazz, bluegrass, ethnic fusion fiddle player

Melina’s Upcoming Performance and Touring Schedule

BOOKING INQUIRIES: Email Melina
Visit www.daughtersofrhea.com for more info

STUDENT INFO: Melina’s Level 3/4 Belly Dance Class Notes for Fall 2008

Sun, 14 Sep 2008 15:57:18 -0400

Respectfully, please do not copy or perform this material without first attaining permission and giving proper credit.

Melina’s “Cultish Combo” to the song “Garden Play” by Earth Beat from the album Tales of a Mystic Garden. You can download it from iTunes, and I have embedded the song to the left of this paragraph, though it may not play on all computers).

These notes are for the basic set of moves. I sometimes add variations in class such as extra turns and directional shifts to make the combinations more dynamic but for purposes of simplicity have not included those here.

Intro: As soon as music starts, Arms reach up to Sky, then pull down alongside face in “Sky to heart” arms, end movement with hands in prayer position in front of heart chakra, just slightly in front of body.
When quick rhythms start, head slides and hip sides, holding hands in prayer position:

Head slides R,L,R (pause for fourth count)
Hips side R,L,R (pause for fourth counts)

With shift in music, do gentle, tiny, subtle earthquake shimmy style bounces to the tempo of the music for 4 sets of 8 counts.

1st set of 8 counts: keep feet flat, both knees bending at the same time as tips of fingers, hands still in prayer position, point down and then pull apart to form triangle in front of belly button, then turn wrists and scoop out hands to let arms flow down in front of hip bones, then lift out to side to wide “W” position.

2nd set of 8 counts -- take your time on this one -- hands lower “painting the walls” to low position behind the back, fingers touching below the base of spine,

3rd set of 8 counts: hands trace up the sides of the body for “Earth to Sky” arms. Keep the finger tips grazing the body all the way up behind your neck then release hands as arms stretch to the sky

4th set of 8 counts: arms flow back down to rest in “elbows in the doorway” position.

Step hip for 4 counts each with these arms positions:
Elbows in the doorway
Wide “W” arms AKA Classic Egyptian
Flamenco arms, wrists touching above head (Chest up! Shoulder blades pulling down and together. Elbows pulling back behind ears)
Alternating “L” and “Reverse L” body framing arms, gaze following hands as they reach out sideways from your shoulders.

Traveling step forward with alternating “Show the queenly ring” arms -- 4 forward, 4 back. Watch that you keep your lifted elbow pulling back, lifting chest.

Turn, turn, turn hip (Repeat 4). Arms in wide “W” with low hands for the turn, “L” frame position for hips.

“Back, forward, step, hip” starting by going back on the ball of the left foot and moving forward (repeat four)

“Put the long glove on” Arms while stepping back with a sit hip, flat footed. As you step back on left, push back into left hip, then right, left, right. Keep your knees bent, hips tucked, chest lifting.

With music change, go into “accent-the-rhythm” combo  Dainty dominatrix Hip lifts and drops (rhythm II, II)
Shoulder accents (rhythm II, II, I)
Repeat 4, 2 sets on each side, alternating

Then, we go into the fast greek tsiftetelli combination:

Go up on balls of feet, knees bent, hips tucked, chest tall (hips move side to side following direction of feet)
LRL, LRL, LRL, RIGHT
Repeat
For the last step on the RIGHT foot, step flat, get grounded for a big side hip to right with knees bent, left foot sliding along.

Arms: relaxed out to sides for LRL, then strong Reverse L arms (right arm up, left arm out to left side) for last step on right. Lift up right rip cage as left arm lifts, but pull left shoulder blade down so your shoulder doesn’t creep up to your ear.

Hip pulls on left foot going forward and back to music: FF, BB, FF, B. Do it once in place, once traveling to left. Right arm is up where it ended up on the last move, Left arm pulls gently in opposite to hip. Gaze follows left foot. Try not to bob up and down with the exertion of your quick hips. Stay smooth, still and gliding on the top.

Switch hip pulls to right side and reverse arm position. With the transition, drop left heel and lift your right foot behind with a little flick. Gaze then follows right foot.

Two-hip shimmies for 2 counts of 8.
Very small hip movements -
As you travel forward with the two-hip shimmies, arms push straight down, then travel out and up sides. As you travel back, pull down arms in ‘sky to earth’ arms, then reach forward from heart
THEN, the big drama transition
Step back on left foot, frame body in left diagonal mode – left arm up, right arm down behind hip

6 accent “taks” total
1st accent is getting into the first position and snapping the hip down
2nd accent is circling the hip counter clockwise with a vertical lift and snapping down
3rd accent is a roll up the body
4th accent is a roll down the body
5th accent is reaching forward with the right hand and pulling ripcage forward as well, pulling a kiss out of the air and putting it in your heart, pulling your ripcage back
6th accent is a chest rotation to the right

Take your time to transition to right lunge position, right hand sliding down body, then traveling back up to cup behind your head, left arms extending horizontally out from body, “paint the floor” with the left foot as it travels in toward your right leg, extends forward and the circles back to the left again.
Alternate right and left lunges with circular foot painting movement.

Sit hip, “flick” foot - in place for 4, then traveling clockwise in tight circle

4 counts of 8: Starting with right foot crossing in front of left, grapevine step traveling left with 2 hip shimmy, end with pause on back right leg. Travel left, behind, to front, then to right.

4 of the Tunisian twist hip series - in place, to back of room, to front again, then travel forward

4 Folkloric dip lunge forward, sit sit sit hips to 4 corners

4 Hip pulls to right and left, repeat four times

Repeat from beginning of fast Greek tsifteteli combination to Ending where you send out a kiss.

__________________________
Fast Greek Tsifteteli Combination by Melina
I have embedded in this posting a Greek Tsifteteli Song -- one of the classic “Tsiftetelia tou Vourneli” -- that is 3:03 in length, but you can use a variety of Fast Greek Tsiftetelli song renditions for this set of movements and adapt to accommodate for the variety of exciting pauses.

Begin on balls of feet with first pick of bouzouki.
Start up on toes, knees bent, hips tucked chest tall (hips move side to side following direction of feet)
LRL, LRL, LRL, RIGHT
Repeat
For the last step on the RIGHT foot, step flat, get grounded for a big side hip to right with knees bent, left foot sliding in to right ankle.

Zill Pattern: R, RLRLR, R, RLR, RLRLRLRLR

Arms: relaxed out to sides for LRL, then strong Reverse L arms (right arm up, left arm out to left side) for last step on right.

Hip pulls on left foot going forward and back to music: FF, BB, FF, B. Do it once in place, once traveling to left. Right arm is up where it ended up on the last move, Left arm pulls gently in opposite to hip. Gaze follows left foot. Try not to bob up and down with the exertion of your quick hips. Stay smooth, still and gliding on the top.

Switch hip pulls to right side and reverse arm position. With the transition, drop left heel and lift your right foot behind with a little flick. Gaze then follows right foot.

Two-hip shimmies for 2 counts of 8.
Very small movements
As you travel forward with the two-hip shimmies, arms push down, travel out and up sides. As you travel back, pull down arms in ‘sky to earth’ arms, then reach forward from heart
THEN, the big drama pause and prep transition
Taka taka TAK pause on last tak
Step back on left foot, frame body in left diagonal mode – left arm up, right arm down behind hip

6 accent “taks” total
1st accent is getting into the first position and snapping the hip down
2nd accent is circling the hip counter clockwise with a vertical lift and snapping down
3rd accent is a roll up the body
4th accent is a roll down the body
5th accent is reaching forward with the right hand and pulling ripcage forward as well, pulling a kiss out of the air and putting it in your heart, pulling your ripcage back
6th accent is a chest rotation to the right

After accent “taks,” do a quick weight transfer into a right leg lunge toward the right diagonal.
Shoulder shimmy improv to climbing strains of bouzouki - as the notes rise you should shift what you layer into the shoulder shimmy. You can try: an undulating body roll up, a lifting shoulder, a torso lean or figure 8. In the course of the shoulder shimmy improv, shift your weight and body orientation to the left diagonal so that you end up in a left leg lunge position with back right heel lifted. The bouzouki dies out and you pause and prep your arms, body essentially still, for the next notes.

Left hand behind head, right hand pressing straight in front of body (straight toward left armpit). Do tiny right hip pushes back to accent the plucks of the bouzouki. As bouzouki gears up and descends in note, do a level change down as well, coming up on the balls of both feet as needed. Keep your hips tucked under. Your hips should shake-ily or snake-ily respond to the rubbery changes of the music. The bouzouki phrase finishes when you are down. You can dramatically smack the floor, Greek style, if your knees can handle it. Otherwise, modify the descent and go only as far as is comfortable, then drop your right shoulder down and slump your head with gusto.

Bouzouki twangs back in -
da da! (shoulder accent lunge right diagonal)
dadadada da! (back right hip sit accent while lunged to left diagonal - look back at right hip)
dadadada da! (shoulder accent)
dadadada da! dadadadadadadadada....(hip sit accent...into tiny earth quake shimmy layered with hip circle.)

Then the rhythm goes back to the original 8 counts with pause on “7”
Double Sit hip with “flick” foot - in place for 8 (with pause on 7)
Double sit hip step with flick foot traveling clockwise in tight circle (with pause on 7)
Starting with right foot crossing in front of left, grapevine step traveling left with 2 hip shimmy, end with pause on back right leg.
Long held bouzouki moment with a counterclockwise turn in place while doing choochoo steps on balls of feet and circling hips clockwise, arms out to side into
Three “Strike a pose” accent pauses (can be modified to suit your abilities and personality)

Smooth Slide/Jump right, push weight into right leg, right hip juts right, right arms up, left foot out to left on ball - (reverse “L” arms)
Smooth slide/jump into left foot, right up on ball and reverse arm pose (to form “L” arms)
Head toss

2 sets of traveling forward figure 8 hips on the horizontal plane (keep heels on the floor - we’ll keep working on the technique of this move in class). Left hand cupping head behind ear (thumb pointing down behind ear), right hand in earthy fist on hip.

Take step behind on right foot and pivot so that you are facing away from ‘audience’. Line up and point both knees in same ‘away from audience’ direction, back left leg is up on the ball, front right knee is bent. Shimmy as you lift both arms straight up over your head and follow with your gaze. WIth sudden end, drop arms dramatically.

With accent, roll left shoulder back toward audience and look over your left shoulder with a dramatic gaze.

With accent, orient both knees toward right diagonal, make sure feet aren’t too far apart (less than hip width), and body roll up from the first chakra.

...To be continued.

Try combination to Naked Rhythms Babylon (you’ll have to make variations to have it work with the song)
Try combination to Rumi’s Passion by Mosavo (slow down all movements and add in snakes and figure eights: it changes the look, feel and emotionality of the combination)

____________________________________________
“FOOT PAINTING” combinations

I often teach these advanced movements as a group because they all share the idea of painting circles or figure 8s on the floor with your foot or the big toe/ball of the foot. In order to do these movements well you have to a really good base in technique -- my sister Piper has these movements listed in her level II, level III and level IV PiperMethod certification lists -- they are very challenging to do well (but always fun to try). You should be able to do these movements without level changes, and you have to have mastered the body roll up and down and be able to travel with the rolls without losing your technique (body rolls up and down are categorized and described by Piper in the PiperMethod School of American Belly Dance but have also been called Arabic basic and Camel walk in the Jamila Salimpour School of Dance).

Warning: These notes are imperfect and are designed to jog your memory as you practice at home. I intend them to be a helpful supplement to class practice and will be improved upon when I have more time.

Rhea’s Body Roll Walk Backwards with Foot circle painting from front to back. This movement looks beautiful with a forwards and backwards leaning Turkish style posture and is a beautiful and dramatic movement to perform with a prop on your head. I don’t recommend this movement with a straight up and down Arabic style posture. To start, stand with both feet together, knees bent, hips tucked under in neutral posture (not arched), chest tall and shoulders pulled back and relaxed. Paint the floor with a straight line in front of you with the right foot then circle it to the back. As you do this, your chest leans forwards but is still “active” and lifting, and your base knee stays bent. Right foot circle around to the back then pulls in to replace the left foot as you transition to the Turkish-style leaning back posture with your hips in front of your chest and shoulders. Body roll down then begin movement again, this time with the left foot.
Single hip figure 8 with foot painting an 8 on the floor in front of you - knee of the base leg must be bent to act as a shock absorber so you don’t bob up and down and perform inadvertent level changes.
Traveling body rolls down starting with the rip cage pulling forward and up then undulating down the body (or camel walk) to right and left diagonals with smooth transition step in which you paint the floor with a foot circle. Foot work: Step diagonal right with right foot, feet together, step right, feet together, then for transition movement left foot paints the floor forward, then in counter-clockwise half circle to the left, then you shift your torso orientation to the left and repeat steps to the left diagonal with the left foot leading.

Again, I will improve upon these notes as time goes by and we discuss details in class.
_______________________________________________

STUDENT INFO: Level 2 Beyond Beginners Class Notes

Sun, 14 Sep 2008 14:26:10 -0400

In Melina’s level 2, or “beyond beginners” classes, students will continue to refine the basics and the moves learned in the level 1 classes. You will deepen your body’s understanding of the basic movements and begin to express the belly dance music -- and your inner soul -- more and more fully. We will begin to incorporate zills into classes and continue to work on proper posture, body alignment, and graceful hands and arms.

Try to maintain correct belly dance posture and body alignment: keep hips tucked under, tail bone energy down toward earth, pelvic bone lifting and pulling in towards womb, knees soft, lifting heart/proud chest for a queenly dancer’s posture, remembering to breathe and relax - lower - shoulders.

Remember to check my music playlist page for details on specific songs that I play in class.

Respectfully, please do not copy or perform this material without first attaining permission and giving proper credit.

Melina’s “Cultish Combo” to the song “Garden Play” by Earth Beat from the album Tales of a Mystic Garden.

These notes are for the basic set of moves. I sometimes add variations in class such as extra turns and directional shifts to make the combinations more dynamic but for purposes of simplicity have not included those here.

Intro: As soon as music starts, Arms reach up to Sky, then pull down alongside face in “Sky to heart” arms, end movement with hands in prayer position in front of heart chakra, just slightly in front of body.
When quick rhythms start, head slides and hip sides, holding hands in prayer position:

Head slides R,L,R (pause for fourth count)
Hips side R,L,R (pause for fourth counts)

With shift in music, do gentle, tiny, subtle earthquake shimmy style bounces to the tempo of the music for 4 sets of 8 counts.

1st set of 8 counts: keep feet flat, both knees bending at the same time as tips of fingers, hands still in prayer position, point down and then pull apart to form triangle in front of belly button, then turn wrists and scoop out hands to let arms flow down in front of hip bones, then lift out to side to wide “W” position.

2nd set of 8 counts -- take your time on this one -- hands lower “painting the walls” to low position behind the back, fingers touching below the base of spine,

3rd set of 8 counts: hands trace up the sides of the body for “Earth to Sky” arms. Keep the finger tips grazing the body all the way up behind your neck then release hands as arms stretch to the sky

4th set of 8 counts: arms flow back down to rest in “elbows in the doorway” position.

Step hip for 4 counts each with these arms positions:
Elbows in the doorway
Wide “W” arms AKA Classic Egyptian
Flamenco arms, wrists touching above head (Chest up! Shoulder blades pulling down and together. Elbows pulling back behind ears)
Alternating “L” and “Reverse L” body framing arms, gaze following hands as they reach out sideways from your shoulders.

Traveling step forward with alternating “Show the queenly ring” arms -- 4 forward, 4 back. Watch that you keep your lifted elbow pulling back, lifting chest.

Turn, turn, turn hip (Repeat 4). Arms in wide “W” with low hands for the turn, “L” frame position for hips.

“Back, forward, step, hip” starting by going back on the ball of the left foot and moving forward (repeat four)

“Put the long glove on” Arms while stepping back with a sit hip, flat footed. As you step back on left, push back into left hip, then right, left, right. Keep your knees bent, hips tucked, chest lifting.

With music change, go into “accent-the-rhythm” combo  Dainty dominatrix Hip lifts and drops (rhythm II, II)
Shoulder accents (rhythm II, II, I)
Repeat 4, 2 sets on each side, alternating

Then, we go into the fast greek tsiftetelli combination:

Go up on balls of feet, knees bent, hips tucked, chest tall (hips move side to side following direction of feet)
LRL, LRL, LRL, RIGHT
Repeat
For the last step on the RIGHT foot, step flat, get grounded for a big side hip to right with knees bent, left foot sliding along.

Arms: relaxed out to sides for LRL, then strong Reverse L arms (right arm up, left arm out to left side) for last step on right. Lift up right rip cage as left arm lifts, but pull left shoulder blade down so your shoulder doesn’t creep up to your ear.

Hip pulls on left foot going forward and back to music: FF, BB, FF, B. Do it once in place, once traveling to left. Right arm is up where it ended up on the last move, Left arm pulls gently in opposite to hip. Gaze follows left foot. Try not to bob up and down with the exertion of your quick hips. Stay smooth, still and gliding on the top.

Switch hip pulls to right side and reverse arm position. With the transition, drop left heel and lift your right foot behind with a little flick. Gaze then follows right foot.

Two-hip shimmies for 2 counts of 8.
Very small hip movements -
As you travel forward with the two-hip shimmies, arms push straight down, then travel out and up sides. As you travel back, pull down arms in ‘sky to earth’ arms, then reach forward from heart
THEN, the big drama transition
Step back on left foot, frame body in left diagonal mode – left arm up, right arm down behind hip

6 accent “taks” total
1st accent is getting into the first position and snapping the hip down
2nd accent is circling the hip counter clockwise with a vertical lift and snapping down
3rd accent is a roll up the body
4th accent is a roll down the body
5th accent is reaching forward with the right hand and pulling ripcage forward as well, pulling a kiss out of the air and putting it in your heart, pulling your ripcage back
6th accent is a chest rotation to the right

Take your time to transition to right lunge position, right hand sliding down body, then traveling back up to cup behind your head, left arms extending horizontally out from body, “paint the floor” with the left foot as it travels in toward your right leg, extends forward and the circles back to the left again.
Alternate right and left lunges with circular foot painting movement.

Sit hip, “flick” foot - in place for 4, then traveling clockwise in tight circle

4 counts of 8: Starting with right foot crossing in front of left, grapevine step traveling left with 2 hip shimmy, end with pause on back right leg. Travel left, behind, to front, then to right.

4 of the Tunisian twist hip series - in place, to back of room, to front again, then travel forward

4 Folkloric dip lunge forward, sit sit sit hips to 4 corners

4 Hip pulls to right and left, repeat four times

Repeat from beginning of fast Greek tsifteteli combination to Ending where you send out a kiss.

Notes for WARM UP & SLOW WORK
Slowly circle the body centers, joints and extremities: head & neck, shoulders, ripcage, hips, ankles
Forward-oriented ripcage circles while in “Melina’s killer lunge” position: heart pulls forward, lifts, behind hips and folds down at solar plexus. Repeat.
Focus on hands and wrists: Take your time.
Hand undulations leading from the wrists
Watch that you keep your fingers mostly together, that your fingers don’t splay out. Keep your thumbs tucked in, follow through hand movements to the tips of your fingers and don’t rush. For an elegant look, drop the middle finger lower than the others.
Wrist Circles
Weaving Wrists with arms descending from sky to in front of face to heart
“Put the long gloves on” arms as torso twists to right and left diagonals.
Snake arms

(Slow) Big Hip Circles in place
Traveling right and left
Camel Walks (full body undulations)
In place and traveling

STEPS: In Level 2, we continue to hone a fundamental traveling step of belly dance known as “basic” (or “arabic basic” or “turkish basic”) or “step hip”. We layer this basic move with a variety of arm positions that will serve to beautifully frame the body. We concentrate on the smooth and elegant transition from one arm movement to another.

Practice these arm positions so they flow elegantly from one to the next. Practice the arms standing, then while doing rhythmic hip practice, either a choo choo step or a step-hip.

Arms down, hands near hips with palms facing in, elbows pulled out to sides as if gently lifted by strings. Keep shoulders relaxed and down, torso active and lifting, palms facing in to body.

Classic Egyptian arms: arms out to sides, elbows bent, wrists bent to fingers face up, middle finger gently dropped, thumbs in. Shoulders relaxed and down, torso active and lifting.

Flamenco arms: arms raised above head, chest lifted in “snobby queen” posture, outsides of wrists joined and turned so palms face out, thumbs in.

Elegant “L” and “reverse L” arms. One arm is up, palm facing out, elbow gently bent, the other arm in classic egyptian arm position. Try to keep the movement between positions smooth and flowing. Don’t bob your body up and down, keep your chest lifted, see if you can circle your wrists as you transition between arms positions.

Cupping the back of the head hands. Elbow out to the side, hand cupping the head behind ear with thumb pointing down, pinky pointing up. Don’t let elbow come in front of your face.

Practice these arms with Step-hip
and variations on the step-hip theme:
Step hip, drop, hip
Step, hip hip hip
and
Back, forward, step, hip

Practice these arms while doing footwork and with gallop pattern (RLR) zills.

As you practice, always try to be in proper belly dance posture and body alignment to minimize back problems. As time goes by you’ll relax into the postures and get more of a feeling of relaxed yet precise flow rather than holding yourself stiffly. It takes time for belly dance movements to feel natural in your body, time for things to flow naturally. Sometimes years! Enjoy the process: its not a rush to perfection. Perfection is overrated; enjoying your body’s movements as a process is not.

FOR MORE ARMS & POSTURES

Visit my sister Piper’s website for her great and detailed articles on belly dance arm positions.

Rhea’s Ancient Greek Dance inspired arm position innovations:

Aphrodite posture. Following the pedagogical inspiration of my mother Rhea, I incorporate principles and postures of Ancient Greek Dance into my belly dance style and teaching. She expounds beautifully on her theories in her DVD “Graceful Hands and Arms,” available to my students in class for the discounted price of $30 (market price is $40). In Aphrodite posture, inspired by the ancient greek statues of the goddess of love, arms travel up and down the body in “Sky to Earth” and “Earth to Sky” vertical directions. Hands much stay very close to the sides of the body, caressing your aura or even skimming the skin. Feet are both on the earth, weight bearing foot is flat on the floor, non-weight-bearing leg foot touches the floor all along the inner side of the foot.

More of Rhea’s arms:

Earth to heart and out to world (arms/hands behind the back, up the spine, extending out to sides)

“Hug” arms keeping a chest lift throughout

Sky to heart and out to world (reach all the way up, then bring hands down behind the head to neck and extend out to your sides).

These arm movements can be incorporated with a variety of traveling hip steps.

“Choo choos”, a traveling step on flat feet with knees bent and quick side-to-side staccato hips engaging with your shifting weight. Choo choos can also be practiced up on the balls of the feet, knees bent, pelvis tucked under, chest lifting, shoulders relaxed.

Standing shimmies.

Remember to breathe evenly throughout class.

Zill Patterns

Work with zills (Turkish word for bells), sagat (arabic word) or finger cymbals. (Click here to read my essay on finger cymbals in the gilded serpent).

Gallop pattern: R,L,R, R,L,R (and the reverse)
Cascade pattern: RLRLRLRLRLRLRL

Practice forward step, back step with gallop pattern zills.
Practice Step hip with gallop pattern zills.

Work on isolating the chest for torso rotations. Some of my ideas for practicing isolations at home include: putting your nose against a mirror and trying to circle your chest without moving your head.

Try this: with zills on, do a gallop pattern while dancing sideways in a grapevine step.

Try balancing an object on your head to focus and concentrate your energy. It also helps to practice body isolations while balancing something on your head. Just remember to keep your body in proper alignment: knees bent, pelvis tucked, chest lifted, shoulders down - breathe!

www.daughtersofrhea.com
Melina’s Upcoming Performance and Touring Schedule

STUDENT INFO: Boston Area Belly Dance Resources

Sun, 14 Sep 2008 12:24:31 -0400

A QUICK REFERENCE GUIDE
TO MELINA’S PERSONAL PICKS IN THE BOSTON AREA 
Visit Amy Smith’s on-line resource of teachers, performances, venues and events in New England at www.bellydancenewengland.com. There you can also subscribe to the informative magazine Middle Eastern Dance in New England (MEDINE) and get to know who’s who and what’s going on around town and beyond.  
There are numerous on-line groups you can subscribe to such as http://boston.tribe.net, or subscribe to Hanna Svarc’s “belly dance plus” newsletter hannas_hips@yahoo.com. The more you search the more you’ll find out. You can also subscribe to the Belly Dance Massachusetts yahoo group and receive e-mails about events in Boston and around New England. Send an email to: Bellydancema-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.

Where you can go locally to see, try on and buy belly dance costumes and accoutrements.

Anatolia Imports/Belly Dance Oasis
1703 Warwick Avenue
Warwick, R.I. 02889
401.737.4713 – Call first to check on their hours - and tell them Melina sent you!

Great Eastern Trading Company
49 River Street
Central Square, Cambridge
617.354.5279 – call first to check hours - and tell them Melina sent you!

Za-Beth’s workshops and hafli’s (dance parties) are always a great place to learn, see a great variety of belly dance performances & shop! Get onto Za-Beth’s mailing list for news up her upcoming events: email her at zills@earthlink.net.

For an original, custom-fit, beautifully beaded belly dance costume creation and not a “cookie cutter off-the-rack costume” call upon the talented Shadia Tohme for a consultation and fitting! Shadia is a wonderful belly dance teacher and costumer in the Boston area. Shadia: 781 461 0512.

Catch me or other belly dancers live in performance at Karoun Restaurant in Newton Fri/Sat nights. Check the Daughters of Rhea website for my show schedule and make reservations for a great dinner and fun evening (I recommend the lamb kebob, and all the soups are homemade and delicious): Visit www.karoundining.com or call 617.964.3400. On Saturday nights you have to make dinner reservations and there is a minimum price for dinner. Call them and ask what that is.

Other local venues with belly dancing:

The Middle East in Cambridge
Layaleena - check website for latest location (www.layaleena.com)
Sahara in Methuen
The Red Fez in the South End
Tangierino in Charleston
Athenian Corner Restaurant in Lowell
Byblos Restaurant in Norwood

I encourage all of my students to explore Boston’s vibrant belly dance scene and try out classes by other local teachers, attend workshops, performances and haflis (Arabic for “party”). The more you know, the more you’ll grow as a belly dancer. Keep an open mind, an open heart, and enjoy yourself.

www.daughtersofrhea.com
Melina’s Upcoming Performance and Touring Schedule

STUDENT INFO: Level 1 Beginners Notes

Sun, 14 Sep 2008 11:59:37 -0400

The following notes are based on an 8 week session, but I go over all these moves and concepts in all my Level 1 classes and special workshops.

Week 1: Circle Warm Up and Introduction of Proper posture and body alignment for Belly Dance. Body isolation practice and basic arm positions. Step Hip & Shimmies.

Week 2: Repeat & Review (R&R) previous material. Focus on CIRCLES: Hip circles, chest circles, wrist circles. Learn and practice basic hip movements - hip ups and hip downs, as well as traveling step hips. Remember that hip movements originate from the knees, not the hips. I can’t say this enough, it is one of the hardest concepts for students to convince both their brains and their bodies. Try to keep your knees bent and soft at all times, never locking them.

Week 3. Focus on the Maya, a slow, vertically lifting figure 8 movement of the hips. It is very important to keep your knees bent for this movement, hips tucked under so that you don’t arch your back and create unhealthy pressure on the lower spine. Activate your waist muscle by contracting the waist to lift the hip toward the ripcage, being careful not to let your derriere move behind your shoulders. Keep your chest tall and keep breathing.

In Level 1 Classes, Melina also teaches the “hokey pokey” belly dance sequence, shown to her by her sister Piper whose student Driana originated the idea. “Put your right hip in, put your right hip out, put your right hip in and shake it all about. Do a shoulder shimmy and turn yourself around, that’s what its all about!” We also practice our earthquake shimmies and layered bounces with hip circles.

Week 4. We work on the “back, forward, hip, hip” movement with Rhea’s circular “Earth to the world” arms (arms go down to the base of the spine, pull up the vertebrae and side ways out at the ribs), “Hug” arms, and “Sky to the world” arms (arms go up high over head, then come down to stroke the back of your hair, then to your neck and extend out to the sides). Focus on follow-through of the fingers, unfurling your hands to release imaginary light through your finger tips at the end. Avoid curling or clutching your hands. Isolate your hips from the upper body by relaxing - but lifting - your torso and keeping your base knee bent. Look fondly upon your hip as it comes up. Pay attention to where you place your gaze.

In this class I introduce my killer lunge sequence to help build strength and flexibility in the thighs and hip flexors and protect your back for long-term dance use. Practicing this movement will help you become stronger dancers who can do an exciting level change at the drop of a hat!

I introduce 3/4 shimmies: hip lift, hip drop and switch weight/hip side to other leg. Repeat.

We undulate through the chakras, snaking the spine up and down.

We sweat a lot and tried to keep hydrated.

Week 5. Back, step, hip hip combinations and more 3/4 shimmying. Also: Focus on the NAVEL. Belly Rolls and Flutters. Techniques for how to build control of the abdominal muscles.

Week 6. Focus on FINGER CYMBALS. How to put them on and basic patterns to accompany your belly dance moves. We began class by learning a combination of steps and accompanying zill patterns.
Step, hip for 4 with R, RLR “gallop” pattern
Stay in place shoulder accents with R,L,R,L,R,L,R “cascade” pattern

The key to zilling is to keep zilling! “Fake it til you make it, and you will make it!”

Week 7. Focus on VEILS. The mysterious, alluring and dynamic veil - your sartorial partner in oriental dance.

Week 8. Focus on PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER. Learn one of Melina’s belly dance choregraphies.

www.daughtersofrhea.com

Melina’s Upcoming Performance and Touring Schedule

STUDENT INFO: Melina’s Circle Warm Up for all Levels

Sun, 14 Sep 2008 11:29:02 -0400

Read more my circle dance article on the Gilded Serpent.

Melina’s Daughters of Rhea Circle Warm-Up with Arm Variations. Music: Nisim Al Amar by Ali Arsoy’s Ali Bi Ghanni Li Rhea CD, available through Daughters of Rhea
All written material copyright 2005 by Daughters of Rhea www.daughtersofrhea.com

I like to teach belly dance in a circle. It is the way I watched my mother Rhea teach from the time I was born, and it makes sense to me. Dances have been performed in rings for thousands of years. The circle is a perfect, democratic & unending shape, the shape of an energized community, the shape of this lovely round planet. It is a good shape in which to learn belly dance, an ancient dance of with primal roots, a dance that transcends geographic boundaries. Shimmies, snake arms, head slides, spins, turns, undulations, body part isolations, hip articulations – no matter how you dress it up ethnically, this dance expresses itself with common movement themes all over the globe.

I have noticed the following facts about dancing in a circle, like them or not: Nobody can hide in a circle. In a circle, if one person smiles, everyone smiles. If one person goes the wrong way in a traveling movement, they are quickly brought into proper flow by the larger group. Fellow students are quick to help their neighbor. In a circle, we are all in the dance together, and everyone thinks positively about their bodies because they are brought unselfconsciously into the flow and fun of the dance.

This circle warm-up is designed to bring you into the flow of dance with a smile on your gypsy lips, so have fun, do what you like with it and keep breathing.

Proud Gypsy with Saucy Shoulders and Steady Gaze. Hands on hips, right shoulder facing center of the circle, gaze fastened to the center of the circle as well so that your chin is directly above your right shoulder, step forward and back starting with your right foot. Make sure to put weight on each foot –R,L,R.L -- and not just tap your right foot front and back. When you step back and put weight on the right foot, turn your left shoulder into the circle and swivel your head so that your chin is now over your left shoulder. This keeps your gaze forward at all times, and warms up your neck to boot. Proper Dance posture to minimize injury/impact on back and knees: always keep knees slightly bent, never locked, step forward and back smoothly so that you are not bobbing up and down, keep hips tucked under (don’t arch your back), chest lifted, shoulders back, chin proud. Keep breathing throughout. Repeat each arm variation 8 times or so.

Reveal the Pearl. Start with both hands on hips. As you step forward on your right foot, extend your right arm forward at shoulder height into circle and slowly unfurl fingers, palm facing sky, as if to reveal a beautiful pearl nestled in your palm. As you step back on your right foot, retract your hand and bring it back in a fist to your right hip. “Here’s my pearl … but its mine…. You can see it for a moment, but it belongs to me…” Remember to keep your chin over each shoulder as you step forward and back and keep your gaze/focus forward to the center of the circle.

Wiping the Pearls of Sweat. As you step forward on right foot, right arm extends into circle, where you let your pearls of dance sweat fall to the floor from your fingers. As you step back on the right foot, your right hand comes to touch your LEFT shoulder. As you come forward again, your right hand maintains contact with your skin, pulling along the upper chest all the way to the right shoulder, then it extends into the circle again.

Ya Salem (“hi, how are you”). This arm movement involves a wrist rotation. As you step forward on the right foot, your right arm extends forward into the circle (shoulder height). At the same time your right wrist rotates in a tiny circle until your right palm opens to sky and your right arm is at full extension. As you step back on the right foot, bend your right elbow, keeping it close to the body to avoid the move looking like an army salute, and rotate your wrist in reverse bringing closed, straight fingers up to graze the side of your temple.

You want me? You can’t have me! Shoulder shimmy as you right-step into circle (you want me), then as you step back on your right foot your chest turns away from the circle’s center but you keep looking saucily back over your right shoulder (you can’t have me).

Feed the Tiny Unicorn: Right-step forward and extend an imaginary golden apple down to a tiny unicorn at your feet, then as you step back on the ball of your right foot, you reach up very high behind you with your right hand to pick another apple from the Golden Apple Tree whose laden branch is almost directly over your head. As you bring this new apple to the tiny unicorn, you wipe it on the back of your hair to polish it to perfection.

Taj Mahal & Taffy Pull: Step forward, both arms reaching up over head in I Dream of Jeannie/Taj Mahal architecture pose, knuckles touching and fingers vertical and closed together, then turn hands so the palms face each other and pull imaginary taffy so that arms extend to shoulder level at your sides. The taffy image is designed to make you use resistance as your arms pull apart. Repeat.

When you have completed all the arm variations leading with your right foot, repeat the moves on your left foot. The Daughters of Rhea dance philosophy aims to reconcile both sides of our brain and give strength to our weaker side by working both sides of the body equally. In this way we can bring right/left, yin/yang, feminine/masculine principles – all the oppositional forces that reside within -- us more into balance.

Melina’s Upcoming Performance and Touring Schedule

SHE Network - Share, Help, Empower

Thu, 7 Aug 2008 17:42:58 -0400

Dear Melina

We wanted to thank you and your team [Daughters of Rhea Dancer Sara Cabral and Tech Support Sacha Pavlata] very much for coming and donating your time to share the fabulous art of belly dancing at the recent SHE Network event at Finz in Salem.

We feel very privileged that you were at our event and gave us all such a wonderful insight into, not only the beauty and skills of belly dancing, but the philosophy and principles behind it. As you know, SHE Network works to strengthen and empower the spirit of women and we are thrilled that your personal mission statement is so aligned with ours. We consider your honesty and candor as much a part of your beauty as your amazing belly dancing skills and we know that many women were touched by your presence that night.

We hope you had a good trip to Greece and that the rest of your current travel plans are working out. Your professional advice and encouragement also meant a lot to us. You will be one of the first to know when our website gets up and running!

Once again, thank you Melina for your invaluable contribution to this very special evening. Photo attached!

With our very best wishes
The Women of SHE Network

Singapore Sling Melina!

Sat, 2 Aug 2008 09:47:18 -0400

Invited by the talented and cheeky Singapore-based teacher Susanna of Goddess Motion, Melina of Daughters of Rhea performed and taught special seminars in Singapore in April and May 2008. She will be back in 2009 WITH HER MOTHER THE GREAT RHEA OF GREECE!!!! Visit the Goddess Motion website for photos of our 2008 show and for more info as 2009 approaches....

Melina and Rhea will featured in Concert with Goddess Motion at Victoria Theatre on April 30, 2009

Seminars May 1 - 4, 2009
Seminar topics to include:
Greek Belly Dance
Greco-Turkish Cabaret Combos Floorwork and Prop Balancing
Veil work, Shimmies and Zills
Folkloric Costume-Making

I LOVE YOU LADIES!

This is an email I sent to my family and friends while in Singapore:

“Spoiled in Singapore”

It’s 2 a.m. at the Summer Tavern on Carpenter Street in Singapore and once again I can't sleep. Sacha doesn't seem to suffer from the same jet lag issues, as he is sleeping away already. He has caught a slight cold from going in arctically air-conditioned shops and out again into humid boiling sun conditions. I am hoping that my pomegranate iced tea from the local 7-11 isn't the true cause of my insomnia. I just realized it probably had a black tea leaf base.... caffeine....caffeine.. my friend and foe.

Today was my first "free" day after teaching a marathon set of classes the last few days - 5 hours a day for 4 days in a row. The beautiful students of Susanna Lawren AKA Goddess Motion and Claribel's Raks Sharki studio (www.bellydanceinsingapore.com) barely flagged under my energetic forces! They wanted more! More! Dancers are in great shape over here! Local professional dancer and recent finalist of a Miss Singapore competition, Angelina Tay came to all the seminars and then went on to dance four sets at Shiraz restaurant in the trendsetting hotspot area called Clarke Quay. She always finds the energy to shimmy - could the secret be her daily dose of chocolate? Women (and a couple of men) from all over Asia came to the workshops -- from Hong Kong, Taiwan and Japan. Back in Boston I'm always impressed when students drive to class on a regular basis from Rhode Island, New Hampshire and Maine, but flying in to Singapore for class from Hong Kong, Taiwan and Japan? Its a whole new map for the mind over here. I have been invited back for next year and I am already looking forward to the next trip. It is such a pleasure to see how belly dance strengthens and empowers women -- how it seems to change lives for the better -- all over the globe. And it is also gratifying that the Daughters of Rhea Way is received so positively even on the other side of the earth one degree above the equator. Greco-Turkish-Vintage-Oriental-Manouche Style with creative spirit and colorful family stories makes for happy feet, hearts and hips (plug, plug). The gorgeously petite Japanese dancer Kyoko wanted yet another workshop today, even after she taught her own classes at Claribel's she was ready for more. Singapore Energy! Is it the equator? Is that why I'm still awake at 3:30 a.m.?

Besides hours upon hours of belly dance, in Singapore Sacha and I have shopped and dined, dined and shopped, shopped and dined. Protectively guided around the city by our phenomenal sponsor/host, Susanna Lawren of Goddess Motion, we have seen nearly every inch of Chinatown, Clarke Quay, the other Quays, the shopping centers around our hotel, - had shiatsu massage on body and foot reflexology session, bargained with every shop keeper ("that your best price?" mantra drilled into me by Susanna). I am not prone to bargaining but since Susanna is by my side I don't want to let her down so I always say "That your best price?". Sometimes I get a couple of dollars off, or they throw in a gift. It never hurts to try. Even if its just a snow globe. On the other hand, Susanna encourages me to price my items for sale in the seminars quite high -- great business women here! Buy low, sell high! Make good business! Everyone in the Claribel Raks Sharki studio coterie has been of enormous help and support -- we are constantly treated to magnificent meals and experiences: Serene has sported us around town in her zippy little alpha romeo: just after we arrived and were still ridiculously jet-lagged, following our concert gala, she whisked us off with Claribel to Mustafa's 24 hour department store in the Indian section of town at 2 a.m. We wandered through miles of aisles crammed with videos, make up, electronics, toilettries, kitchen items, books, fabric, clothing, just about everything except the Turkish coffee pot that Claribel was in search of. Another night Serene drove us to the most incredible fish restaurant in Singapore where you go choose the live fish you want from the tank and then the restaurant prepares the fish in delicious sauces -- ginger, chili, garlic.... She and Claribel treated us to lobster, chili crab, scallops and some kind of trout-like fish. Hsiao Min treated us to an exquisite Singapore Sling at the Regent Hotel (sister hotel to 4 Seasons - live jazz trio as you sip your drink on comfy couch experience) -- the next day Serene guided us over to compare their concoction to that that of the Long Bar where the original Singapore Sling was invented. The Long Bar is part of the Raffles Hotel, and colonial-style building dating from 1887, named after Singapore's Founder Sir Stamford Raffles. It is also famous for the peanut shells you are supposed to throw on the floor after you have shucked your nut. In a city where littering carries the possibility of imprisonment, throwing your peanut shells around is a bit of a thrill.

Back to the food, the food: Chinese, Malaysian, Indonesian, Indian, Thai, Arabic, Nepalese, Greek...you name it we have eaten it on this trip. Turtle soup, shark fin egg stir fry, satay, bean curd mango desserts, chili crab, strange hairy fruits that taste lychee-like, a s, Nepalese version of a greek salad, bean curd this and thats, lots of icy fruit juices on the street (as rumored, it is quite hot here near the equator). Everywhere we go to eat Susanna orders chili on the side. She is Indonesian-born and says she could live on rice and the hottest chili in the world. Our western wimpy tongues can't take the heat, but we have been pretty adventurous even as we try to avoid having what Dav Rue, Susanna's marketing/editing/backstage director guru, called "Running stomach". So far have avoided Running Stomach, although I must report it sometimes feel its warming up a for a run.

Singapore Sling
• 30ml gin
• 15ml Heering Cherry Liqueur
• 7.5ml D.O.M Benedictine
• 7.5ml Cointreau
• 120ml Pineapple juice
• 15ml fresh lime juice
• 10ml grenadine
• dash of Angostura bitters
• Garnish: maraschino cherry, pineapple chunk, and orange slice

Last night Susanna with Serene and Claribel's help organized a hafli at a new arabic/nepalese/greek place (ethnicities abound here after all). Beautifully decorated place where you sit on cushions and the ceiling looks like a tent with fabrics billowing all around. Dancers and their family members came who had attended my seminars and after eating delicious appetizers of all sorts (I can't even figure out what we ate anymore) a dance fest ensued including Indian dances, raks sharki, humor dance, wild dance, finger cymbals riffing, dance-with-teapot-on-head (more on all this another time).

Today I made the grave error of trying on a couple of the costumes from Claribel's belly dance boutique... Had to get one! I chose the classy and sexy black elegant Egyptian style one over the zippy purple and gold "flamenco" style creation (I have more gypsy stuff in my wardrobe) - but then Claribel gave me the purple costume as a gift! Talk about generous souls. We have definitely been spoiled in Singapore.

I am finally tired at nearly 4 a.m., so good night to you all.
Love M

p.s. Random Facts about Singapore based on my one-and-only visit

Public restrooms are everywhere - and free and clean -- in public shopping areas. Great for those of us who like to go a lot.
Toilet paper often not in stall, you have to get it outside by the hand dryer first. Important to remember this.
Internet free at Starbucks and McDonald's (starbucks is EVERYWHERE)
The U.S. dollar is slightly higher than the Sing Dollar
Shiatsu is great
Lots of umbrella use to shield people from the sun, not many people wear sunglasses
Everyone speaks English
Belly dancers everywhere are wonderful, talented, warm and funny.

Daughters of Rhea BellyPalooza Festival

Fri, 1 Aug 2008 22:01:48 -0400

MELINA, PIPER AND RHEA ALONG WITH THEIR STAR GUEST INSTRUCTORS GATHERED IN ONE PLACE!BellyPalooza 2008 at The Johns Hopkins University Mattin Center and the Baltimore Museum of Art is guaranteed fun and high quality all around! Vendors, Shoppers, Dancers, Teachers & Events gather together for an inspiring belly dance buzz event.

BELLYPALOOZA 2008 DATES: AUGUST 2 & 3
BELLYPALOOZA DATES 2009 TBA!

Visit BellyPalooza’s website
for pictures and reviews of our past BellyPalooza festivals and Belly Dance Magic Shows.

Top photo of Piper and Melina
by Algerina Perna of the Baltimore Sun

Photos of Melina at left and right by
Allen Becker

MELINA’S 2008 BELLYPALOOZA SEMINARS
(Click on each for notes)
Floorwork Secrets
Belly Dancer in the Womb
Melina’s Tray of Candles Essay Props/Balancing/Floorwork for Advanced Dancers Balkan Beat Box Fusion Choreography Ice Queen Choreography Mixed-Level “Linked by a Hip” and Luscious Arms

Melina’s Favorite Quotes, Thoughts and Poems

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 16:57:59 -0400

*~*

A few of my favorite quotes:

“If you are not integrated, whatever you are doing cannot have real integration; it can only be put together superficially. And the result of that putting together will be just a mechanical unity, not an organic unity.

[...] The significance comes from the person, the poet; it is not in the poetry. If the poet has something overflowing, then the poetry becomes luminous, then it has a glow; it has a subtle unity. If it throbs with life, it has a heart, it beats...you can hear the beat of the heart. Then it lives and grows and it goes on growing.”

-Osho, from Everyday Osho, Excerpt #184, Organic Unity.

“Things are not all so comprehensible and expressible as one would most likely have us believe; most events are inexpressible, taking place in a realm which no word has ever entered, and more inexpressible then al else are works of art, mysterious existences the life which, while our passes away, endures.” - Rainer Maria Rilke.

“If the dancer is not stimulated by the truth and beauty of his movements, there will be no communication either to the dancer or to an audience, if an audience is included. This kind of concentration is the secret of projection.”
--Margaret N. H’Doubler, “Dance: A Creative Art Experience” U. Wisconsin 1940.

“We are what we eat. We are also what we see and hear. And we are in the midst of living our one and only life.” -- James Salter from Writers on Writing.

“I’ve come to think that what we call ‘talent’ is inextricably linked to a bottomless fascination with the process itself, that an artist of any kind possesses, among other qualities, the desire to do it and do it until it comes out right.

It took me some time to understand that what I needed to do was not reform my natural inclinations, but to give in to them.

I’m not convinced that writers must only write about what they know, but I’m sure we should only deal with that about which we care passionately.

Have patience. Don’t panic”

Interview with Michael Cunningham from “The Very Telling: Conversations with American Writers” by Sarah Anne Johnson.

*~*

I see Belly Dance as sacred dance theatre.
You must be simultaneously priestess, trickster, artist & showman.
Distill the energy of the universe within your body and radiate it out in all directions.
From your hips, hair, fingers, face.

*~*

What I’ve learned from dance:
Be present.
Where are your hands.
Where are you looking.
Where is your weight being placed.
What part of your body is bearing the burden.
Breathe
Life your heart
Take your time
Release the burdens
Love the world.

*~*

When your mother goes off at the age of 35 and starts life anew in a foreign land,
you grow up believing that anything is possible
and new beginnings can always occur.
You can reinvent yourself, your lifestyle,
Your context,
Refashion your behavior,
Learn a new language.

The snake sheds its skin
and continues to live

*~*

One of my favorite writers/thinkers is Joseph Campbell, who said “the influence of a vital person vitalizes.” He also said “The whole world is conscious... We are the earth. We are the consciousness of the earth. We are the eyes of the earth, we are the voice of the earth.”

Another from Campbell:

You can tell what’s informing society by looking at the tallest thing in the place.

*~*

Belly Dance Class

We belong to something ancient,
alive
Together, in a circle, we create a sacred space
where temporal walls dissolve
to reveal
a primal shimmy.

Collective, communal experience
women coming together in movements
that keep energy flowing throughout the body
and outwards to the world

*~*

You can’t have creativity
Unless you leave behind the bounded
the fixed
all the rules

*~*

Be brave, live large and test your boundaries.
Do not be held back by conventions.
Taste the thresholds of other worlds.
Enter those worlds and eat of their pomegranates.
Cross borders. See what might happen.
You have nothing to regret.
This is your one and only life.
Live it up.

*~*

Visit www.daughtersofrhea.com for more on Melina’s dancing family and belly dance projects

Melina’s Upcoming Performance and Touring Schedule

*~*

Whiskey Tent Dance by Melina

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 09:25:35 -0400

WHISKEY TENT DANCE by MELINA - Choreography Notes
Copyright 2005 Melina of Daughters of Rhea
Music Abdel Kadir by ALI ARSOY from Karma (4 minutes 40 seconds)
www.daughtersofrhea.com
~ www.bellypalooza.com ~
www.cirquepassion.com

On the day in December 2005 I found out that Sacha and I were to be the proud parents – er -- owners of our own, gently used French circus tent I was giddy with glee and tinged with slight trepidation (how does one go about importing a tent? I now had to figure that out)! I tried to settle down and plan my classes for that evening, but had trouble focusing. The previous month, after over a year of misty-eyed dreaming about this sweet little tent and negotiating various details, Sacha and I had traveled to the small town of Vire in Normandy, France to check out the red-and-yellow-striped chapiteau a local theatre company was selling. To see it in person took our breath away: it was a beautiful, charming, elegant, Oriental-esque two-masted tent, 17 X 10 meters, 350 -500 person capacity – it would make the perfect home for Cirque Passion, our bellydance-theatre-circus-fusion fantasy production company. We made an offer well under their asking price, which was too high for us, and kept our fingers crossed. They pursed their lips in fine French style and did not immediately accept our honest proposition. I returned to Boston to teach, Sacha stayed in Paris an extra week “just in case” they called and finally accepted our offer. And that happy day did indeed arrive! Their fiscal year was coming to a close and they had no more need of the tent: she was ours! You can check out some pictures of our seafaring tentbaby in Cirque Passion’s cyberworld - www.cirquepassion.com.

I was alone in our home studio when Sacha called with the news, and as I had no champagne in the fridge I cracked open a beer and we toasted virtually over the phone. Then I immediately called Piper, and as I spilled the news I began to hiccup wildly in between sips of Sam Adams. I could barely get the story out. Piper said in big sisterly fashion: “Wait a minute. Stop talking. Listen to me. Go to your kitchen. Look for a bottle of whiskey. Open the bottle. Pour yourself a shot. Drink it down in one gulp.” I did so without question, and my hiccups immediately disappeared. Piper had folk-cured me just like she used to when I was a kid (once she gave me a sip – ok, maybe I took more than a sip, could have been a gulp – or two -- of ouzo when I was 9 and mom had to walk me 3 times around the acropolis to get it out of my twitching system, but that’s another story)! I was left with a feeling of warm wellbeing and had a certain inspired zing in my veins. I had two hours before I was to teach class. I put on Ali’s Karma CD and began to dance, seeing what movements came my way with my blood infused with international bohemian spirits. I grabbed my notebook and began to channel a choreography that I am showing you here today, a dance that I had to name the “Whisky Tent Dance.” And there you go. A true Dionysian choreography from my heart and soul, inspired by real life events and supported by my family’s musical collaborations, movement traditions, and alcoholic remedies. -Melina

WHISKEY TENT DANCE by MELINA
Back turned to audience, arms up, chin over right shoulder “disco” beginning. Right arm down, left arm down, pivot turn – head stays in place. Repeat movement – right arm up, left arm up, right arm down, left arm down, facing forward.
8 counts of two hip shimmies in place
8 counts of two hip shimmies traveling forward with wrists circling at hip.
8 counts of two hip shimmies traveling side with left hand behind head, right hand out to right, gaze directed to right.
8 counts of two hip shimmies in 4-point pivot turn, circling right wrist as you pivot around counterclockwise.
Facing center, 4 Suzie Q steps to left with pelvic clutches with arms straight down by hips, 4 hip pushes to right with pushing ‘prayer’ Egyptian hands up at right shoulder level, gaze over left shoulder as you travel right. Repeat this paired sequence twice.
With drums, bounces to a swooning fall to right and then to left with “hug” arms, pulling out from elbows
When Ali starts singing start refrain step: Dip back (left foot behind right, dipping back to your right) 2, 1,2,3, step with hug arms as you dip back. Repeat four. After completing the 1,2,3 of last dip back step, your left foot is free to travel left in a traveling turn to left.
Turn 2,3, to left into low-anchored lunge facing left with pulling torso and snake arms pulling back, front, back, front. Repeat four times.
Back forward step hips. Repeat four. When you step back on left foot, look over left shoulder, then ahead as you travel forward and hip. Same concept on right side.
Step, hip, hip, hip - stepping backwards and with hip to front, side, and back. Repeat four. Left hand cupping behind head, right hand outstretched.
Ali starts singing again: Quick Tunisian twist hips in place to right, then left then in tight “dog chasing tail” circle. Repeat in other direction. Arms straight down and near, but not touching, hips with bent-at-the-wrists, palm-downwards hands.
Refrain step: Dip back, 2 1, 2, 3 step with hug arms.
Turn 2,3 to left into low-anchored lunge facing left – this time with a chest contraction and layered shimmy pulling back, front, back, front. Repeat four.
Back forward step hip, Repeat four.
Then: Surprise! With drums, little jump in the air and land in shimmy.
Ali singing again: Walk three steps to right looking over left shoulder, then dramatic traveling turn to left 2, 3 with chest lift at end. Repeat four.
Refrain step: Dip back, step 1, 2, 3 with hug arms
Turn 2, 3 into lunge, this time with body roll up, then down. Repeat TWICE only.
Drum solo sequence:
High heel on right foot, body angled slightly to right diagonal, thighs squeezed together and hips tucked under: 3 quick hip downs starting with right hip with downward level change, quick body roll up from pelvis to chest. Repeat twice.
Lunge into right leg, shoulder shimmy to right diagonal, then weight transfers back to left leg, 3 quick right hip sits down to drum accents with left hand behind head. Repeat twice. Feet together facing forward, shimmy 3 counts, body roll up from pelvis, shimmy shoulders, body roll down.
Refrain step: Dip step, 1,2,3 with hug arms 4 times. Traveling turns with Lunges and original snake arms pulls to right and left. Repeat four.
Freestyle Shimmies with drumming.
With Ali’s singing again after drums, be ready for quick Tunisian twist hips sequence to left and then right. Repeat four.
Back, forward, step hip, Repeat 4
Step hip hip hip traveling back
Slow drama step hips until ending:
With ending, pivot turn earth to sky right arm as you turn!

Misirlou Dance by Melina

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 09:17:21 -0400

Misirlou: Greek Lyrics by N. Rubanis  
Μισιρλού μου, η γλυκιά σου η ματιά Φλόγα μου 'χει ανάψει μες στην καρδιά Αχ, για χαμπίμπι, αχ, για χαλέλι, αχ  Τα δυο σου χείλη στάζουνε μέλι, αχ  Αχ, Μισιρλού, μαγική, ξωτική ομορφιά Τρέλα θα μου 'ρθει, δεν υποφέρω πια Αχ, θα σε κλέψω μέσα από την Αραπιά  Μαυρομάτα Μισιρλού μου τρελή Η ζωή μου αλλάζει μ' ένα φιλί Αχ, για χαμπίμπι ενα φιλάκι,άχ Απ' το γλυκό σου το στοματάκι, αχ

My Misirlou (Egyptian girl), your sweet glance It's lit a fire in my heart Ah, ya habibi, Ah, ya haleli, ah (Arabic: Oh, my love, Oh, my night) Your lips are dripping honey, ah  Ah, Misirlou, magical, exotic beauty Madness will overcome me, I can't take any more Ah, I'll steal you away from the Arab land  My black-eyed, my wild Misirlou My life changes with one kiss Ah, ya habibi, one little kiss, ah From your sweet little lips, ah

Choreography by Melina, to be danced with or without veil.

Start with your right foot crossed over the left, up on the ball, arms in “bolero” pose with elbows out. On third count of song, walk around dramatically for 7 counts. On the 7th count you face forward in lunge position, right foot in front of left. Left foot is lifted up to the ball.

Starting with right arm, snake arms for 8 with passionate drop level change at the end.

4 sets leaning dip back step with “hug” arms (start with right foot behind left, weight on right foot)

4 sets leaning dip back step with simultaneous “circling” arms

Walk around again in your own circle again, and on count of 5, dip your right shoulder down and “pluck the rose” from your knee. Pull rose up your body, ending with an arm flourish up, freeing the rose with gaze skyward.

With start of singing, camel walks to the right for 4, back arm up, front arm extended behind you horizontally from the shoulder. At transition, contract down with “hug arms” and dip down for a level change, keeping chin up.

Camel walks to left for 4 counts with ending transition as described above.

Stay in place, lift and circle your right hip twice with hands “operating” hip motion, then dramatic hip lift with a step to the right on third count, reaching straight up with your right hand, left hand to right hip bone in front of body. Slowly drag your left foot in to meet the right as your right hand descends down in front of your face to rest on your forehead and take head around for dramatic head roll.

Reverse mayas in place with snake arms that slowly rise higher, end with hands waving left, right, left, right.

2 lunges to right side with reaching torso and arm, vertical lift circle hip

“Pulling kisses from the air” reaching right and left with torso pulls 4 times.

Start from the beginning and repeat everything, but with focus on the left hip and left side. In second half, there is no plucking the rose from the knee -- leaning dip back movements go straight to camel walks.

Ending: walk slowly around to right with arms down, and slowly rising to up over head, then 3 quick spins, stop and stay still in leaning lunge and, to music, dip down, pulling arms down, then extend up and open hands to release veil.

Floorwork Secrets and Routine

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 07:13:32 -0400

Floorwork Secrets by Melina & Piper of Daughters of Rhea
www.daughtersofrhea.com 
Throughout your floorwork section – indeed, throughout your entire dance routine -- every part of you must remain present, aware and engaged, even in stillness. It is not enough to just go through the dance motions with an untrained, un-strong body. You need to train your body for floorwork with frequent practice to improve your core strength, and this will in turn help to prevent injury. Doing floorwork is just that – work. It means your thigh, abdominal and butt muscles are always in intelligent use, even when you are still. You can never settle down for a moment and just relax into a position, because if you do your next move will look sloppy and forced as you go into the next move; your transitions will not be fluid.

With floorwork, various muscle groups are working on a near constant basis, especially your thighs, your butt, and your abs. One secret of powerful floorwork: the lifted chest, the soaring heart chakra.

“If you bring love to the moment – not discouragement – you will find the strength is there –” Joseph Campbell.

Graceful floorwork is about lifting the chest up and away from the ribcage. When you are not engaging the chest, your moves look clunky, collapsed, discouraged. You appear to have given in to gravity. When you do floorwork with a lifted chest, you project the image of an earthbound creature who is also channeling the divine. You are always lifting, never conquered.

Secrets to descending and ascending the floor

Distract from awkward body mechanics. Use your arms and gaze to distract from any change in body position while on the floor and help make your transitions more fluid. (This is Piper’s special insight). For example, you can distract the audience’s attention from the mechanics of how you are descending to the floor but raising your arm as you descend and follow the arm upward with your eye. The audience will follow your gaze and presto—you will suddenly be on the floor ready for your floorwork and no one will have noticed how much work it took your thighs to get there.

Descent to the floor from a lunge position: dance yourself into a relatively wide-stanced lunge position with one foot behind the other, knees gently bent, weight evenly distributed with spine vertical straight up over your center of gravity. Front foot is flat, back foot is up on the ball. Bend both knees deeper until the back knee touches the earth. To prevent knee injury, you need to build your thigh strength, and make sure that the knee is not bending over the ankle of the same foot. Your tibia should be straight up and down, extending vertically from the earth. The descent should be smooth so that you do not bonk your knee when it touches ground.

To ascend gracefully from a floorwork lunge position (as you will be doing at the end of the floorwork choreography), you can’t have your shoulders between your two feet as you did on the descent. Shoulders must be leaned over your front foot and thigh as you rise up. Chest must remain lifted and forward over the foot. Take a deep breath as you come up.

Basic Floorwork Choreography by Melina 
Camel walk forward with right foot in front of left, right arm reach forward, left arm down at left hip. Step back into lunge position in preparation for descent to floor. As you descend with your left leg behind the right, raise your right arm and follow it with your eye.

Slowly bring the right arm down, following it with your gaze as you bring your right knee down to meet the left into a tucked knee position on the floor, thighs still straight and perpendicular to floor. Keep your chest lifted throughout.

Chest barrel rolls (chest presses forward, lifts, goes back, down) for 4 with hands just behind your hips as you descend your butt to your heels. Keep your spine as upright and vertical as possible even as you undulate down. Your thighs are working to the max.

Slide your left bum cheek over the side of the left heel, extend left arm out and bring right fingers to right temple with right elbow bent but pushed back behind ear so the side audience can see your face! Chest moves in slight opposition to hips so it slides left but stays lifted. All muscles are maximally activated.

Half circle hips with thigh rise to same position as above but everything reversed on the other side. To do this, cross wrists half a foot in front of your chest, then open hands and lift chest higher to help get you on the ascent without apparent effort. Strongly engage your abs and clench your butt to rise in your thighs and push your hips forward and up and around all at once, never rounding your back, never dropping your chest. As you descend your hips to the other side, keep your abs and butt muscles engaged. You have to clench hard to lift and control the descent. 4 half circles.

Come into side-lying hip-lift position. In this position you are fully extended with toes to the right and head to the left, spine straight and legs an extension of your spine. Bend your bottom leg back at the knee, support your body with your left hand and lift your hips sending energy and strength down through the left arm. The left arm must be perpendicular to the floor, the chest must be lifted and not collapsed into your shoulders. Figure 8 your top hip by gentle snaking of the top leg. Right arm is extended straight out to right side, still and straight above your snaking hip. After 4 figure eights stop hips movements, raise your right arm up to point skyward and hold still, following it with your gaze. Stay there a few seconds for maximum drama.

Slowly bring your right arm and hips down to floor and turn over with the chest to sky into a yoga hip lift position. Extend legs straight, cross ankles and lift your hips up. Chest stays lifted! Hold position, then roll hips from left to right. If you can roll your stomach, now is the time to do it! You have to build your arm strength for this move.

Bring yourself back into a sit position by sitting your hips back down, bending your knees back around you to the left – keep your ankles together, lift from your chest to help – and rise bring yourself to the thigh sit.

Figure 8 hips up and reverse figure 8 hips down. Undulate up from the first chakra to a straight thigh position, bring right leg in front of left, put weight into right leg, lift chest, and come up!

Melina’s Fast Gypsy Combos

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 10:00:08 -0400

Melina’s Fast Gypsy Combos www.daughtersofrhea.com

 Life consists with wildness
The most alive is the wildest
Not yet subdued to woman, its presence
Refreshes her. One who pressed
Forward incessantly and never
Rested from her labors, who grew
Fast and made infinite demands
On life, would always find herself
In a new country or wilderness,
And surrounded by the raw material of life…

--Excerpt from Henry David Thoreau, “Walking” I changed words in bold from the original masculine gender to the feminine.

 “Nietzche was the one who did the job for me. At a certain moment in his life, the idea came to him of what he called “the love of your fate.” Whatever your fate is, whatever the hell happens, you say, “This is what I need.” It may look like a wreck, but go at it as though it were an opportunity, a challenge. If you bring love to the moment – not discouragement – you will find the strength is there. Any disaster you can survive is an improvement in your character, your stature, and your life. What a privilege! This is when the spontaneity of your own nature will have a chance to flow.” –Joseph Campbell from A Joseph Campbell Companion.

For these gypsy moves, channel your wild, raw, new, restless, spontaneous and fearless energy. Bring love to the moment. Be bold, saucy, and dramatic and enjoy yourself. Practice them to find ways to express your own nature, and build strength and stamina to improve on the moves in the future and prepare yourself for new adventures of body, mind and spirit. ~Melina

Combo 1

Sweeping Flamenco Arms with cross over dip step and hip lift

Turn with Sweeping Flamenco Arms, and vertical leap with hip lift

Forward step, back step with two hip shimmies

Layered cross over step with pelvic clutches, hip lifts and shimmies

Combo 2

Frisky Aphrodite Turn: jump (hands on the hips, thighs & knees together facing right, head looking over left shoulder) kick (arms straightened out at sides, palms facing out), turn 1-2-3.

Gypsy shoulder shake and saucy hip drops. Keeping spine straight, bring weight to front right leg (knee bent), bend at waist so spine is extension of back left leg, shoulder shimmy. Bring weight to back left leg, sit right hip twice with left hand behind head, right hand on right hip.

Traveling Twist Hip to heel hip drop. Travel in diagonal and then in tight circle around.

The Poignant Gypsy Longing with Indecision step. 4 count step right, left, right, left. Right foot steps out to right with a reverse right hip circle (back, side, front) then crosses in front of left foot. Face direction follows right foot. “I yearn for you but must go the other way”.

And let us not forget:

Whirling Gypsy Turn with Knee Lift.

Leaping Gypsy Undulates Up Traveling Step. Step leap up knee up arms crossed at chest, step knees bent and body roll up from first chakra ending at a lifted heart, arms out to sides.

Veil Dance by Melina of Daughters of Rhea

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 18:25:34 -0400

Poetic props in motion, veils add magic, dynamism and mystery to your dance. They reveal and conceal the body at the dancer’s whim, caress the air like silk wings, and can inject drama, fun and theatricality to your belly dancing. Full arm extension, good posture, smooth transitions from one veil wrap to the next as well as good dance technique while you manipulate your fabric is very important in making the most of your veil.

A dancer should develop a relationship with her fabric, handle it with love and infinite patience, hold it at the edges with dainty (but firm) finger tips rather than fists. Most importantly, she should treat her veil with compassion when it doesn’t cooperate, when it slips out of her fingers, gets caught on a coin costumes, gets stuck in lipstick or flips up onto the face. When accidents happen, remember to breath and relax, mistakes are all part of the fun, there is no worry, gently recuperate your uncooperative fabric and elegantly set things right again with a smile of relaxation, not a grimace of stress. When small things go wrong, audiences always want to be reassured that the dancer is OK and in calm control.

Dancers from around the globe -- from ancient times to the present -- have accentuated their dances with fabric in the hands -- everything from the twirling handkerchiefs of folk dancers to gypsy shawls to Indian silk & chiffon. For an excellent treatment of the history of the veil and its use from ancient times to the present, please refer to Elizabeth Artemis Mourat’s scholarly & highly readable illustrated manuscript entitled The Illusive Veil. It can be ordered direct through the author by calling 301.565.5029. An excerpt can be found at www.shira.net/veilhistory.

A quick reminder for my students of my veil favorites:

Dip step with veil swoop down and straight back across.

Around the world veil with long arm extension and large circle hips.

“I Dream of Genie” Frame the Face veil with Head Slide. Make sure your posture is lifted and check positioning of your lower body -- stand with feet close and knees bent, “high heel” on one foot. Make sure that your elbows stay covered and pull them back behind the ears so your beautiful profile is not obscured!

Pita Veil: sandwich yourself in the veil, arms up over your head.

Peek-A-Boo Veil. From Pita veil, make a slit in the fabric and bring it down in front of the eyes to peek mysteriously through. Look around and do head slides.

Diagonal body wrap with spin, turn in the direction of the down hand while gazing at the “up” hand.

“Shoot from the Head” Veil into Side Wing Veil with Figure 8 arms and turns.

“Snake and Bondage” Veil into Campy “Sultan Head Wrap” Veil.

Rectangular Veil Flip Up into Long Sleeves Sequence.

Dalia Carella’s Dramatic “Threshold” Veil Sequence. Excellent for an ending.

Egyptian Disco Choreography by Melina

Tue, 4 Mar 2008 07:13:33 -0500

Melina of Daughters of Rhea
EGYPTIAN DISCO Choreography Notes
Music by Dj disse from Al Bazaar: 4 minutes 27 seconds
www.daughtersofrhea.com ~ www.bellypalooza.com

Egyptian Disco is a fun-loving drum solo with a mixture of moods and spirits that evoke a multiplicity of belly dance styles throughout. I created the choreography with broad brushstrokes so that you can flesh it out and inject it with your own personality and movement preferences later on, but I have identified and broken down the basic moods & tempo shifts of the piece to usher forth certain feelings evoked by the changing instrumentation. Remember that all belly dance moves and stylizations do not fit all bodies and spirits – be true to yourself in all matters! By the same token, please credit the original choreographer of any piece your learn in workshops as much as possible – on programs in which you are performing, in classrooms where you teach, at haflis, wherever you can. Giving credit where credit is due is the Daughters of Rhea Way, and more importantly is the karmically correct thing to do. Now Get Down, Get Funky & Enjoy! -Melina

“If the dancer is not stimulated by the truth and beauty of his movements, there will be no communication either to the dancer or to an audience, if an audience is included. This kind of concentration is the secret of projection.” From the book Dance: A Creative Art Experience by Margaret N. H’Doubler (University of Wisconsin, 1940).

“Disco” Glam beginning. The spotlight is on YOU, center stage. Own it! With sound of mournful horn, leap into place, right foot in front of left, left foot up on the ball to prepare for a level change, throw your arms up, then let them slowly descend to hip level, chin over right shoulder.

“We would now like to introduce you…to the sound of the Egyptian Disco.” When drums begin in earnest, begin pulsing body and rolling shoulders in place.

“Drum now, 2,3,4” 4 Crisp Hip downs with level change down for 4 counts starting with right hip, body roll up ending with two chest drops (repeat four times in slightly different directions).

Vibrating forward step, back step with right leg in front of left. Vibrate front leg when you put weight on it and look forward, step and look back over left shoulder as you step back on left foot (add in little shoulder shimmy to accent drums when you hear them as you step back on your left foot). Arms swish casually forward and back with your forward/backward movements.

Deep, low step forward on right foot with shoulder shimmy layered on a chest roll, arms extending out from shoulders, stepping back on left foot into 2 crisp hip drops with drums. With hip drops, left hand touching behind head, right arm extended from shoulder in front. Repeat 2 times.

On third time, after the forward step with shoulder shimmy and chest roll, step back on left foot in vertical carriage ‘arabic’ style posture, left arm straight up behind head, right hand straight down behind right hip, tight vertically lifting hip circle with ‘hook’ hips accents for each count.

On fourth and last time of this tempo sequence, after the forward step move, sit hips and lean back into left hip in wild abandon leaning-back ‘off-the-axis’ Turkish style posture.

Slow pivot turn, right foot crossing left with Rhea’s “Earth to Third Chakra” Arms as you pivot so that you end facing forward with arms outstretch at waist level on either side.

“Let’s Get a Fat House Beat” – Relaxed bounces to solid base beat with flat-footed, parallel-to-floor figure 8 hips, arms outstretched.] “With Lots of Rhythm” – layer in a shimmy on top of your movements.

Then: Two hip shimmies with right hip accents to fast drums (down, up, down, updown) 3 times. On fourth count and ‘break down’ drum, pivot turn around into multi-directional forward step back step movement layering on a shimmy. Transition this into sashay step around circle, and with flute, move into choo choos and folkloric ‘circling’ step and hips.

FLUTE
Getting deeply into breathing to the beat… hyperventilate…go into a trance…deeper…deeper…deeper…deeper….

FLAMENCO/’gypsy’ movements with guitar solo. Lots of twist wrists and flamenco kick combos.

Abrupt stop to guitar, Arabic voice….

Accent beats with isolated body parts.

Cross-oversteps with shoulder accents to beat and dramatic, level change ending with your elbow burrowed in your bent knee and your head buried in your hand.

Take your well-deserved bow!

Cleopatra’s Frenzy Choreography Notes

Mon, 3 Mar 2008 11:14:52 -0500

Musical Artist: SUSU PAMPANIN
Album (available on itunes): CAIRO CATS

Daughters of Rhea Karmically Correct Request
** as with all choreographies you learn from your teachers or even from DVDs, if you perform this choreography at a hafli or public event, please give me credit as choreographer, and list Susu Pampanin as musical artist. I am tired of seeing other people’s choreographies performed in public spaces without proper credit in program notes, etc. As teachers, we are happy to share our ideas but we strive to always give credit where credit is due. It is the karmically correct, Daughters of Rhea way.

Without further ado, here it is!!!

Start in place on stage, cue music when ready in position. 
Bounce 4 with arms out in dainty “classic egyptian”, 3 shoulder accents RLR, torso lean to right as hips slide left, finger cymbals to ear - mime zills tac-a-tac-a-tac
On second pair, bounce only twice. 4 sets total: Alternate sides and ears you bring finger cymbals to (start on right). Last one – keep hands at left ear. The music cues you brilliantly.

Listen and clap
2 sets total: Arms go out to left and listen (in lunge on left leg with right out -- weight is into left leg); clap left to right side 4 times as you shift your weight into right lunge. Repeat once more - listen/clap right to left. End holding your left lunge.

“Get ready”

3 sets total: left arm up, right out in “L” arm position, then 2 hips as you shift lunge from left to right and switch arms to “reverse L”. repeat, repeat.

Your want me? Can’t have me!

4 sets total: Horizontal figure 8’s with hip accents. start by pushing front and right with 2 hip accents, palms facing up. one hip accent as you figure 8 your hip to left front.

Hands: As hips travel on the right, hold arms out to sides (elbows bent) with palms up. As hips travel on the left, turn palms down.

Proud Queen’s walk - traveling back.

4 sets total: Turn body toward left side of room. Left arm up high with palm facing front of room. Right hand behind right hip; fingers together and pointing down. Chest tall, high heel on your right foot.

**As soon as you turn your body, ‘squinch’ right hip up with a muscle contraction of the waist** Then hips go – down, down, up, down. Try not to bob your body up and down. This is a highly controlled arabic style movement.

Swivel backward toward right diagonal by stepping back on your right foot (end facing right side of room). Repeat all facing right side then back to left; last set facing right.

“Kazakh Cutie shoulder shrugs”

Tiny ball (right foot) flat (left foot) steps forward with quick and small shrugging shoulders. Shoulders lift as you put weight into right foot, drop as you step on flat left foot.

8 counts: Body faces forward; head looks down toward right. Arms at sides; wrists bent so palms face floor.

Keeping a high heel on right and a flat left foot, take tiny steps forward as you bounce shoulders.

Continue previous ball/flat foot pattern but engage your hips to lift and drop more and turn around in place toward your left shoulder (counterclockwise).

8 counts to complete one turn in place toward left: Earth to sky arms.

QUICK Lunge / hip / lunge / shoulder shimmy
2 sets: Leaving left foot planted, small and quick lunge once right (snake right arm). Bring feet back together. side right hip then left. Repeat same lunge and back, then shoulder shimmy as you bend knees deeper.

Circle the hand / hip lifts
8 sets of: Lift left hip 3 times then turn left with a lifting flick of the right foot as you circle right hand. Use all 8 sets of 3 hip lifts to turn one full circle to the left.

Left arm up, right out. Wrist rotation with each turn.

“Suzie Q” with pelvic clutch as you move left / “Tush push” moving back to right

Twisting Suzie Q cross-over step with pelvic clutch left for count of 4: Keeping chest forward; travel left by cross right foot in front of left then step to the side with left. Hips follow the right foot by twisting toward left as right foot crosses front and twisting right as left foot steps out. Clutch pelvis as foot lifts from floor. Count out the steps as right foot crosses front. Arms out to sides in “Classic Egyptian” position.

“Tush Push” right for count of 4: Travel right by stepping right into bent leg and pushing left hip up by gently extending left knee. Leave left foot planted behind you as hip rises. Slide left foot to meet right as hip drops. (Count as you step on right foot.) Arms are in a high prayer and push toward your direction of travel as step on right foot and bring back as side left foot in. Head looks back toward your derriere.

Repeat “Suzie Q” left / push right sets a total of 2 times.

Walk away
4 counts: Walk toward back of room starting on left (arms down) with dismissive hand gesture: “I don’t need you anymore.”

Stop and look back over right shoulder (twist upper body toward front of room) and lift right hip for 8. Slowly raise arms on right diagonal over right hip as hips lift. “But do you still think I’m hot? I’ll give you a last look...”

4 counts: Walk toward back of room starting on left (arms down). “Forget it: I’m outta here!”

Cat walk forward
4 counts: slinky Jazz walk forward starting on right. Lots of attitude and MEOW!!

Sexy figure 8’s
4 slow counts: Horizontal figure 8’s starting front right (2 hips as push right; 1 strong hip as push front left). Hands on back of head with elbows up; holding hair up.

4 fast counts: Same figure 8’s without one hip accent on each side.

Root chakra Roll up

Repeat set 2 times: Feet together, toes and knees pointing forward, Roll up from 1st chakra. Hands at hips; palms forward; fingers curl closed as roll up. Shoulder shimmy at top.

**Listen to music for the count of the roll up and the beats of the shoulder shimmy.**

Charlie’s Angels
A. Shift weight into left leg; ball of right foot; knees bent. Drop into left hip. Hold your “gun” up high.

B. Jump onto right leg; hold left leg slightly lifted and behind you (leg straight and toe pointed). Shoulder shimmy as bend and straighten right leg. (Keep left foot slightly elevated throughout.)

8 counts of each for 2 sets,
4 counts of each for 2 sets,
2 counts of each for 3 sets,

Walk in place to face forward with hands down, palms into hip flexors, Count of 4.

Chest pulses 3
Pull 1, 2, 3, pause on 4. Do this a total of 3 times. Corkscrew on 4 (circle ribcage to right, then circle hips to right).

Pelvic Clutches
For a count of 8: Clutch pelvis as hands make loose fists at hips (palms forward). As tuck pelvis, lift right foot slightly off ground. Turn slowly left as release hips, foot, and fingers (palms open). Do this 8 times to make one full circle to the left.

For a count of 4: Continue clutching and travel to the right. Look down and right.

Salt the earth with your “girls”
Count of 4: Cross right foot in front of left. Ball change to the left and shoulder shimmy. **Get low**

Count of 4: Clutch and travel to the right (same as prior step).

Count of 4: salt the earth again.

Hip Pulls with Hawaiian hands
2 sets – each set a count of 4: Hip pulls traveling right (step right, together, right, together). Hands start near right hip and travel up. Hands go out and scoop energy toward you (arms stay out – circle at wrists). Repeat to left.

Same movement; 1 set right and left to a count of 2.

Quick hip pulls with steady hands
2 sets (1 right; 1 left) of 4 counts: Travel right by stepping on right; push out right hip. Allow the push of the hip to drag your left leg in to meet your right. Arms out to sides: left hand at temple; right pointing in direction of travel. Look where you are going. Repeat traveling left.

2 sets (1 right; 1 left) of 2 counts: Same movement.

Heel Push Hips with Stylized “Classical Indian” Arms
Total of 8 slow counts: Start with feet together. Step forward into heel with right and push weight into right hip. Arms: Right in front of body; left high over head. Index finger and thumb on both hands make a circle. Step back on left. Bring right foot back where started. (With the feet, the count goes 1, 2, 3, pause on 4). Repeat alternating left and right foot stepping forward.

Do same movement stepping with arms forward 1 right then 1 left. Walk in place right/left/right/left while layering in a ¾ shimmy and hip lift. Hands next to hips; keep fingers in circles. (Lift right foot and right hip; place foot down and small hip left then right. Repeat other side.) Count the walk each time the foot lifts (4 counts total).

Do the stepping and walk-in-place set a total of 2 times.

Hips in place
2 hips right; 1 left – listen for music cues

Wipe your brow with languor
Bounce 3 times as you turn body toward left and wipe brow with left hand (right arm toward front of room); repeat right; repeat left; repeat right, but this time ‘smoke a cigarette’ (right hand to lips then back out).

Pulling Love from heart with forward step, back step
Count of 6: forward/back step right. Keep arms up. Hands start at heart; right hand “pulls love from heart” out as you step forward on right foot. As you step back on right foot, left hand pulls forward.

Continue movement for 4 counts turning to the left. (Face side, back, side, front). Repeat 4-count circle still turning left.

Clap

Keep clapping until your turn to join in the next step.
Hipping and shoulder shimmy
Front row starts then others join in at staggered appointed times.

Step back on left (left arm up; right out). Hips drop, up, drop, up, drop. Shoulder shimmy forward, back, forward, back.

Freestyle
Count of 8: Insert your wild act of self expression here.

Shimmy and snake arms
Start snake arms low and slowly raise over head.

END IT!
Jump back on left; point right foot in front; arms up straight.

Melina’s Upcoming Performance and Touring Schedule

Yelp Elite Event Performance

Fri, 29 Feb 2008 16:36:58 -0500

On Tuesday, September 30 2008 Melina - co-founder of The Daughters of Rhea Dance Company - wowed the Yelp Elite Event crowd at Sabur Restaurant and Lounge in Somerville, MA with her belly dance performance. She was accompanied by her super talented #1 Girls Club Back Up Dancers Tessa and Zoe Isadora (both age 8). Melina performed her world-famous sword on dagger balancing act and danced atop columns. The girls spun and expertly shimmied with their shining wings and gypsy costumes. A great time was had by all.

Read reviews of the event here and check out the photos.

The awesomely gorgeous and totally together organizer of the event Ligaya Tichy of Yelp wrote this follow up message with active links - check them out! - in the wake of the exciting happening:

“I just wanted to send over a warm THANK YOU from all of us. The performance was INCREDIBLE! Reading the reviews of the event here and checking out the photos it's clear to see that people were really blown away. I really wish I wasn't moving this week as I was so inspired to take classes...”

More on Melina and her belly dancing family heritage at www.daughtersofrhea.com

Balkan Beat Box Fusion Choreography

Thu, 31 Jan 2008 11:11:53 -0500

For my 2008 classes I am focusing on dynamic Daughters of Rhea belly dance movements and steps, with a splash of my own jazzy fusion. Many of the steps we go over in class are from my mother Rhea’s “vintage oriental” repertoire from the 60s and 70s: some are steps Rhea learned in the Jamila Salimpour school of dance, some are Rhea’s original creations from her San Francisco troupe from the 1970s, and many are Melina’s own innovations with jazz, gypsy and flamenco stylings.

2008 “Balkan Beat Box MELINA MEDLEY” Combination Notes

These notes will probably be intelligible only to students in my current classes and seminars. Feel free to ask for clarification in class.
Music: Adir Adirim by Balkan Beat Box

Combo 1

Right kick, ball change, spin right
Chest circle to right, front, left, back layered with shoulder accents
Left kick, ball change, spin left
Chest circle to left, front, right, back layered with shoulder accents
Right kick, ball change, spin right
Chest circle to right, front, left, back layered with shoulder accents
Left kick, ball change, spin left
Chest circle to left, front, right, back layered with shoulder accents
4 Chest pulses to right, slight lunge and lean to your right
4 Chest pulses to left, slight lunge and lean to your left
Quick level change in lunge position facing left bringing arms out straight to your left, one hand pressing over the other. (In lunge position - right front leg is on flat foot, back left leg is up on the ball of the foot, hips are tucked, shoulders are stacked over the hips and both knees are bent.) Hip pushes back in lunge position for 4 as you look back over right shoulder.
Take four counts to take lunge position to your right side, hip pushes back on left leg for 4
Take four counts to take position to the left side, this time your left arm lifts and goes back to fasten behind your head, right hand extends out straight right. Look back over your right shoulder as you do your 4 hip pushes back.
Take four counts to take position to the right side, this time your right arms lifts and goes back to fasten behind your head, left hand extends out straight. Look back over your left shoulder as you do your 4 hip pushes back.
Take four counts to take position back towards the left, lift left arm up slowly up straight, right arm straight out in front of left armpit, lean back toward right stepping left foot behind right to transition to the next move: lean, step, 123. on the 123, you are stepping LRL with knees bent and your hips are crisply snapping LRL. you are facing front. Repeat 4.
After the 4th and last lean, step, 123, plant your left foot - up on the ball - behind right, both knees bent, shoulder rolls down with level change, two hip rotations as your level goes up, 4 shoulder rolls as you level change back down, then body roll up from the first chakra (pelvis, hips, then chest) and push off your back left leg to propel you forward to the left, walk 1, 2, 3 hip lift on four, keep walking....

Combo 2:
Rhea’s Vintage Oriental Step, Hip combination.

Step, Hip for 4 starting with the step on the left foot and the hip on the right.
Back, over, across, hip for 4
Turn, turn, turn hip with swooshing arms for 4
Twisty Knees, knees, knees, hip for 4
Back, forward, step, hip with raised arms joined at the wrist going into “L” arms for 4.
Traveling backwards two hip shimmy step with “putting on the glove” arms for 8.

Line up for paired work:
step hip toward each other for 4.
Paired movement: as one dancer leans back with sit hips, the other dancer leans forward with shoulder shimmy
Dancers join right palms together up in the air and step hip clockwise around each other for 8, ending up on opposite sides of one another.

KEY WORDS & CONCEPTS:

SUBTETLY - practice making movements smaller and quieter from time to time. sometimes smaller moves make a bigger impact. alternate between big and small moves.

STILLNESS - between certain moves, build in stillness to certain transitions so that your dance is not always busy with thought and motion. Make way for pauses that add drama, depth and quiet. Stay still for a slow, dramatic flow from one arm position to another.

LEVEL CHANGES - these always make your dance more dynamic and interesting. surprise your audience with quick drops, or slow descents & ascents. take care to not hurt your knees and back in the process. practice “melina’s killer lunge sequence” as we do it in class, making sure to tuck your pelvis. keep your chest lifting as you descend on certain moves.

GAZE CHANGES - where you look matters. be aware of where you direct your gaze in your dance. you can change the entire feeling of a simple step by looking down at your hip as it comes up, then look out to the audience in the transition step. you can look off at your extended finger tips if your arms are in “L” position... be aware of where you are looking, and connect your gaze to your body movements.

RHYTHM CHANGES - play with the rhythm of a basic 4/4 song: you don’t have to respond to the beat -- try movements half time or double time. Slow down occasionally and build in a couple of sinewy slow moves to a quicker song.

Melina’s Upcoming Performance and Touring Schedule

Yelp and other Melina-related Reviews

Sat, 1 Dec 2007 10:06:57 -0500

“Women in Melina’s classes will embrace a new physicality that combats forces of depression and releases unadulterated joy”
--Nassim Assefi, M.D/Writer

Melina “dances like a poem” -- Cleopatra of Athens

“She seems so alive with the music, like it's so natural! She's like a gypsy who dances and has fun for the hell of it! Awesome! Like she doesn't even have to try, it's all her, natural! She is a natural!” -- Ghost Fairy

Check out Melina’s Yelp Reviews

Watch Melina’s performances on YouTube:

Dancing at Axum Restaurant in Greece Melina’s World-Famous One-of-A-Kind Sword & Dagger Belly Dance Circus Fusion Balancing Act
Melina’s aerial dance creations with Sacha Pavlata

Read Brandon’s Review of Daughters of Rhea on Tribe.net

Read Elaine’s Review of BellyPalooza on Gildedserpent

Articles and webpages by and about Melina, her sister Piper, her mother Rhea and the International Daughters of Rhea enterprise in general

Melina’s Upcoming Performance and Touring Schedule

CBS News Profiles Melina AKA Melinda of Cirque Passion & Daughters of Rhea

Fri, 30 Nov 2007 20:16:26 -0500

The following is a Television segment that aired in June profiling belly dancer and circus artist Melin(d)a and “A Night from the Heart,” Cirque Passion’s circus show to benefit the ALS Therapy Development Institute.

Watch the WBZ-TV INTERVIEW with Melina of Daughters of Rhea AKA Melinda Pavlata here!

Melina’s Upcoming Performance and Touring Schedule

ESSAY: Melina’s Tray of Candles

Sat, 6 Oct 2007 11:35:46 -0400

From birth I was thrown into all aspects of belly dance – both the art and the business of it. I naturally accumulated skills because I had no choice: my mother knew the secret of making it impossible to say no. I was thrown into it like a newborn is thrown into a tub of water and finds it can swim to the surface.

Mom never prefaced anything by saying: “This is a hard thing to learn. If you practice every day, maybe you’ll master it enough to do it on stage.” Instead she said “Hey Melinda, come in here and see if you can balance this tray of candles on your head.”

I’d trot over and presto – I found I could move around the kitchen with a large bronze tray on my head. “OK now see if you can do a backbend.” And I’d find I could. “Why don’t you try it on stage tonight, just for a second, and we’ll put a few lit candles on the top, and then just take it off and give it to me when you feel it slipping or you don’t want it anymore.” How can you say no to this?
That was mom’s secret:

“Just try it this once, and then I’ll never make you do it again.”

“Why not just try it and see how you like it?”

Three decades later, that tray has never fallen off my head.

Just when I thought I was beyond my mother’s wild idea clutches, it happened again. Just last summer while we were dancing together at Karoun’s.

I had the tray on my head, and mom suddenly shimmied into the kitchen and came back out with three water glasses. There was no time to protest, I knew what was coming. She set the glasses up in the center of the stage and took my hand and led me to them.

“Stand up and balance on these glasses with the tray on your head,” she was telling me. Gripping her hand as I gingerly felt for the glasses with my bare feet, unable to look down and trusting only in my feet, my mother’s idea and will to succeed, and some other intangible element, I stepped up onto the glasses and danced, flames flickering up from the top of my head.

Melina’s Tips from the Hip: 
Just try stuff and don’t be afraid.
Just try something for a second and then stop.
Don’t be afraid of what others think.
Practice “What if,” as in: “What if we did that, and we did it while singing/balancing on water glasses/drinking ouzo from a glass without hands, only teeth to hold the glass/….”

That is the Daughters of Rhea way.

Melina’s Upcoming Performance and Touring Schedule

Daughters of Rhea in the Gilded Serpent

Thu, 4 Oct 2007 08:28:36 -0400

Melina, her sister Piper and her mother Rhea are featured columnists in the wonderful webzine Gilded Serpent.

“A Hippie Conception” by Melina
Elaine’s Article on Daughters of Rhea BellyPalooza Festival
“Finger Cymbals” by Melina
“Circle Dance” by Melina
Rhea’s Gilded Serpent Articles
Piper’s Gilded Serpent Articles

Melina’s Upcoming Performance and Touring Schedule

Melina of Daughters of Rhea Biography

Mon, 1 Oct 2007 08:54:21 -0400

Melina of Daughters of Rhea (Melinda Heywood Pavlata) is a modern-day bohemian Renaissance woman: second-generation belly dance artist, performer, choreographer, teacher, writer, circus & dance events producer, Greek folk dancer & aerialist with a PhD in medieval French Literature. Born to a folk-musician father and a hippie-artist belly dance mother during the late 60s Berkeley, California cultural revolution, Melina exited Rhea's shimmying womb into a vibrant life of dance and circus arts. Melina’s first professional portrait -- in utero shimmying away in her belly dancing mother Rhea’s womb -- is by noted photographer Robert Altman. The portrait is featured in the recently released collection of Altman photographs entitled The Sixties.

Though she spent a lot of time touring the world as a child performer, Melina always loved writing & her academic studies: she is a Phi Beta Kappa, magna sum laude graduate of Wellesley College & won the prestigious Benjamin Franklin Fellowship to complete her doctorate at the University of Pennsylvania. Before devoting herself to her artistic family callings, Melina was an adjunct professor of French Literature, Language and Culture at the University of Pennsylvania and Boston College and won many teaching awards in that context. Now she puts all that love of teaching and pedagogical experience into her popular belly dance classes.

Melina is co-founder of Daughters of Rhea with her sister Piper, Cirque Passion with Czech circus star husband Sacha Pavlata and the ALS Therapy Development Institute with Jamie Heywood. Her life and work in its many guises has been profiled on 60 Minutes II, National Public Radio, The New Yorker, The Boston Globe, CBS News, The Boston Phoenix, Wellesley Magazine, Bridezilla (she entertained bridezilla) and the documentary So Much, So Fast. Her writing has been published in Brain, Child magazine, The Boston Globe, French Forum Literary Journal and her essay on the economics of belly dance was featured on NPR’s Marketplace.

Melina’s style of belly dance dance, formed as a child in circus rings and at the shimmering hip of her mother in the shadow of the acropolis in Athens, Greece is globally informed, Greco-Turkish, proto-Tribal, modern Bohemian fusion. Melina lights up the stage with her unique manouche (circus gypsy) flair, and she is known for her creative use of props: from balancing swords on daggers gripped in her teeth to balancing trays of burning candles on her head to spinning upside down in the air while hanging by a foot, not even she knows what she’ll come up with next. Stay tuned...

DANCE INSTRUCTION CV
Melina has 20 years of belly dance teaching experience and received post-graduate pedagogical training as part of her doctoral program at The University of Pennsylvania. Her teaching is noted for its imagery, attention to detail, firm emphasis on technique, and careful breakdown of movement. Melina produced and directed the ALS Therapy Development Institute’s Annual Belly Dance Fundraiser for 6 years and has raised over $100,000 through her efforts to eradicate Lou Gehrig’s disease. Along with her sister Piper (Belly Dancer of the Year 2000), Melina co-produces of the annual BellyPalooza Dance Festival and Belly Dance Magic show at Johns Hopkins University and the Baltimore Museum of Art respectively. She has created over 20 choreographies and works aerially combining circus arts and belly dance. She produced Iraqi-refugee musician Ali Arsoy’s debut CD “Ali Bi Ghanni li Rhea”.

Venues Melina has taught include but are not limited to:

Rhea Studios in the Plaka of Athens, Greece
Seresta Dance Studios in Athens, Greece
Dance2Dance Studio in Plaka, Athens, Greece
Golden Door Spa
PiperMethod Studios in Baltimore, MD
West Suburban YMCA in Newton Corner
Boston University
Boston College
Ancient Arts Studios in Berklee MA
The Yoga Studio in Millis
Mystic Fitness in Framingham
Wellesley College
Fitness Etcetera in West Roxbury
Circus Flora Ring
Cirque Passion Big Top
City Museum in St. Louis, MO
Center of Creative Arts in St Louis, MO
Johns Hopkins University Mattin Center
CasaNia Studios in Cambridge, MA
Daughters of Rhea Dance Studios in Waltham, MA
Women’s Club in Newton, MA
Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health

Melina’s Upcoming Performance and Touring Schedule

Linked by a Hip

Tue, 7 Aug 2007 14:47:12 -0400

Linked by a Hip by Melina of Daughters of Rhea

This seminar takes the belly dance move “step, hip” (aka “basic”) a dozen different directions, all linked by a hip. We’ll be using rhythmic four-count music and playing with the tempo here and there, speeding our moves up or slowing them down. Many of the movements are from my mother Rhea’s “Vintage Oriental” repertoire that she taught her troupe in the 70s. The grapevine footwork of some moves and the quick “back, forward” type of step gestures toward Greek folk dances. Others I “invented” or as my mom says, “received from the universe” in the course of performing or teaching.

The hip action in step, hip is propelled by the proper arrangement and displacement of your skeletal structure. Stand with your weight on the left foot, hips tucked under, left knee bent, chest lifting in a nice dance posture, right foot slightly in front and up in a firm “high heel” position. Pulling your right knee a little bit straight backwards (not to a lock) will send your right hip up. KEEP YOUR LEFT LEG BENT while the right hip comes up so you stay in control of the movement and isolate your right hip only. You want to be able to hip up without bobbing your head up and down. This kind of hip movement is a skeleton-led rather than a muscular-led propelling of the hip. (Think of that childhood song: “The hip bone’s connected to the…thigh bone, the thigh bone’s connected to the…knee joint, the knee joint’s connected to the..ankle bone” etc.)

Here are some hip moves we’ll combine, not necessarily in this order. You’ll recognize these (highly scientific) movement names because I’ll have repeated them a million times in the course of class in incantatory fashion such that you’ll never forget them...

Step, hip.
Step, hip, hip, hip.
Step, hip, hip, hip in different directions (forward, back, forward, for example)
Step hip, drop, hip.
Step hip, sit sit hip.
Step hip hip drop drop hip hip.
Back, over, across hip (grapevine step with hip at the end)
Turn, turn, turn hip
[The Elvis] Twisty knees knees knees, hip.
Back, forward, step, hip
Frisky Aphrodite style “You can’t have me” twist back then step hip hip.
Back, step, hip hip.
Hip pulls to side
Multi-directional hip pulls
[quick, starts before the 1 count] And back, side hip, and back, side hip
Traveling Reverse maya, sit sit
Shoulder shimmy, sit sit Jazzy lunge side with reaching snake arm, hip hip

A Few Luscious, Flowy Arm Moves from the Daughters of Rhea Repertoire to Accompany Those Frisky Hips 
“Hug” Arms (my favorite, lovely for its self-empowering message)
Love the World
Sky to Earth
Earth to Sky
Sky to Self to World
Earth to Heart to World
“L” Arms and Reverse “L” arms (transition with “wipe your nose” as the elevated arm descends and reaches out)
Wrists crossed behind hips
Wrists crossed in front of hips
Classic Arabic Arms
Flamenco Arms
Stirring the Witch’s Cauldron arms
Pulls out your beating heart arms
Snake arms
Piper’s Hawaiian arms with turning wrists

A Note or two on WRISTS, HANDS and FINGERS

You can flow your arms all you like but if you don’t work on your hands, wrists and fingers you are missing out on maximizing the beauty of power of your movements. Follow through all arms movements to the tips of your fingers. Keep your thumbs tucked in. Don’t splay your fingers, or ball them up, or crinkle your knuckles. You get the picture. Generally the first parts of your body to betray stress are your hands. Also, work on your hands so they can undulate and get more and more articulate and detailed. Turn your wrists to warm them up and stretch out your forearms, which often motor the most graceful handwork.

Melina’s Ice Queen Choreography

Tue, 7 Aug 2007 13:25:28 -0400

Music: Ice Queen by Dinleter from Belly Dance Superstars

I came up with this choreography as a way to “put it altogether” for the last class of my beginner’s level 1 eight-week session, and it turned out to be so fun that I am teaching it to all my classes. The song is great because it contains, in four short minutes, many elements: a dramatic beginning, a great rhythmic intro, a drum solo moment, a slow work improv moment, and a reprise of the intro to an punch ending.

0 - 0:43: Veil Beginning. Start away from audience with veil in front of you. Pivot turn right foot crossing left toward left shoulder to face audience. As you turn drop your right hand to about hip level and left hand rises up over left shoulder above your head. Bring right hand up to meet the left and do head slides with your head framed in the veil. “Around the world” with the veil two times, then reveal your right hip. Backdrop your body with the veil - left hand high and right hand behind right hip to show hip. Right foot in front of left on “high heel”, thighs close together, hips tucked. Two tiny isolated vertically lifting hip circles on right hip, then swish veil in figure 8 pattern going back and up, down to front. Listen for dramatic “throw the veil away up over your head and behind you” moment.

Slow pivot turn around with your arms slowly going down behind the back, sliding up the waist and out to the sides - there is plenty of time and you want to bring as much drama to this moment as possible and milk the time you have. Get ready for quick hips in place after “swoosh” sound and drums start”. 8 side-to-side hips starting with right hip on flat feet, then 8 hips transitioning to balls of the feet.

Travel forward for 8 with “Love the world” arms, travel backward for 8 with demure arms behind the hips, gaze over one shoulder as you travel back. Travel first forward, then to right diagonal, then left diagonal.

Step hip, drop hip for 4 forward, turn to left and walk back quickly with low ‘flamenco’ arms for 8 quick steps. Repeat, then step hip SLOWLY -- 4 times -- in a small circle as if you are walking around a small puddle, or ice cream bowl, or pea, or something. Then jump into...

1:55 - DRUM SECTION
Jump shimmy facing forward
slow to hip sides for 6, accents with shoulders
First shoulder accent is a quick right shoulder, left shoulder isolation forward,
Second shoulder accent is a rolling shoulder. Try to keep your hands still.
Earth quake bounces with big hip circle two times then switch directions, then stay in place feet close together on slight diagonal and keep bouncing, arms travel up the sides of the body and back down
Quick twist shimmies with shoulder accents as before.

SLOW WORK PART

Lunge forward on right foot with snake arms reaching forward, then pulling back toward your body. Take your time. You want to coordinate your arm movement with the rising and falling human voice in the music. Adjust your lunge into “Melina’s killer lunge” position with the back foot up on the ball and your hips tucked for safe posture, shoulders over the hips, then do the “pull from the heart” chest circle forward, up, leaning back and down. Slowly pull yourself forward and up, right hand lifting to the sky, then slowly undulate that hand down to hip, following it with your gaze.
Figure 8 hips slowly -- This is the time for your own slow work improvisation. Could be arms and hands, hips, mayas -- whatever it is: take your time.

Reprise of intro music. When the intro music with beat starts again, repeat the hips side to side intro, in place for 16, forward and back sequence with “love the world arms” and demure retreat 3 times: forward, diagonal right and diagonal left, then step hip drop hip forward 4 with quick walk back, repeat, and finally: drama ending: lunge into right leg flourishing up right arm then letting it quickly fall down. Follow right hand with your gaze, and relish the applause.....

If you have any questions or improvements to my notation, don’t hesitate to contact me with your input. This, like many things in my life and perhaps yours, is a work in progress.

Private Belly Dance Lessons with Melina

Wed, 18 Jul 2007 13:16:41 -0400

PLEASE NOTE: PRIVATE LESSONS WITH MELINA ARE SUSPENDED UNTIL 2009 AS MELINA IS WORKING TOWARDS A DEADLINE ON A WRITING PROJECT. Please email Melina if you are interested in future private lessons.

Take your Belly Dance to the next level with Private Lessons with Melina of Daughters of Rhea

Private lessons are conducted in Melina's mirrored private studio in Waltham and are scheduled at mutually convenient times including daytimes during the week and some weekends.

Your best value for private lessons is a package of 10 lessons for $650. Online payment is available by clicking here if you’d like to pay by credit card.

$100 for a single hour-length private lesson
Price includes one belly dance music CD. If you are beyond the beginners level its a good idea to choose a piece of music and prepare or improvise an approximate 2-3 minute dance to show Melina at the start of the lesson so she can properly assess your technique and better assist you overall. This is the best way to challenge yourself and quickly progress and a very important way for Melina to see how you move as a belly dancer and tailor the lesson so that it is maximally productive and suited to your unique needs. Don’t be shy: Melina is a friendly and constructive audience -- this demonstration is the best way to challenge yourself right off the bat, make the lesson maximally productive and progress quickly.

Before your lesson you must think through and email Melina your belly dance goals and specific areas you’d like to work on. If you already have a video of yourself dancing you should send that to her in advance of the lesson. Before the lesson Melina will send and you must sign a waiver form attesting to your good health and indemnifying the instructor and premises from liability.

PACKAGE RATES available for multiple private lessons.

Purchase 5 hour-length private lessons for $375.

Lessons must be used within the space of a year from time of package purchase. If you purchase a package of private lessons you can attend Melina’s group classes in Newton Highlands at the discounted rate of $10 per class within the year you have purchased the private lesson package.

If you are beyond the beginners level you must choose a piece of music and prepare or improvise an approximate 2-3 minute dance to perform for Melina at the start of the first lesson so she can properly assess your technique and better assist you overall. Don’t be shy: Melina is a friendly and constructive audience -- this demonstration is the best way to challenge yourself right off the bat, make the lessons maximally productive and progress quickly.

It would be most helpful if before your first lesson you write out and email Melina your belly dance goals and specific areas you'd like to work on. These goals and your focus may shift over time as part of the process. If you already have a video of yourself dancing you should send that to her as well in advance of the first lesson.

Purchase 10 hour-length Private Lessons for $650.
Lessons must be completed within the space of a year from time of package purchase. If you purchase a package of Melina’s private lessons you can attend her group classes in Newton at the discounted rate of $10 per class.

If you request it, in the course of the lessons your dancing can be videotaped. Melina will watch the video with you and offer constructive criticism to help you see how to dance your absolute best.

If you are beyond the beginners level you must choose a piece of music and prepare or improvise an approximate 2-3 minute dance to show Melina at the start of the lesson so she can properly assess your technique and better assist you overall. Don’t be shy: Melina is a friendly and constructive audience -- this demonstration is the best way to challenge yourself right off the bat, make the lessons maximally productive and for you to progress most quickly.

It would be most helpful if before your first lesson you think through and email Melina your belly dance goals and specific areas you'd like to work on. These goals and your focus may shift over time as part of the process. If you already have a video of yourself dancing you should send that to her as well in advance of the first lesson.

Melina’s Upcoming Performance and Touring Schedule
Visit www.daughtersofrhea.com

ESSAY: Melina vs. Melinda : A Tale of Two Names

Mon, 2 Jul 2007 20:21:38 -0400

A few weeks after I was born, my parents finally agreed on a name: Melinda. (I count myself lucky I wasn’t named “LotusStarchild”, as I emerged into the Berkeley, California world of the 60s to bohemian hippie artist parents). When my mom Rhea moved permanently to Athens, Greece and I started performing with her in Plaka tavernas for the tourists, the Greeks announcing me in the shows had trouble pronouncing the word MELINDA -- the hard “D” isn’t a Greek sound, it usually comes out either as “melinta” or “melintha.” Greek stage announcers generally introduced me as MELINA, which is a wonderful Greek name (think Melina Mercouri! Never on Sunday!) derived from the word “Meli” for honey. Melina sounds very lovely in Greek with a long “i” -- MELEEENA.

I love the name Melina as a concept and a belly dance artist persona. The name itself hearkens back to all the fun I had with my Mom and sister Piper in Greece growing up. Mom used to play with my name all the time, calling me “Melitzana” (eggplant) and “Meli.” I kept Melina as my stage name even after moving back to the states and dancing in clubs here. The name has stuck as my professional belly dance identity. And when my dear friend Sara calls me Melina with her Azorean-tinged accent, I feel a rush of international pleasure.

In the end, Melina of Daughters of Rhea and Melinda of Cirque passion are one and the same person, with a single small ‘d’ making all the difference. So as my grandfather Arthur used to say, “Call me what you will, but don’t call me late for dinner.”

Melina’s Upcoming Performance and Touring Schedule

A Circus Arts/Belly Dance Conversation with Hovey Burgess

Thu, 28 Jun 2007 16:07:16 -0400

Herein lies the account of Melina of Daughters of Rhea’s (hereafter referred to as “I”) recent conversation with friend Hovey Burgess, Circus Arts scholar & historian, master teacher and author of the book Circus Techniques, on his trip to Egypt and ruminations on the circus arts/belly dance connection. I had the privilege of learning to juggle clubs from Mr. Burgess -- -- as a child I attended his weekend circus arts classes at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts with my father Phil and step-mother Cecil -- and I juggled with him as a belly dancer in Circus Flora for many years. Hovey has one of the largest private collection of circus books in the world, and learned to read hieroglyphs before traveling to Egypt in order to become as properly informed as possible while contemplating the famous wall painting of three juggling women. He went back twice during his trip to make sure to see the wall paintings in proper light.

According to Hovey’s research and fieldwork, during the 11th dynasty of Ancient Egypt, which ended in 1991 B.C., there were 39 tombs/shrines cut right into the rock in the city of the dead. In one of these, number 15, the tomb of Baqt the third (Baqt’s hieroglyph = stork + sand dune + loaf of bread) wall paintings depict a number of female entertainers including three female jugglers with anklets doing a pattern that is recognizable today as well as two women doing an incredible acrobatic dance involving a flip-flop “duet”. (DIGRESSION: Hovey believes that women invented juggling and posits a theory that juggling originally commenced with yarn balls). In any case, here is Hovey’s list of 27 entertainers of the female persuasion as they appear at Beni Hasan on the North Wall, West Half

6              3 double flip-flops
6              dancers
4              piggyback ball players
6              ball players
3              jugglers
2              backbends

27           Entertainers of the female persuasion

Thus, the roots of my fusion-oriented exploration of juggling-acrobatic-circus arts-belly dancing go back to ancient Egypt. Indeed, one of my favorite choreographies is “Pho Pharonic,” a duet I created for my sister Piper and I. It’s only a matter of time before I teach Piper to juggle and get her to do a full blown dance replica of Baqt’s tomb paintings with me....

As researcher for Circus Flora’s 1997 production of “Ruvna”, the show based 1904 World’s Fair show, Hovey Burgess was instrumental in ensuring that I be hired for the show, as the “Hoochie Koochie” dance referenced in the song “Meet me in St Louis, Louis” (and prominently featured in “Ruvna”) was a common nomenclature for the belly dance made famous by Little Egypt’s World’s Fair side show appearance. I was cast as Little Egypt and incorporated into virtually every Circus Flora production thereafter. It does so happen that my step-mother Cecil MacKinnon is the show’s writer and director, so nepotism may have played a role in creating an eternal space for a belly dancer in Circus Flora productions, but such is the circus world, where circus show = family reunion. Here I am doing a back bend in the air with Sacha:

In Circus Flora I had the delightful opportunity to fuse my circus arts and belly dance skills under one Big Top: I belly danced with tambourines in the ring with Flora the elephant (who wielded a tambourine in her trunk), I shimmied along the ring curb, turned like a whirling dervish beneath the flying trapeze net, balanced my sword and a tray of candles on my head while doing a back bend while up on two chairs, ‘gypsy’-danced with Katja Schumann’s beautiful horses, passed clubs in various group formations, and finally transformed from belly dancer to trapeze artist in order perform my romantic aerial duet with Sacha. Most importantly, I get to raise my daughter Zoe in the circus, and expose her to this incredible life.  
Here we are when Zoe was a baby and Olinka Wallenda made her a pink sequined bow for her slightly bald baby head. Trust me when I tell you that beneathe my prairie lady outfit is a sizzling rhinestone belly dance costume!

Here we are in 2003:

I continue to invent ways to artfully combine various skills, most recently belly dancing with a sword balanced on the tip of a dagger clutched in my jaws in a new version of a point-to-point act (Sacha’s original idea! -- Not even Hovey Burgess has seen this act before!)

I have also been working on my dancing clown character. She dances and juggles while balancing on the rolla bolla before transforming into -- you guessed it -- a belly dance artist/aerialist. And there’s more in the works.... Here I am as a clown....

And here I am on the lyra in my favorite belly dance aerialist costume moments later...

I asked Hovey what he thought of Belly Dance in the Big Top:  “Fantastic! That’s where it belongs! And at weddings. In terms of the worlds fairs, circus, side shows and all that, it belongs”

* * *

Growing up in both the belly dance and circus worlds, it felt wonderful to start my own circus, Cirque Passion, with my partner in life and love, 5th generation Czech circus performer Sacha Pavlata. Here’s our tent:

You can read more about our circus at www.cirquepassion.com.

To sum up for now, we believe that the circus ring is one of the most beautiful and magical spaces in which to present the glorious, wondrous, inspirational feats of human capabilities. We embrace the artful fusing of physical skills, we seek to radiate positivity as a community and change the world for the better, and we are dedicated to showcasing the belly dance/circus connection in the most artful and entertaining way possible.

You can see pictures of some of our recent shows HERE.

~ ~ ~

Final note: I love this 1904 film reel where Princess Rajah performs an "Oriental" or belly dance and at the same time balances a chair in her teeth like that often found in folk performances in various cultures from Northern Africa to Greece - http://tinyurl.com/g7fhz

Dare to invent your thing. See you at the circus!

Melina’s Upcoming Performance and Touring Schedule

“Manouche!” Melina’s Cirque Belly Dance Student Recital

Sun, 4 Mar 2007 11:39:53 -0500

Daughters of Rhea and Cirque Passion Present:

MANOUCHE! Melina’s Student Recital
April 1, 2008
Karoun Restaurant
7:15 - 9 p.m.
Tickets available now  
Beautiful Belly Dance Solos of all sorts, dashing Duets & fun Group Dances, Vaudeville skits, Belly Dance Fusion, Melina’s Manouche (Gypsy Jazz) style, Cirque Passion, Juggling knives, Balancing Swords and more.

Melina’s Upcoming Performance and Touring Schedule

ESSAY: Robert Altman’s In Utero Portrait of Melina

Wed, 24 Jan 2007 12:32:11 -0500

http://www.altmanphoto.com/sixties/bellydance.html
www.daughtersofrhea.com

The story goes that I was conceived on a beach in Northern California in 1968 while my mom was tripping on acid and my dad was under the influence of cannabis. Unsurprisingly my parents’ “pull out” method of contraception did not work that starry night, and the cosmic forces of the universe conspired to create me, ultimate love child of the 60s.

I was born in the summer of ’69, and went unnamed for 3 months. My first nickname was a testament to my parents’ favorite pastime: I was called Doubie, like the smallest, cutest little stub of a mostly-smoked joint. Ten months later, when my parents amicably parted ways and I was equally shared between them, I was called The Little Suitcase -- just put a handle on my little onesied back and I was ready to go!

My birth certificate was finally filled in with the name Melinda Lou, and I was included in all aspects of my parents bohemian performance life, sleeping on piles of coats behind the speakers at my dad’s Berkeley rock n roll gigs, turning cartwheels in the circus ring when he was bandleader of the Pickle Family Circus, and playing behind tapestry curtains at the Renaissance fairs where my mom belly danced and balanced swords on her head as part of Jamila Salimpour’s Troupe Bal Anat.

My early childhood was full of love, 2nd hand smoke, communes and creative people. Even after putting in way too much time in the Ivory Tower – Ivy League college and a PhD in medieval French literature -- my parents’ enduring hippy values and the primal drive (encoded in my DNA?) to lead an authentic, independent-minded, out-of-the-box life turned me from the academy and I now live a full-blown creative life, making ends meet by working gig to gig just like I was born and bred to do.

The first photo that I have of myself belly dancing is in utero I am in my mother’s rounded belly, and that belly is dancing. It is a black and white picture from 1969 taken at the Berkeley Fiddler’s Convention in California. My mom is six months pregnant with me, belly dancing with a smile and arms outstretched in a coin costume, surrounded by a beaming outdoor audience full of hippies. My older sister Piper, then 6, sits on our mom’s shoulders, her little hands reaching out to match mom’s. Mom is musically accompanied by my dad’s folk bank, the Pittsburgh Pirates, playing “Little Egypt.” Piper, Mom and the as yet unborn I form a unique belly dancing triumverate, a reconstituted Pieta for the first dance of matriarchy. When I finally emerged into the world, three months later, I was primed for belly dance rhythms, impromptu performances, folk music and rock n roll.

I keep the original 8X10 photo in a silver frame in my home dance studio and meditate on it frequently. It has traveled with me from my Berkeley childhood to NYC to Athens, Greece to Wellesley College to UPenn, to Switzerland and comes on tour with me in my circus trailer. The image captures exactly where I come from: the time, the place, the womb. It speaks to all the powerful themes that inform my life today: dance, performance, community, independent thinking, and the primal power of mother and daughters.

So here we are at the crux of the story: Last night after teaching my Thursday night belly dance classes, my student Regan came up to me with a magazine. “My father just died the week before Thanksgiving,” she said. “I was going through his things –he was a major packrat and collected lots of magazines - and I found this. It was the only one he had of its kind.” She looked at me with sweaty, trembling anticipation. I felt a tingling, emotional from Regan’s loss and from what she had found. I was leafing through Peter Max magazine, volume 2 from 1970 and came on the page….”LOOK” She said.

There it was, the second of a series of black and white hippy portraits --people raving, a woman blissfully breastfeeding, couples hugging, dogs leaping -- THE SEMINAL PHOTO OF MY LIFE – only, I was cut out! The focus of the photo was on the coin bra, the smiling hippy mother belly dancing with daughter on the shoulders. The belly button, Mom’s rounded belly with ME in it wasn’t in the frame. But it didn’t diminish the amazement, the tingling sensation, the incredible cosmic coincidence of the whole thing. If Regan hadn’t been my student for all these years and had opportunities to come to my home studio to dance, she would never have seen the original photo in its frame; she would never have known the significance of her father’s single copy of Peter Max magazine from 1970. And I would never have known the photo was ever in the seminal hippy magazine of the 1960s, now a collector’s item, and I would never have googled “Robert Altman, Photographer, Peter Max” and found the website of the original photographer, and searched for belly dancer on his site and found myself again.

So there you have it.

Thank you Robert Altman for taking the very first picture of me belly dancing. You don’t know me but I’m honored to be an in-utero subject of your beautiful body of work.

Thanks Mom and Dad for never selling out because my hippy inheritance is worth more than money.

Thank you Regan for belly dancing with me, for sharing your story and for giving me the issue of Peter Max magazine (that is worth $88 bucks on ebay but way more to me!)

Thank you Regan’s Dad, who was fascinated with hippies but was never one himself.

This is a pretty far-out and groovy story that I totally dig.

As it says on the last page of Peter Max magazine: Volume 2 from 1970:

Man is one. God is one. Love is one.
We are all the fruits of one tree
And the leaves of one branch.
Everyone is God in the process of evolution.
Identify yourself with everything that lives.
Love all God’s creation.
Love even the leaf;
Love the animals, love the plants,
Love everything.
Feel that the one power
Of God works through all hands,
Sees through all eyes,
Hears through all ears.

Melina’s Upcoming Performance and Touring Schedule

ESSAY: Books and the Nomadic Child

Sun, 21 Jan 2007 11:46:18 -0500

My favorite Wellesley professor, Michèle Respaut, would on the last day of class bring in a lovely load of graceful compact soft covers, usually hearkening from the Parisian publishing house Garnier-Flammarion, and pile them neatly on her desk as a visual monument testifying to all the novels we had read that semester.

One by one, she would escort each book out of her soft, well-worn leather briefcase and construct a tender little tower of tomes on her desk in front of us. This simple action was profoundly engaging, and I would watch, transfixed and moved, as George Sand, Balzac, Michelet, Zola, Maupassant, and the brothers Goncourt made their bookly pilgrimage from bag to desk, glinting as me like pliable paper jewels as the sun streamed in the ivy-framed classroom windows.

The books were at once familiar, because we had each pored over our own version of the work at some point during the semester, and strange, because we had not personally handled these particular editions: they were Michèle’s, and somehow more precious than our own. After class I would always be tempted to run back to my dorm and replicate the pile on my desk out of my own books, just to make the moment endure.

Michèle would invariably have prepared an affectionate, last-class-of-the-semester speech in which she spoke a word for each book we had read and poetically incanted the themes they contained. All the titles on Michèle’s book tower were lined up with spines facing us, and the class would swell with collective pride at having read every word of those books, every single one of those French words, and not only that but we had underlined passages, made notes in the margins, and written papers about them. We felt pride, too, for our chic French professor, who seemed to care about us as much as she loved her books, and exhorted us to read with the passion that brings meaning.

It was a sharp and bitter fall from this inspired, mesmerizing relationship to books stirred by Michèle to graduate school in French literature, which nearly slay my love for reading altogether. Books were no longer magical flying carpets upon which you could blithely coast, sensuously soaking up the flavors of new narrative realms; they had become the cadaverous tools of my trade.

Now, books were meant to be dissected alive, over-analyzed in the presence of ambitious, over-posturing peers, then embalmed with jargon-infused theory and finally laid to rest in rigorously-argued papers bound for obscure French literary journals. Or at least that’s how it felt a lot of the time. I was still happy to be in a place where books were bought and read and put in bags and toted to class and pored over in dimly-lit library carrels, but I hated the feeling that your future career clung to a precipice if you couldn’t instantly discourse on the meta-narrative or casually bat about Foucault and Derrida like old friends. Also I was not always so enchanted with my graduate school professors and their sometimes slicing eyes: I missed Michèle.

For a good long stretch after grad school I kept my distance from books. My eyes felt calcified by too much critical analysis. They needed time to soften enough to let in the wonder of words once again. About a year after completing my doctorate I slowly began to reconnect with my original love for books, to remember what they first meant to me. As a child, books were my anchors, narrative constants as I chartered back and forth between the wildly disparate worlds of my father and mother. They accompanied me across the Atlantic as I made my half-yearly treks from America to Greece and back again. Books were my keepers as I traveled alone on airplanes from the age of 7 on: they were there during take off, cruising altitude, and landing, and they were the same books in N.Y.C. as they were in Athens. They never changed their titles in mid-air. You could rely on that.

My stepmother Cecil MacKinnon (Wellesley ’68) was instrumental in enabling my book consumption as a nomadic child. Before each impending visit to my mom, Cecil and I would make a pilgrimage from our brownstone apartment on 19th street in Chelsea to the Barnes & Noble on 5th Avenue and 17th. Once inside the bookstore, we would go wild in the shelves, picking out a ton of books -- she would buy them all. I remember it would always be at least 7 or 10 soft covers, though it could have been more, or less. They would gleam and wink at me from the shiny Barnes & Noble bag on the walk home, and I would want to devour them all before I was even on the plane.

The books we chose always got my courage up for my solo flights, for I was in the narrative company of other intrepid adolescents who were out negotiating their way in complex foreign lands, dealing with eccentric adults, or generally overcoming great odds. I journeyed with no less than The Narnia Chronicles, A Swiftly Tilting Planet, The Phantom Tollbooth, The Little Prince, The Green, Brown and Red Fairy Tale Books, and Mrs. Piggle Wiggle. I was always reading about brave children, their fantastic passages to mysterious other worlds, about magical dragons, cloaks of invisibility, upside down houses, and the perfectly made bed.

My own modest odyssey on the airplane between differing cultures, parents, and ways of life paled in comparison to the wondrous adventures of the children in these books. In retrospect, all the books I read throughout my itinerant childhood seemed to ultimately be about how to make yourself at home in a new place, and indeed the first thing I would do when I arrived in my unfamiliar room after a prolonged absence was to set up my books by my perfectly made bed like a sacred little shrine. Comfort was only as far away as that shelf.

Melina’s Upcoming Performance and Touring Schedule

Past Seminar: Rhea of Greece & Melina to teach Mother-Daughter Belly Dance Seminar at Ancient Art Studios on Sunday September 16th.

Mon, 1 Jan 2007 11:44:22 -0500

Pre-register for this seminar and show through Ancient Art Studios: 508.822.6449

FOR MORE DETAILS visit www.ancientartstudios.com

Past Event: Melina Presents: Lisa Zahiya, 2008 Tribal Fusion Belly Dancer of the Universe

Tue, 27 Sep 2005 21:34:54 -0400

I am proud to present, for the first time in the Boston area, rising Tribal Fusion star Lisa Zahiya of Asheville, N.C.

Lisa Zahiya is the 2008 Tribal Fusion Belly Dancer of the Universe. Never mind that title, I just love to watch her dance, every single time. With a firm foundation in belly dance technique (Lisa is a PiperMethod certified teacher) Miss Zahiya knows how to fuse with sass, creativity and verve. A favorite instructor and performer at the Daughters of Rhea BellyPalooza festival each year, Lisa is an engaging teacher, a world-class dancer with solid technique and a fun, expert performer. In these seminars Lisa will introduce you to her brand of belly dance fusion and break down hip-hop belly dance moves. The first seminar on Saturday is an introduction to how to dance as a group by using cued movements with a leader and followers. Uses the concepts of not only American Tribal Style and its predecessors, but cued West African dance. Lisa will teach cued movements and combinations learned from her study with Fat Chance Bellydance, Blacksheep Bellydance and Gypsy Caravan and also those of her own invention.

Saturday workshops will be geared to all levels of belly dancer - even if you are just starting out with Melina this is a wonderful opportunity to learn a new style with an emphasis on basic technique with a great guest-artist teacher.

To learn more about Lisa, visit www.lisazahiya.com.

Online registration available.

WHEN: Saturday September 27
WHERE: Women's Workshop Club in Newton Highlands

11:30 a.m. - 1:30 p.m. Intro to Tribal Fusion ($40)
2 - 4 p.m. Hip Hop Belly Dance Fusion ($40)
Advance-purchase Package rate for both seminars: $70

Pay 10 bucks more at the door if space allows.

ALSO

WHEN: Sunday September 28 **** SOLD OUT ****
WHERE: Melina's Waltham Studio within walking distance of Moody Street

Small-group "How to Fuse" workshop with Lisa Zahiya for dancers with experience: $55. Pre-registration REQUIRED.
As of August 24th, this workshop is SOLD OUT.

Private Lesson slots with Lisa still available for $60. Contact Melina to book a slot: 781 588 3628.

Visit www.lisazahiya.com for more information on this exceptional dancer based in Asheville, N.C.

Peace and love to you all. Hope some of you can make it to these seminars.

Melina of Daughters of Rhea
Belly Dance and Circus Arts
Contact: 781 588 3628
www.daughtersofrhea.com
www.bellypalooza.com
www.cirquepassion.com

"We are all wanderers of this earth,
our hearts are full of wonder and
our souls are full of dreams"
--Romany saying

CARPE BELLY-UM!
--Melina saying
 
BOOKING INQUIRIES: Email Melina
Visit www.daughtersofrhea.com for more info