Hi Jaia!!! I was just coming over here to post what I have been working on for the workshop...

A bit of history about this workshop first... Onca and I have been trying to figure out how to create this workshop for awhile. Originally it was an attempt to have some sort of certification thing happen and trying to wrap my head around how to funnel everything I teach my weekly students and dance company all into two days. That made me start distilling what I consider important down finer and finer. A few workshops with my two original teachers, Shakira Masood Ali and Aegela, pushed me further to get back to my roots. I was lucky enough to have two teachers who passionately believe that a good base of standard belly dance skills was imparitve and that stylization should come later. This gives a dancer the ability to not sweat the small stuff in workshops and master classes and be able to really receive what the teacher is imparting whether it be musical nuance, arm stylization, etc... I have noticed over my 16 years of workshop taking that very few people come to workshops with a basic skill set complete enough to be able to verbally break down any combo that a teacher shows....that actually the teachers don't even have a skill set basic enough to impart it either. Many times I have been able to distill half an hour of description into 8 words (no I am not exaggerating). These distillation skills have come from not only my classes from Shakira and Aegela but from workshops from Zhaleh Fereshteh, Suhaila and Carolena, they all have the amazing ability to put explanations succinctly.

So how does that translate into the four hours we will spend together? We will first make an agreement that "Yes each individual body part can move independently, an arm can move while you leg moves, you can walk and wiggle you fingers, you can tap your big toe while shrugging your shoulder, etc...all that is physically possible." Then we will learn how to stick to that agreement! The workshop will broken down into:

1st half
Warm up
Warm up with zills
Shimmy drill with zills
Zill drill (with zills *snark*)
Footwork drills
Traveling with isolations and endurance training (called "across the floor work" in most other dance forms)
(I am hoping we get to this point before the lunch break)
Cool down

2nd half
Warm up with zills
Training combos that will create specific skills sets such as core strength, spatial skills, body extension, lower isolation, abs strengthening, comfort with stillness, etc...
Cool down with floorwork

I cannot stress how much shoes are recommended, it will decrease the amount of traction you have with the ground therefore increasing your endurance.