15th
July 2009
Dear LUTSF
Arabesque Pro course,
July 7-18 2008
Please find
attached my report from the studying which you were kind enough to fund my
travel for last year. I cannot apologise enough about the first report which
seems to have gone astray at my end, and recently I have been unable to
organise anything due to my father passing away.
I was able
to attend the full training course provided by Arabesque including workshops
with international performers, instructors, actors, costumiers, musicians and
many more.
Highlights
included being given the opportunity to perform live with Arabic Orchestra (of
which there are none in the
LUTSF was
invaluable in making this study possible, and this is a unique way to help
dancers achieve their goals by further study and travel.
I regularly
write articles about my experiences in
Anyway, I
hope that this is all correct now and thank you again for making this trip
possible for me.
Kind regards,
Shema (Emma Lucy Cole)
REPORT FROM EMMA COLE
Review of
by Shema
Ever since
I first saw Yasmina Ramzy teach a workshop in
I was
thrilled when my application was accepted and I feel so honoured to have been
given the opportunity to learn from so many experienced and passionate
individuals that I wanted to review the course for any of you who are
considering moving to the next level in your dancing careers.
So, how did
it begin? The first step was to apply with a clip of myself dancing and the
reasons for taking part in the course, which is no small commitment- 2 weeks
(more than 60 hours) of studying at the academy, with a 7 hour flight either
side was difficult to fit into my schedule, but proved to be worth it!
Fortunately, I was also able to take a week either side of the course to
recover from the jet-lag (highly recommended!) and experience living in the
city for a short while. This itself was invaluable and enabled me to get to
know not only the culture, but a few of the locals too. The next stage for me
involved an application to the Lisa Ullman Travelling
Scholarship Fund, who generously agreed to give me a grant for the flights to
and from
After 6
months of planning, worrying, packing (and re-packing), I arrived late
afternoon into Toronto’s Pearson Airport, absolutely exhausted (and having made
some new and dubious friends whilst stretching on the plane!) and made my way
into the city by coach. Imagine my surprise when the driver changed his route
to drop me nearer to the B&B- my first indication of the generosity of the
Canadian people! This was closely followed by a walk to the B&B straight
through the heart of
I spent my
first week exploring the city which would take pages to describe in any detail
but the main things which I noticed were the friendliness and inclusiveness of
the people and how multi-cultural the city is. I also learned quickly that
taking a book to dinner when you are on your own saves endless hours of staring
into space and re-reading of the cocktail menu!! I was able to see Arabesque
After a
week of walking endlessly around the city, eating at more restaurants than I
have in the past 2 years and training furiously to get fit for the upcoming
course, the day finally dawned and I made my way 1 block south of my B&B to
the Academy. We were a varied group of women- 3 are from the academy and in
training for the troupe/teaching, 3 were from a studio in
I was quite overwhelmed by the first
day- we spent time discussing where a professional dancer could perform these
days and talking about integrity and presenting the dance as respectable. What
comes across very strongly from Yasmina is how determined she is that
Bellydance be recognised as an Art Form and a valid form of dance expression.
Just the fact that she has collaborated on projects over the years with so many
other dance professionals (and is on the board of some major dance
organisations in Toronto) shows how committed she and the other members of
Arabesque are to portraying the dance as unique and expressive as are many of
the other more mainstream dance arts. You may notice that the Arabesque
literature does not refer to the troupe members as ‘dancers’, but rather as ‘
Prior to
the start of the course, we were told comparatively little about the actual
content. This actually proved to be a great tactic and avoided too many nerves
about what to expect so I am not going to list in detail every workshop and
experience we had- if any of you are tempted to enrol then I think that the
beauty of this course is that you take from it what you need personally as a
performer, artist and individual. However, I would like to mention a few
highlights which have had a huge and long-lasting effect on me both as a dancer
and on a more personal level.
Firstly, Arabesque runs a weekly
event called ‘Layali Arabesque’ at which you can sit,
drink Retsina, eat a Greek salad and watch the city’s
best Bellydancers perform with the fantastic
Arabesque Orchestra before hitting the dance floor to the live music of Oum Kalsoum and many other
classics and more modern pieces. If you get the chance to visit 
is a rare treat and what I noticed
most about the orchestra is how much they love their jobs! They feed off the
energy which the audience gives them and if the dance floor is buzzing, then so
are they- a most talented yet humble group of musicians (and really nice guys
too!). Midway through the course, Yasmina herself performed at ‘Layali’ and despite a few technical sound issues, the
evening was wonderful. It really shows when a dancer knows the musicians to the
depth that Yasmina does and the way that they worked together was
inspirational- the whole restaurant was filled with people and we all felt very
lucky to have the chance to share in the experience.
During the
programme, Yasmina had arranged for visiting ‘lecturers’ as well as running
workshops herself. These covered Marketing, Persian and Azerbaijani dance,
Egyptian Folklore, History of dance and costume in Egypt, How to dance with
live musicians, Meditation and Stage Presence, Acting, Choreography, Working in
Theatres, Ballet/Movement, Improvisation, Image and Costuming, Arabic Music
structure and Instruments, Singing in Arabic and of course, our performance at
‘Al Haima’ on the Saturday mid-way through the
course. This was accompanied by 4 musicians and had an audience of around 40
dancers, friends and interested parties, who encouraged us no end as we
improvised. We had only 6/7 minutes, so could choose 2 from an Opening, Finale,
Taqsim, Drum Solo or Song. I decided to go for a Song
and ‘Mawal’ (voice improvisation without a beat
behind it) sung by Bassam Bishara
who I cannot praise enough for his skill, generosity and ability to make all of
us look good even when we got a little lost! Although all of us were terrified
at the thought of performing our new skills in public, it was a tremendous
opportunity and everyone rose to the occasion beautifully.
We
spent the whole of Monday analysing and studying the videos of the show and
giving each other feedback and were given a copy of the whole show to take home
for posterity (and, no doubt, many hours of agonising re-plays to figure out
how to make it perfect next time!).
We could also take up to 12 academy classes during the course- I’m not sure if
everyone got through them all- we reached saturation point after a while and my
thighs were refusing to do any more dancing after the first week, but it
enabled us to put some of what we were learning into practice and for those of
us new to the Academy, it was a useful insight into the style and techniques
taught.
At this
point I ought to talk about some of the less-positive elements of the course,
but I have to say that I am hard-pushed to find any. It’s worth noting that the
price quoted does not include tax (almost everything in Canada has tax added on
top of the advertised price) so make sure that you allow a little extra
although with the current exchange rate, it is fabulous value for money. It was
also a shame in a way that we weren’t all staying together (most of the dancers
were local so went home each night) but then I think if we had been, the
intensity might have been too much and affected the group dynamics negatively.
One other suggestion would be for us to spend some more time with the
Professional Troupe at the Academy and to see how the Pro Course had affected
their practice- we rarely had time to chat to the girls and it might have been
nice to learn from their progress as teachers and performers. Beyond that, I
can find little to criticise. Yasmina and her team put together an incredible
journey 
for us all- challenging but not
terrifying and all conducted in a way which never once made us feel inadequate
or even remotely like giving up!
If anyone
would like to chat about my experiences at Arabesque, then please contact me
via my website www.tangerina.org.
Since writing this
article, Shema has moved to