Category: Belly Dance

Ideas, hints and tips on improving your dance from practice to performance.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Post author By Davina
Post date November 26, 2014

There is nothing like a tasty treat on one of the USA’s most important holidays, Thanksgiving. So, to celebrate, I’ve begun to put up the videos from our party, Assiut Fest, held back in August. We had an incredible lineup of dancers and a great turn out. This is a performance from that show by the lovely Bay Area rising star Basinah performing to classic music in a retro fusion costume that appears in Cloth of Egypt. Video was shot by Mark Scott and edited by Jerry Case. Thanks to everyone who came to the event, supported the production of the book, bought me coffee, or just gave me a shoulder to cry upon! You, my friends, family, and fans, are what I am most thankful for this Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving!
Dawn Devine ~ Davina

PS: The book is done, so I get to work on some of my project backlog, including putting up a collection of videos from Assiut Fest. If you want to see more as they become available, you can subscribe to my YouTube channel.

Assiut/Assuit Belly Dance Costuming DIY Design General Publications

“The Cloth of Egypt: All About Assiut” is Done!

Post author By Davina
Post date November 5, 2014

I’m so pleased to announce that my book, The Cloth of Egypt: All About Assiut is now available for sale for the introductory price of $29.95. When the book is available on Amazon.com in late November, it will retail for $34.99.

Thank you all for sharing this amazing journey from concept to finished product! I hope enjoy my book, I’m so very proud of it!

Dawn Devine ~ Davina

Assiut/Assuit Belly Dance Design General

Pinterest and Assiut – A Love Affair

Post author By Davina
Post date September 1, 2014

Hello Gang!

I love Pinterest! I find it to be an exceptional tool for both research and design. It gives the user the ability to save not only a link, but the key image as well. You have the power to annotate the image, share it with friends near and far, or in private. As a research, it has allowed me to create an inspiration board for assiut – and a links list to sellers, costumers, researchers, and fans like me. As a designer, pinterest gives me the tools to organize my images in any way I like, by project, subject, color, or fabrication. At the moment I write this, the assiut board curated by me, and my Cloth of Egypt co-author Alisha Westerfeld has over 970 images, with links to explore.

I have enjoyed having the power to share my visual research instantly with the world.

Wanna see more assiut? Follow the link below. Enjoy!

Assiut/Assuit Belly Dance Costuming DIY Publications

Book Report: The Cloth of Egypt Status – We’re Almost Done!

Post author By Davina
Post date July 22, 2014

Hello Gang!

The Cloth of Egypt: All About Assiut is nearing completion and I’m so happy to be closing in on the end of this project! I’m in the final week of layouts. Next step: Editing! Right now, the book is sitting in that 250-260 page mark, each day that I work on the final layouts, it goes up a spread or down a spread depending on the flow of the content and images. I think we’re four weeks from being absolutely complete! The next phase of the book production includes sending the book out to our editors, collecting the edited documents, integrating edits into the final book, and then ordering proofs from the printer. It’s a multi-week process and the end is definitely in sight!

The screen shots below represent 12 spreads taken at random from the four major sections of the book. As you can see, it’s filled with images that support the information. My co-author, Alisha Westerfeld has done an outstanding job with the bulk of the images, and along with a handful of extraordinarily talented photographers, this publication has become a visual delight.

Ultimately, I want this book to be a really good value when you pick it up! I’m so very proud of how far I’ve come, and I’m looking forward to sharing the finished book with you soon! At this point, the book release will be sometime between August 20 and Sept 15, depending on the speed of my editors, the efficiency of the proofing process with the printer, and as long as their are no major glitches, your copy will be available soon!

So enjoy this sneak peek!
Thanks for joining me on this adventure!

~ Dawn Devine ~ Davina

ps – Remember, you can email me if you have questions – davina@davina.us
pps – I’m really looking forward to getting back to blogging on a regular basis – I have so many projects to share with you that didn’t even MAKE it into the book. As soon as we hit “print,” I’ll be back at work here on Costumer’s Notes! Until then – Happy Costuming! ~ D