Ideas, hints and tips on improving your dance from practice to performance.
One of the projects for the book, Cloth of Egypt: All About Assiut, was a lovely turquoise and blue bra for the illustrious dancer Princess Farhana of Hollywood. While I was vending at Cairo Caravan in June, I worked on this project. Here are some quickie phone snapshots of me working on this amazing bra! The final finished project will be featured on the back cover of the book. Princess Farhana will receive this lovely costume piece at Carnival of Stars in August!
Last weekend, I had the pleasure of working on a dance costume for one of my models, Shalimar, for an upcoming performance in Las Angeles. We were under a deadline, and I had to crank out the outfit soup-to-nuts in 2 days. Since I’ve been working on the step-by-step construction portion of my upcoming book, The Cloth of Egypt: All About Assiut, I thought this would be a great opportunity to quickly test drive some of my ideas for the photography in the book.
Using my trusty cell phone and the power of Instagram, I very quickly documented the progress. The result was a series of step-by-steps that really work – but the photos are not quite up to publishing quality. However, rather than wasting them, I decided to hammer together this quick tutorial on my belt making method. This is sized for 8.5″ by 11″ so you can print it out if you like. Wanna see the final costume? You can scroll down and watch the video of Shalimar in her “test drive” performance on Wed before the big show on Friday night. We’ll be doing formal photography of this baby in a couple of weeks, and I’m looking forward to spotlighting this ensemble in my upcoming book!
It is my pleasure to introduce you to Poppy Maya, international dance star and costume designer. She’s been taking design classes with me for the past six months, and I’m pleased to unveil her first major class project, a rhinestone and assiut bedlah set. Already an accomplished designer when she arrived in the Bay Area from the UK, we’ve been working together to hone her natural eye and fill her intellectual tool box with loads of strategies and techniques for designing and making unique, high quality and beautifully sewn belly dance costumes.
The project that we’ve collaborated on is absolutely lovely and extremely versatile. The design brief I gave Poppy was to design a bra and belt set using an assiut border pattern of pyramids, rhinestones and silver egyptian fringe. The result? See for yourself! Because the color palette is black and silver, this ensemble can be paired with a wide variety of skirt colors and shapes, taking this ensemble from high glam to fusion.
Poppy will be appearing in my upcoming book, The Cloth of Egypt, demonstrating the wardrobing versatility of this rhinestone embellished assiut bedlah. In the course of one afternoon-long photography session, photographer Alisha Westerfeld caught at least nine different looks, some which are quite transformative. But rather than tell you, here’s a peek at Poppy’s costume in action, paired with a straight-cut white tiger patterned skirt. I shot this video at the Bean Scene coffee shop in Sunnyvale, California, at the February Love Raks party hosted by Paloma, owner of Lunatic Fringe. I call my video “company” Shaky Stick Productions (because I shoot on a monopod and it’s still a bumpy ride,) but I hope you enjoy watching Poppy in action!
One of the best ways to keep your skin looking its best when on the road or in the air is to pack a kit of moisturizing essentials. I like to keep a kit packed and ready in an approved zip-lock baggie in my dance kit. Then, when the next event is around the corner, I can grab and go! Even if I’m not traveling far, I keep these items stashed in my kit, because really, should a girl ever be with out some lip balm and sunglasses?
