I recently attended the recent Gaslight Expo steampunk convention as a speaker and workshop leader.  I’ve been so busy over the past two months, that I really didn’t have a lot of time to invest in a new costume to fit the theme of Tiki. I knew that I had a couple of old bowling themed aloha shirts hanging in the back of the closet.  So I excavated those old shirts, gave them a wash and contemplated all of the potential things I could do with them.

Right: Sample from my 3-D Bead Embroidery Demo/Workshop

However, I was so freaking busy the three weeks before the convention I was focussed on getting a bedlah set completed for a customer and my workshop completed for the Belly Dance Bundle 2018.

Basic Aloha Bowling Shirt

I headed south to stay with my family the week before the event, and I took along the pair of shirts, thinking I would wear them as is.  I had purchased these shirts many years ago when I was a competitive bowler. Back in the day, I was so excited to have bowling themed shirts, that I bought one in each color.

Left: Blue Bowling Aloha Shirt, before the redesign

For a red-hot second, I almost abandoned the project, figuring I could just wear the shirt as-is.  But after talking to my family, they encouraged me to take an hour and do something wonderful with it. I wasn’t feeling particularly creative, but I thought I should at least try.

Taking Two Shirts and Creating One Garment

My design mind came up with a lot of complicated things to do with this shirt. First I considered using both shirts to make a dress, disregarding the shirt-shape and treating the cloth like yardage.  I didn’t think that was a reasonable 1-hour project, so I contemplated other approaches.

The next thought was to do a parti-colored shirt or dress that was half blue and half tan. This seemed like a fast way to transform the two garments into something new and different.

Redesign Process

Once I had decided to simply combine the two shirts into one, I made a simple four-step order of construction.

1. Cut the shirts in half up the back
2. Pin the left side of one color to the right side of the other color.
3. Machine sew the back seam.
4. Swap pockets.

Cut Shirts in Half:  I carefully folded each shirt up the center back. For this project, I used my mum’s fabric shears and standard pins.  I folded the shirt in half, pinned the fold in place, and cut along the fold.  You can see what the tan shirt looked after cutting the back.

Pin the back seam:  Using standard pins, I pin the left side to the right side. For straight line sewing, I like to place my pins perpendicular to the seam.  As I sew, I pull the pins, rather than sew over them.

Machine sew the back seam: My mum let me use her machine.  This Brother is what I recommend in my sewing classes for new students.  It’s a very affordable kit that includes a lot of great tools and accessories for an amazing price. It’s nice to sew on it and remind me how nice this machine is and that I’m still glad to recommend it.

Swap Pockets:  Well, since I was chatting and socializing with my mum and brother, didn’t quite make it that far!  But this detail can happen later.  I decided to stop at this place because the shirt was wearable.

If I had started to take the pockets off, I would have been committed to finishing that step, which was much bigger than the other three.  It would require spending a lot of time with a seam ripper to remove the two pockets.  Then I would have to pin the pocket into place and then carefully top-stitching it into place. I just didn’t have the time or focus to tackle this last step.

Done is Good!

As a designer, you get to decide when a project is done.  Since I committed to working for just an hour, I stopped at a good stopping point!  Although this may not have seemed like a huge change, I had so many people ask me where I got this unusual shirt.  I’m glad my mum challenged me to do something with my old shirts!

In the fullness of time, I can swap the pockets out, or just choose to leave this restyled shirt just as it is.  Either way, I had a wonderful time wearing my old/new creation.  Are there any garments in your closet that you can use as a basis for creating a new design?

I wish you luck in all of your sewing and costuming adventures!
Davina ~ Dawn Devine
Oct. 9, 2018

 

PS: Here’s a photo of my mum’s sewing machine.  She purchased it from Amazon.com using prime for around $100.  Prices vary from moment-to-moment, but here’s a link to check it out if you are in the market for a  budget sewing machine.

Hello Gang!  This is part two of a series on how I put together costume history presentations. At the time of this writing, I’m in the final stages of prepping a digital workshop entitled “The Birth of Bedlah.” This lecture and handout will be available as part of the Belly Dance Bundle, a collection of digital informational products by professional teachers, dance scholars, and touring professionals from around the globe.  Visit the Bundle website for more details and a list of the amazing products included in this year’s sale.

The 2018 Belly Dance Bundle will be available for
sale for $199 the week of October 4 – 10.

Why do I enjoy participating in the Bundle?  Because it’s a STEAL of a DEAL.  It’s like attending the best workshop weekend or dance intensive from the comfort of my own living room, and on my own timeline.

Sourcing Historic Images

Yesterday, a member of my Studio Davina Facebook Group asked where I find all of these vintage images. While I cannot go into detail about the research process, I can say that the images in this talk come from three sources.

My Private Collection

Over the past 30 odd years, I’ve been collecting vintage postcards featuring images that suit my research. Ephemera is one of the things that I actively look for in person at antique stores, yard sales, vintage shops, antique malls, swap meets, and ephemera sales. I also keep my eye peeled for postcards for sale all around the globe. Over the years, I’ve made connections with dealers who have a “wish list” and contact me when they locate items I might be interested in. This is my own ongoing treasure hunt that is one part hobby and one part business.

Above: A dance troupe poses for a promotional photo in the 1920’s

Research Libraries and Archives

I have conducted a great deal of research through the digital archives of major libraries, historical archives, and museums.  Some of the most useful has been the Library of Congress in Washington DC, the New York Public Library, and The National Portrait Gallery, London.  If you plan on conducting a lot of research, I recommend a little trick that I use.  I keep a “note” on my main computer and in my cloud storage with a collection of links to all of my favorite research sources along with notes to special collections in those locations.  Here’s a screen grab of part of my research list.

General Internet Image Searches

There are two main places where I perform digital image searches on the web, Google and Pinterest.  Most of the visual material that I’m looking for are in the public domain.  When I source an image I will do one of three things:

• If it’s available for sale, I buy an original or copy.
• If it’s on a non-commercial website, I’ll save the full page citation to Evernote.
• If it’s in a major holding or collection, I only save the image, link, and citation.

Over the years, I’ve seen personal hobby websites come and go.  Beautiful private collections will sometime disappear when a domain registration lapses or life gets in the way.  I pay for cloud storage so that I will be able to preserve not only the image but the context in which it was shared.

Prepping Images

Here’s a great example of what I do to prep images.  One of the images I wanted to create was a casual collage of six postcards.  I choose six different “Salome” pictures to use as part of this particular lecture.

For more info on my Salome collection check out this blog post. 

I laid the postcards out on a table and arranged them until I had a nice composition. To keep the eye moving around the image, I choose the top left and right images to face inwards to the center of the composition.  The rest are all ladies who are looking directly at the camera.

Scan the Images

For the best quality image results, I took the time to scan the selected images.  Scanned images are crisper, cleaner, and essential for achieving print-quality 300 dpi images. This step is a bit “extra” for a web video. But since I was flipping through all of these images anyways, I took the time to scan.  Future me will be grateful!

Photoshop Edits

These postcards vary in color from a light cream to a deeper sepia hue.  To make them more uniform, I changed the photo to black-and-white.  This creates the more uniform look I was aiming for. To further improve the legibility of the images, I adjusted the contrast.  Next, I brightened up the top right-hand corner, lightening the table with a highlight tool. The last step was to use the crop tool to tighten up the image.

Once all the images are selected, scanned, and prepped, I then plunk them into the slide deck.  Next on the list is working on the video portion of the workshop so keep your eyes peeled for the third in this series.

Now – off to put on some makeup and shoot some video!

Happy Dance and Costume,
Dawn Devine ~ Davina
Sept. 27, 2018

Read Part One of the “Birth of Bedlah” Putting Together a Workshop Series.

Hello gang! This week I’ve begun work on translating my “Birth of Bedlah” workshop into digital form. I was invited to join the Belly Dance Bundle 2018, and my contribution to this group project is this fun and informative hour-long workshop. I thought I would take a moment to share my process in putting together this workshop.

I’ve been using the title The Birth of Bedlah for workshops for many years. Over time, I’ve continued my research on the cut, color, materials, and construction of the bedlah set. “Bedlah” is the Arabic word for “uniform,” and today is used to describe the glamorous costume of the working professional belly dancers. This workshop focusses on a 40-year time span and traces the development of the modern dance uniform.

Art History Methods

My passion for research began in college where I studied art history, with a focus on costume history. As a graduate student, I learned to prep and present lectures using the art historical method. Back in the ’90s, we were still using slides, light tables, and loupes to layout our lectures. noisy projectors for presentation.

Today, everything is digital and that means that presentations are no longer limited to a single room. Teachers can now share their information with students around the world. This year, I’ve made it my mission to develop new methods for putting together digital workshops. It’s been a year of experimentation and I feel like I’m finally dialed in.

Research Review

For me, costume history is the art of stringing together images and piecing facts together like puzzle pieces to create a cohesive story that supports the understanding of our past. I do this by sifting through the ephemera and teasing out new information from the archive and asking key questions of how and why. Why did people choose these materials, shape, style, and how did they put these garments together. On my research journey, I’ve collected thousands of vintage images, including photographs, artwork, and ephemera. 

To organize my research, I use Evernote, a cloud-based information organizational tool. Here’s a sample from my “Salomania” notebook. Evernote allows me to save digital information from across the web and make notes related to the content. The best part is that it’s totally searchable, so I work in keywords into the labels and text and I can find things easily.

Prep the Outline

Because I’ve taught this workshop many times before, I already had a fully developed outline. But I like to take it from a text document into a more flexible and visual format that relates to the style of presentation. Each sticky note represents a single slide and because they are easily moved around, I can adjust and play with the flow of the talk.

Money Saving Tip: These post-its and 3 brightly colored folders at my local Dollar Tree.

Select Images to Illustrate the Themes

As time has passed and my visual reference collection has grown. Each time I prep for a new presentation, I like to freshen up the slide deck. Since my work and research is ongoing, I often find images that are better quality or simply illustrate the points better. Over the past four years, I’ve been lucky to work with professional dancer Shalimar on a trio of pink three-piece bedlah sets. I like to include examples of recent designs at the beginning and end of the presentation.

Love those pink sleeves on the left? I used my sleeve pattern to make them! Read more here.

Build Slides

I’m a “Mac Girl” and my computer came with built-in presentation software called Keynote. You might have access to PowerPoint which is a Microsoft product. Google Slides is a free, web-based alternative. I take my sticky note outline and start to build my slides, choosing the images from my digital files, and dropping them onto the slides. My two rules of thumb are: use less than 5 images and keep text to a minimum.

Find out more about Constance Collier in this blog post.

My goal with each slide is to tell one mini-story. I look for interesting images that my attendees will find interesting, informative, and inspirational. The slide above is from a lecture called “Orientalism on Stage.” This presentation includes dancers, actresses, and opera singers from 1875 – 1940. Miss Constance Collier portrayed Cleopatra in Shakespeare’s “Anthony and Cleopatra” of 1906.

“The Birth of Bedlah” Workshop in The Bellydance Bundle

Are you interested in the “The Birth of Bedlah” digital workshop? Visit the Belly Dance Bundle website and get on their mailing list. This week-long sale begins on October 4th and includes a tremendous collection of belly dance information, tools, classes from industry leaders located around the globe.

Get a Free Digital Guide
Just for joining the Bundle email list

If you have questions about all the things that are included in The Bellydance Bundle, visit their website. There is more detailed information about my contribution, the “Birth of Bedlah” digital workshop, visit this page here on my website. I still have some work to do with this presentation. Be sure to check out my next blog post to see more details on how I put this workshop together.

Back to work on my workshop!
Happy Dance and Costuming,
Dawn Devine ~ Davina
September 14, 2018

One of my favorite things to find in my email box is a great belly dance-themed newsletter.  If you are like me, you love looking at dancer photos, reading articles, watching videos, listening to podcasts about belly dance!

Print Magazines – Gone but not forgotten

I miss the day when I subscribed to numerous belly dance magazines that would arrive in my snail mail box. Back then, I kept a stack of mags next to my cozy reading chair for quiet moments.  What great memories!  I even had my own one-off Cloth of Egypt themed Costumer’s Notes digital magazine printed. It is great to have a tangible memory of the project that I can thumb through.

Today, I instead of waiting for a physical magazine, I look forward to belly dance-themed email.  With the proliferation of different media types, a newsletter is the best way for creative producers to tell us all about their latest content. What I love is that I don’t have to search to find information.

Email Newsletters Offer Curated Content

Perhaps the best reason to sign up for a newsletter is to receive curated content.  When you sign up for a mailing list from a content creator, you are receiving information that they have created themselves or have selectively picked to align with their style, technique, or methodology. Here is a collection of a few of my top “must reads” from the world of belly dance.

The Belly Dance Chronicles Magazine

Isis and the Star Dancers of Texas produce the long-running magazine, The Belly Dance Chronicles.  This magazine has been filled with useful information, event and product reviews, interviews with celebrity dancers, and loads of photos.

Formerly, The Chronicles was a print magazine with a subscription fee.  However, today the Chronicles is now a digital magazine and absolutely free!  

You read that right – FREE! 

All you have to do is visit their website and sign up for their newsletter and they will alert you when new issues are available!  Find out more details about the magazine here.

Belly Dance Geek Clubhouse

Produced by Nadira Jamal of Boston, this wonderfully informative website and newsletter offer two podcasts. The Belly Geek Clubhouse is an interview style Q&A with belly dance industry leaders from all areas of our dance art.  

Nadira also has a podcast called “More Than Steps” where she discusses belly dance costumes one coffee-run at a time. Signing up for her Belly Dance Geek Clubhouse will ensure you never miss one of these informative podcasts. You can listen to past episodes using your favorite podcatcher.  Here’s a link I use to listen on iTunes.

Mahin’s Belly DanceQuickies 

Mahin of Phoenix has an amazing email newsletter Belly Dance Quickies that she sends out three times a week. No matter where you are in your dance journey, Mahin has content that is informative and inspirational.

Wednesday Watcher – Mahin shares a curated list of high-quality, interesting, and informative belly dance videos.  She includes embedded links to sites like YouTube where you can watch some excellent vintage and modern dance clips.

Friday Grab Bag – This is a delightful mix of blog posts, links to informational articles and resources.

Sunday in the Studio: Each week, Mahin presents a free mini-class, tutorial, or demo that takes place in her Phoenix-based dance space One World Dance and Music Studio.

Zameena Newsletter 

Published by the UK based belly dance vendor Zara’s Zouk.   Each Zameena newsletter is written by different dancer authors from around the world, providing a global perspective on our dance arts. 

If you follow this link, you can check out some of the past issues.   Each issue contains one substantial article and lots of information about UK dance events and products in the store. Sign up for the newsletter here.

Costumer’s Notes

I’m going to take a moment to include a quick note about my own newsletter.  My mission for each of my newsletters is two parts. The opening of the newsletter is a note to update my friends, family, and fans on what’s happening in my little corner of the universe.

Then as you scroll down, you will find lots of links to articles and information from around the globe.  In each issue, there’s a curated list of 6 – 10 links to newspaper and magazine articles, Vimeo and YouTube videos, as well as blog posts by top dancers from around the globe.

If you are interested in receiving my “Costumer’s Notes” newsletter you can sign up here.

What are you favorite belly dance-themed digital magazines and newsletters?  Join the conversation over in the Studio Davina – Behind the Seams group on Facebook.

I hope your email is filled with inspiration and information!
Dawn Devine ~ Davina
August 27, 2018