I’m an old dance nerd, and I’ve been following So You Think You Can Dance since season 1, and have gone to see three of the live touring shows. The audition shows feature the good, the bad, and the “what are they thinking?” which give them an appeal quite different from the final competition. This season, an excellent young belly dancer auditioned in Atlanta and made it to Vegas, or what what some people refer to as “SYTYCD Boot Camp” – there they winnow the group down to 20 who will compete on the show.
The show ran a really sweet little background piece on Janelle, where you find out details of her dance technique, see her in several stunning costumes, and learn she’s Palestinian and living in Birmingham, AL. I love that this brief bio is sensitive, showcases her winning smile and lively personality. But best of all, this piece wasn’t one bit salacious – an unfortunate and all too common a practice in popular media. All-in-all, she’s a great representative of the latest generation of young rising stars in our field. It’s delightful to see a positive and upbeat presentation of our dance form.
Will our belly dancer make it through the rigors of Vegas?
Janelle is super-cute and very talented, so I’m hoping for the best – because I really think she can dance.
Grab your popcorn and settle in for a trio of videos featuring my #1 current obsession, assiut from the most recent Tribal Fest in Sebastapol, CA. For more information about this event, visit the Tribal Fest official website.
Kami Liddle
Superstar Kami Liddle has crafted a lovely skirt from an assiut shawl without cutting the fabric, To achieve this effect, the shawl is draped around her hips strategically tucked/pinned/snappied it into place at her hipline. This is a great idea if you have a shawl you would like to wear, but aren’t ready to cut and sew into a costume. Find out more about Kami.
Rachel Brice and Illan
Belly Dance Superstar Rachel Brice with her protege Illan of France. This is a beautifully crafted duet, and a joy to watch. Rachel is wearing a gorgeous two-toned assiut costume made in the retro-vintage-showgirl style that is currently popular in the world of tribal-fusion costuming. The shape of the bra and the swag of the blue assiut echo the styles of Erte and other glamorous flapper-era garments. Note too, how her accessories emphasize the retro-glam feel. More on Rachel here.
Suhaila Salimpour and Bal Anat
Founded by Jamila Salimpour in 1968, Bal Anat has long embraced and used assiut for traditional robes, stylized dance dresses and in hand-crafted bedlah sets. During their performance at Tribal Fest 2012, you can see how the fabric becomes the unifying element throughout this large group, but each costume is completely unique. This allows each dancer to have he own identity and still be a member of the group. Find out more about Suhaila and her studio here.
Nicole Simone wearing an Assiut Fusion Bra by Dawn Devine
Bras for Belly Dance Costuming Spring 2012
“Davina, What’s the best bra for making a belly dance costume?
The answer isn’t simple. There is no one single bra style that will fit and flatter everybody. Instead, you will have to get out to the stores and try bras on. When you go to shop for bras, take the kind of padding you would use in your bra and give it the stuff treatment. You might want to consider going up in cup size and down in band size. It’s common practice to remove the bra band, so the size is not as relevant, but if you are large busted, you might want to carry some bra extenders so you can try band sizes that are smaller than you would ordinarily wear. And remember – if you are shopping on line, don’t be afraid to return bras that aren’t working for you!
So, what features bra features should you look for? I always take these four things into consideration.
Underwires – Bras with sturdy underwires are more supportive.
Foam or padded cups – Bras that have substance will provide your costume with a sturdy base to stitch your embellishments to.
Coverage – Remember – this is a costume and not lingerie. You want to ensure that you have enough coverage to be comfortable in the public eye and with no risk of nipple exposure.
Budget – Buy the best you can afford – but don’t exceed your budget!
Here are a few of my current favorites to help you get started in your quest. Good Luck!
I’ve had my head down and my elbows up working on my next book, The Cloth of Egypt. Over the past few months, I’ve participated in some Bay Area performance. At each of these recent shows, I’ve made a point of wearing assiut, with the hopes of getting some lovely and useful photos of the event to use in the book. This photo, was taken by the talented photographer Alisha Westerfeld. This low-level shot really caught the glint of the assiut, but is, unfortunately, a bit too blurry for print.
However, I am pretty happy with the overall look of this picture! So I thought I would share a few details on how I created this look. My headdress base is a simple cotton turban made from a shawl rolled into a long tube and wrapped twice around my head and tucked. I topped this with my largest tiara.
This headdress is topped with an amazing assiut scarf. This long, narrow, and highly embellished scarf is modern assiut that I pounded, cleaned, and softened to achieve an almost vintage drape. To keep the assiut scarf in place, I used long pearl-tipped corsage pins strategically located to keep everything from moving throughout a high-energy cane dance.
Of course, this look began with my makeup. I was trying for a highly dramatic look, emphasizing my rather deep-set eyes to make them look very dark and intense. Using the tools over on the Polyvore website, I’ve constructed a “snapshot” of my makeup kit from that day. With the products pictured below, I created the look above. If you like the results, you might want to try some of these cosmetics for yourself.
Tribal Style Belly Dance Costuming modeled by Moria of Bellydance Super Stars
Belly Dance Fashion:
Bellydance Superstars
in AND magazine
Several of the featured performers with the Bellydance Super Stars troupe recently appeared in an article about belly dance costuming over in AND Magazine. Accompanied by a smoking hot collection of gorgeous photos of these talented dancers, the text of this brief article breaks belly dance fashion into two main categories, Oriental and Tribal. Although this breakdown might seem overly simplistic, it does reflect one of the great stylistic divides in the world of belly dance costume.
Oriental – This term, which I think is a great replacement for the now outmoded term “Cabaret” or the cumbersome “Show Girl,” features beads, sequins and rhinestones. The goal of this style is glitter and flash, shimmer and shine. For many people, this is the image that leaps to mind when you hear the word belly dance.
Tribal – Built on the same formula of bra, belt and skirt, the tribal style chooses heavy-metal embellishments pulled from a variety of old-world, indigenous cultures including coins, chains and jewelry components. Even though the term tribal is a relative newcomer in the belly dance world, this type of cultural pastiche has existed since the early part of the 20th century.
In my personal view of the belly dance world, I personally believe that in order to be more inclusive and have a more complete breakdown of costume and fashion, two more broad categories need to be added.
Ethnographic – Ethnographic or folkloric is an essential category of costuming which plays a vital role in the world of belly dance performance. Costumes in this category allow dancers to bring to the stage authentic presentations from distinct parts of the globe. Dancers wear ethnographic costuming to create a culturally specific story using regional movement, music and costume.
Fusion – This is a handy catch-all term that I would like to extricate from the exclusive domain of Tribal dancers and bring back into general use. Throughout the long history of belly dance in the US, dozens if not hundreds of costuming styles have been “fused” to bring different flavors and vibes to match any music or performance needs. From Bollywood-Fusion to Afro-Fusion, the whole world of fashion is used by designers to create a myriad of distinctive and unique styles.
The Bellydance Super Stars show is a well crafted piece of dance theater. It’s a show-girl show featuring beautiful star dancers, a lovely chorus line all clad in gorgeous costumes and dancing to fantastic Middle Eastern music. The show is structured to showcase the skill and beauty of belly dance at its highest, and most polished level. From early on in the Super Stars shows, the producers chose to contrast and highlight the Oriental vs. Tribal dichotomy.
Read the original article on AND that inspired this post here – and be sure to take a long look at the lovely photo album included with the piece. http://www.andmagazine.com/content/and_3605.php
I’m an old dance nerd, and I’ve been following So You Think You Can Dance since season 1, and have gone to see three of the live touring shows. The audition shows feature the good, the bad, and the “what are they thinking?” which give them an appeal quite different from the final competition. This season, an excellent young belly dancer auditioned in Atlanta and made it to Vegas, or what what some people refer to as “SYTYCD Boot Camp” – there they winnow the group down to 20 who will compete on the show.
Grab your popcorn and settle in for a trio of videos featuring my #1 current obsession, assiut from the most recent Tribal Fest in Sebastapol, CA. For more information about this event, visit the Tribal Fest official 
