For a chance to get your hands on a pair of tickets for the Vitality Show, where Hayaam Belly Dance School will be exhibiting,

- you need to enroll to or be currently enrolled on one of the courses starting this week and

- email hayaam@hayaam.com the right answer to the following question:

Who was the famous Egyptian Golden Era Belly Dancer who was in the film Tamr Henna?

Closing date: Saturday 25th February 2012

Result: Sunday 26th February 2012

The result will be published on the next newsletter and the winner will be notified by mail.

Good luck!!

I grew up in Sao Paulo city, Brazil. I’m from a humble family so life was very difficult. My father died when I was 16. My older brother was a victim of the violence of the capital. I always had to struggle to achieve anything, so since an early age I worked full-time and studied during the evenings. Sometimes I walked long distances to get to work, sometimes I didn’t have what to eat. Studies were always sacred to me so I always managed to get in the best schools and colleges which were funded by the government.

At 25 I got married and moved to the UK. I was very excited about the future, and was working hard to improve my English so I could get back to my maths degree I left unfinished in Brazil, when I started having family problems. I was lonely and felt isolated. Friendships I held dear became sour and my family didn’t seem to miss or care about me anymore.

I became depressed. All my will power and eagerness to learn died away. I was in my second year at university in London when I started counselling. At that moment I was feeling very low and trying hard to figure out what went wrong. I was scared.  Going through many self-help books I realised that I had to rebuild my self-belief and self-esteem. In order to achieve that, I started to re-define my values:  I needed to find out what was important to me and how I could achieve happiness; I needed to find myself.

During this search I realised that I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life. I knew that whatever I decided to do, it must be something I loved: something that could bring me the same passion, eagerness and sparkle in the eye a 3 year old child has when she is opening a Christmas present.  I knew that I would never achieve success unless I loved what I did. Since I also was looking forward to get back to a more active social life, I decided to find a hobby.

I was looking for something that could put me back in control and in touch with my body, soul and mind.  I always loved dancing and physical activities but I was searching for an activity that could awake my feminine side in a delicate and vivid way.  Something I always wanted but never had the opportunity to do.

It was then that my childhood belly dance outfit episode came back to my mind. And that made me remember that many years later I bought a professional belly dance costume in Sao Paulo to go to a fancy dress party. I brought it to the UK and had it in my wardrobe.

I started taking belly dance classes in London when I was 30 years old. I absolutely fell in love with it. There were women of all shapes and ages who performed which I found very encouraging as many of ballet dancers are considered too old to perform after their mid-twenties. I practiced a lot at home and started creating my own choreographies.

After 2 years I decided I wanted to take it seriously. I wanted (and still want) belly dance to be treated and respected like other types of dance such as ballet and flamenco, as an art form not only for fitness purposes but as a hobby. I noticed that belly dance nowadays is more focused in the costumes and the beauty of the dancer than the dance itself. I wanted something that could aggregate my values. I wanted to pass the power of belly dance to other women who were going through difficult times, the same way as I did.

So I decided to create Hayaam, the belly dance school.  I chose the name Hayaam, which means deliriously in love, because I wanted to be deliriously in love for everything in my life and wanted to pass this message across to all my students:  to have a positive attitude and frame of mind not only in class but with any aspects of life, always.

Students from different ages, shapes and backgrounds have been to my classes. It is both challenging and rewarding. The most rewarding part is to see my students’ confidence growing day by day and their progress in the school. The most challenging thing is to prove to people that my school is about dance as an art form. It is amazing to watch my students dancing so beautifully. I have big plans for the future and I’m looking forward to sharing them with my students.

From all my difficulties, pain and sometimes despair, I learned that no one will believe you unless you believe in yourself. If you believe in yourself others will start believing in you too. And then you can make your dreams come true:

“Our beliefs become our thoughts.
Our thoughts become our words.
Our words become our actions.
Our actions become our habits.
Our habits become our values.
Our values become our destiny.” – Gandhi

Image extracted from http://www.thevitalityshow.co.uk

Hayaam Belly Dance School will be exhibiting, teaching and performing at the in the Vitality Show 2012 - 22nd to 25th March. Performances and free classes will be at the Zest Fitness Park Thursday 22nd March at 5pm and Sunday 25th March at 4pm.

“Vitality Show, in association with Activia, is the UK’s largest health, beauty, fitness and wellbeing event for women and is guaranteed to make you feel revitalised, beautiful, fit and healthy.”

Come and support Hayaam Belly Dance School! If you would like to visit us at the Vitality Show, you can use the promotional code HAYAAMBD where you can buy 2 tickets for £22, saving £16. This code is valid until January 31st. To book your tickets, please visit the booking section on the Vitality Show website.

Viisit my profile and our Hayaam Belly Dance School profile at the Vitality Show website.

Click on the image to download your very own Hayaam Bellydance dress-up doll!

Help Hayaam to choose a costume for her belly dance performance!

“My belly dance experience so far has not only been absolutely fabulous but one of the most brilliant times of my life!

I had never considered belly dance classes until I was on a dancing holiday where a very young belly dancer student entertained our group with an evening demonstration. Having always had a passion for all types of dancing I found myself watching an captivating performance and was delighted when we were all invited to join in. I left the holiday yearning for more, but regretful that on reaching six decades the opportunity to shake my hips and shimmy were most likely far behind me.

How wrong I was! By chance, I mentioned belly dancing in conversation and was excited to learn that there were classes being held in my area by Hayaam Belly Dance School. I was surprised at this as I had always thought of belly dancing as being rather exotic and did not expect to find classes that were available locally to an ordinary wife and mother like me. I was already participating in other dance classes but felt compelled to take this challenge.

I will never forget my first lesson: we were gathered in a room with mirrors and the most wonderful music “Om Faraom” filled the air with its vibrant beat. My adventure into the exciting world of belly dance had begun.

We have a superb and very patient teacher who works extremely hard with us to improve our skills: her teaching methods and guidance make the technicalities of the steps clear to understand and with practice and dedication it is surprising how you can improve.

I had not realised how varied and intricate the steps would be but have thoroughly enjoyed the challenge that they present and the satisfaction received when they are achieved. Apart from the warm up movements we practice muscle isolations and work on choreography which is very rewarding. I often find myself starting to practice as soon as I wake up and throughout the day and evening whenever the opportunity arises.

The music is tremendous and fills your head with rhythm – it is hard to stand still whilst it is playing. I find I am listening to belly dance music more and more at home as time goes by.

In my own experience, apart from the sheer enjoyment of the dance, I have found that belly dancing not only increase one’s sense of well-being and general fitness but also enhances co-ordination and balance. It is also great fun and once you start you do not want to stop. I am very grateful to my teacher for bringing the art of belly dance into my life.

When I first started my classes I was a little worried about my age as I was dancing alongside others much younger than myself. It was not long before I realised that I was able to do it and that age is not a barrier in belly dance and I would recommend it to all ages. I think it is important in life when you are young not to waste time and as the years pass not to give up. It has to be said that I start the class at age 60 and by the time I am halfway through I look in the studio mirror and see a 21 old dancing back at me! That has to be good!

I read somewhere that belly dance or raqs sharqi was originally created by a musician who was so fascinated with the movement from side to side of a women’s hips that he decided to make up a dance to put this movement to a music. I do not know whether this is true or not but the movement and music certainly do go very well together and it seems a very nice story to believe.

I am passionate about belly dance: it is fabulous, tremendous, brilliant, fantastic, wonderful, delightful, elegant, charming, etc. Why waste valuable time – give it a try! My only regret is that I did not try sooner!”

There are a number of steps that, if followed in order, can help you achieve that.

1- Piece of music:

The first and most important step is choosing your performance music. All the other steps will depend on it. By choosing a piece of music you are implicitly choosing the style you are going to dance (tribal, classical, folkloric, etc) and so it will influence on the costuming and performance. There are a some tips about belly dance music on this article: Music for belly dance class, performance and practice.

2- To make a choreography or to improvise?

Remember that your choreography or improvisation should be in synchrony with the music and in harmony with the mood and emotion of the music. If you decide to create your choreography, there are 2 previous articles that can be useful: 7 Steps to make your choreography creation process easier and 5 tips to improve your belly dancing performance. If you decide to improvise, it will be necessary to rehearse your movements too.

3- Belly dance costume:

The belly dance costume choice is based upon the music and choreography you are performing. Is the song happy, sad, mysterious, upbeat or suspenseful? What is the message you want to send? Is your choreography delicate, soft, with lots of turns and arm movements or is it sharp, abrupt, fast with lots of jumps? What costume shapes, colours and accessories match with that? Choose a costume which emphasise your movements and is in harmony with the music. There are some websites suggestions on this article about where you can buy costumes

4- Belly dance make-up:

Make-up for belly dancing also should make sense with the above steps. However, imagine you are performing a certain number of pieces and you are changing costumes throughout. You will need a versatile makeup which can be suitable to all your performances. Choose colours that match with most of yours costumes or colours that highlight your facial features and qualities. The article tips for belly dance makeup has some useful makeup tutorial which can be very useful.

There are amazing videos explaining about ATS makeup and costuming on Fat Chance Belly Dance website. The videos are from Tribal Basics Vol.2 Make Up and Costume which is discontinued but it is available on the website and as a booklet written by Carolena Nericcio creator and founder of FCBD

There are 13 videos in total which you can see on FCBD website:

Tribal Basics Vol 2 Makeup and Costume DVD

The video 03/13, which explains about colours, can be seen below:

Cleopatra

Haifa Wehbe

Arabic Eyes

Soft Makeup

If you are far from Egypt you will realise there are not many belly dance suppliers near you. There are many belly dance suppliers on the internet though. You will notice most of the suppliers who have internet websites are based abroad, US mainly.

Belly dance costumes are expensive in general so it is quite tricky to find costumes for students or for dancers who have just started their journey but if you make some research it is possible to find beautiful and affordable costumes.

If you are just starting and you don’t want to spend too much money yet, I recommend the following websites:

eBay

Egyptian Dreams

Belly Dance Shoop

Miss Belly Dance

Belly Dance Diva

The Dancers World

For Oriental, ATS and tribal fusion professional costumes, I recommend the following:

Dahlal

Bella Costumes

Bellydancer Costume

Brighton Orient

Bellydance Store

Isis Exchange

Isis Imports

Legend Costumes

Sharifwear

Bellydance

Flying Skirts

Velvet Peacock Designs

Moondance Belly Dance

Pedralta

Tribe Zuza

Dancing Rahana

Fat Chance Belly Dance

There are amazing videos explaining about ATS makeup and costuming on Fat Chance Belly Dance website. The videos are from Tribal Basics Vol.2 Make Up and Costume which is discontinued but it is available on the website and as a booklet written by Carolena Nericcio creator and founder of FCBD

There are 13 videos in total which you can see on FCBD website:

Tribal Basics Vol 2 Costume and Makeup

The video 09/13, which explains about bra and belt, can be seen below:

This year was truly a challenging and rewarding one to Hayaam Belly Dance School. We faced many difficuties too. I would like to thank you all from the bottom of my heart for supporting the school and being present in my life during the whole year: It would not be possible to get by with a little help of my friends!

Wishing you and your family a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year with lots of achievements and happiness!

With lots of love and looking forward to seing you in the New Year!