SHAKE 09 Workshop Schedule..

STILL MORE TO FOLLOW!!

11.30-1 *Flamenco Basics with Solo Flamenco
*Double Veil with Azaria StarFire
*Burlesque with Mono

1-1.30 * Break.
* Performances outside on stage

1.30-3 *Stilt Walking with Mariosa Hume of StageCraft Ireland
*Brazilian Samba
*Wing of Isis with Azaria StarFire
*Tribal Fusion Gypsy Skirt Dance with Tribal Fit

3-4 *Circus Skills with Mariosa Hume of StageCraft Ireland
*Street Dance with Leondra Corbett (continues to 4.30)
*Disco with Azaria StarFire
*Shimmy Drills for BellyDance with Vawn O Niell (continues to 4.30)

4-4.45 *Break
*Performances outside on stage

4.45-6.15 * African Drums and Dance with Wassa Wassa
*Burlesque and Belly Dance Fusion with Mono
*Hawaiian Hula with Lisa Collins
*Tribal Fusion Pops and Locks with Tribal Fit

Followed by Evening Hafla
Live Music and DJ Eric Noon

Shakefest's annual family-friendly festival takes place at Tullamore's Charleville Castle on bank holiday weekend May 29th-30th. This year, the organisers of the dance workshop festival have taken a different approach and teamed up with fledgling charity organisation Peace Zone to create an all-day event with a twist.

Through the Universal language of Music, Peace Zone's mission is to create expanding space for Peace to happen in war-torn zones out of the collaborative work of ordinary people while bringing humanitarian aid to its afflicted communities. Because of its novelty, Peace Zone is seeking people who subscribe to its ideals and help it move forward with its objectives.

There are many organisations seeking peace around the world. But there are also countless numbers of places and situations where peace is badly needed and wanted but can’t be achieved because UN Peacekeepers can’t get there on time. PeaceZone is setting out to combine the goodwill and universal language of music with the hard experience of returned aid workers to field new civilian organised peace missions. For the first number of years we will seek to provide safe zones for three day cease fires to get urgently needed relief to communities under siege by war. Peace Zone is organising along the general lines of the Civil Defence taking its strength and common language from music lovers.

The May 30th event will involve dance workshops and performances, a peace concert, speakers, discussions on peace-building, photo exhibitions, poets and food stalls in the beautiful surroundings of Charleville Castle; its main purpose is to recruit like-minded individuals ready to make their mark.

Shakefest is in its fourth year running, continuing to provide high quality forms of international dance, energy and movement workshops - Shake's mission is to provide the cultivation of creativity within a world without borders in supporting the PeaceZone mission. Various ethnic dance and drum classes will be available throughout the day, with an emphasis on bellydance workshops. This year we enthusiastically present Specialty Bellydance Workshops such as Shimmy Combinations, Wings Choreographies, Veil Workshops, Belly Burlesque and Tribal Fusion as well as Gypsy Skirt dance. In addition we are proud to present to you great cultural workshops ranging from Brazilian Samba, Flamenco, African Drum and Dance and Bollywood. As exiting additions we have Basic Circus Skills, Stilt walking workshops and Disco for the adventurous.

SuperJimenez, Lauren Guillery, Chaplin, Erik Noon & The Future Gypsies are some of the acts on the bill for the peace concert and committed ambassadors of the Peace Zone mission. Advance booking for the workshops is advisable, please check www.shakefest.net for details. We are offering a great valued price of only €65 for a day pass including access to any four workshops between 11:30am to 6pm with camping, parking and PeaceZone acts included! Individual Workshop fees may vary.

Admission to Shakefest / Membership to Peace Zone:

€10 (adult)

€6 (12-17 years)

€4 (7-11 years)

Children up to 6 years old get in for free.

Admission is free for Peace Zone members (join on the day – just €10)

Camping available Peace Members at the giveaway price of €10 per person night.

For more info on Peace Zone, visit www.myspace.com/peacezoneireland

And http://www.shakefest.net

The Dancer's Path by Paulette Rees-Denis 22 day ago

The Dancer's Path

by Paulette Rees-Denis



Excerpted from Paulette Rees-Denis’s upcoming book
Tribal Vision, A Celebration of Life Through Tribal Belly Dance,
due out in June 2008.
Copyright 2008 Paulette Rees-Denis
paulette@gypsycaravan.us
www.gypsycaravan.us

...A definition of a dancer may be one who can express herself with and through her body, is comfortable in her body, and can move through space with grace, strength, meaning, and determination. She has the nonverbal skills to convey stories, ideas, and rhythms. A dancer considers her artistic and cultural aesthetics as she plans how she moves. She can evaluate the significance of her dance and her place within the overall dance form.

Dancing builds a strong body—a temple. Ultimately this temple is all we have. I preach sometimes to my students that if they want to take the dancer’s path, they must take care of their bodies—cross training through yoga, Pilates, and other fitness regiments. To use the body as a tool for expression is hard work that requires dedication.

Of course the individual level of commitment depends entirely on how far we want to take the dance for ourselves. Often women can only take one dance class per week, and they live for that weekly fix. Some dancers come every day; they just want more dance. The thrill of the dance becomes an addiction that feeds our desire to feel healthy and beautiful, to bond with ourselves and each other, and to live in the moment. Most women dance for fun and immediate gratification as well as for the long-term effect of physically feeling good. The dance helps them to accept their bodies or to take steps to redefine them.

Some physical effects of dancing are obvious, almost immediately. Starting on the inside, we learn how to breathe deeply, into our bellies, to fill ourselves up with our life-sustaining breath. Surprisingly, most people do not breathe deeply, but instead inhale only shallowly into the upper tip of the lungs. So in class we learn how to fill the belly with air and to synchronize our breath with our movements, inhaling on a certain motion, then exhaling on the next. It becomes about the transfer of energy, how we flow with our breath and how certain movements work better with the ins and outs of breathing. Breathing slowly takes learning to control the ins and outs of our breath, even holding the breath, and trusting that we will continue to breath. Taking the time to breath slowly helps to expel stale air from our lungs as we hollow them out, increasing the capacity for new oxygen and fresh air to be circulated. Breathing quickly builds aerobic capacity with our heart rate, quickly pumping fresh oxygen and its nutrients to our extremities, improving circulation and agility, as well as our thought processes. Both are important techniques to master, using breathe fully for the benefit of our mind and bodies.

More visibly, we work on posture, alignment, and what parts of our bodies—muscles, tendons, joints—need stretching or strengthening. We practice how to stand tall and present ourselves to the world. I’ve learned how to walk through a crowd and keep my head up and my eyes open. I can acknowledge people with confidence and compassion as I pass—reinforcing my belief that in our society we should communicate with neighbors and strangers.

A sense of pride can come from knowing ourselves and what we have accomplished because of learning to dance tribal style. It can be difficult to execute, memorize, and then improvise with the steps, solo or with another dancer. And it is cause for celebration on every level.
…
The power of tribal belly dance comes from the practice of improvisation. Improvising is problem solving at its finest. We learn to dance together, to watch and perceive each other, and to develop our own intuitive responses. One of us leads, and the rest follow, then we switch leaders. We be