opening night of this overly stimulating and visually exciting event in adelaide, australia! great photos ops for me….

I was just sent more photos from the lovely event, Tribalesque, in Adelaide, taken by Michael Coppola.

The Caravan Soul Collective, International, Adelaide, did a good job after just a couple of quick rehearsals! and here we are….

Heidi, Christine, Paulette laughing very big, Lisa

with Dee and Lesley in front

Ah, onto another three day intensive, Teacher Training Level One. but not before a day off to visit the Adelaide country side with Lesley as our wonderful tour guide and Sienna, my dancing student/friend. We spent a lovely day in the Adelaide Hills wine region, and I was eager to sip and compare their wines with Oregon’s wonderful wine country. Here we tried some really good wines, at the Chain of Ponds winery. My favorites were a crispy 2007 Pinot Grigio, a very drinkable 2005 Novello Nero, a blend of Sangiovese, Barbera, and Grenache, and a really yummy and rich 2004 Cab Sav–the Amadeus. With a wonderful and informative host to go with the wines, it was a great start to our day! And not only wine tasting, Leslsey took us to a local cheesemaker, Woodside Cheese Wrights, and we did another tasting there of mostly goat cheeses. I was in ecstasy, tasting six different cheeses, swooning over each bite as Lesley laughed at me, and Sienna was not thrilled with any of them. But then, she doesn’t much care for cheese…

We took a walk through an animal park and I got to visit with the chooks, emus, kangaroos, and peacocks on our way to lunch in a cute little town and on to another winery, not near as good as the first.

 so Australian, I love it! now, more dancing, and then on to Tasmania for a full on weekend of even more dancing, wine tasting, and a visit to a goat farm!

congrats girls, you did it!

 three intensive days, and lot of dancing, questions, and more dancing!

with some rehearsals, and of course, time for dinner and wine!

You rule….

Becky, Dee, Christine, me, Lisa, Heidi

Wow, dancers, what a fabulous weekend of workshops. You all danced so hard, it was such a delight to teach and share with you my ideas of tribal.

Tribalesque was a great show on Friday night, with so much variety, good dancing and wonderful costumes. And powerful to see your community coming together in support of each other. Truly lovely! Thank you for having me and for sharing your dance with me. And thank you for the beautiful flowers and wine!

Caravan Soul Collective, International did a great job performing with me at the show too. It was wayyyy fun! We rehearsed only a few times in between dancing for the intensive! And they all passed the Collective Soul Level One testing as well… congratulations!

The key to our living, the key to our dance.

We dance because we have a body to move.
We dance because our bodies ask us to move and we listen.

How can one dance if the door is locked? How do you find the key?

Dancing is an embodied experience. Rising from the soul, the heart, the bones and the tissues. Subconsciously, we  allow the movement. Nothing else exists but that connection to the self, and then to our partner. Trusting our body because we  have taken the time to understand, to train our limbs, and then to listen. Unlocking our inner rhythm.

Sometimes we dance in tongues, as if another language is coming through. We speak to each other with our bodies, watching closely, listening with our eyes, psychically connected. Feeling the movement vibrate off our partner, in a spontaneous shift of the hip, following the lift of the beat, the sway of the rhythm. The universality of the dance is breathtaking, as we become one with each other, we move into each other with knowing, not fear, creating art then, only then, for ourselves and with each other.

We use each other to reach the magic, the climax, the release. An explosive meditation, a moving union. We have unlocked our door. Adrenaline rushes, teeth flashing, tears flowing, ecstatic unions—the magic of the power and the beauty of that moment, we have allowed ourselves to be in it. We listened and we danced.

I have been in Adelaide for five days now, trying to get my days and times figured out! Dancing for several hours everyday with my Collective Soul dancers. They are fabulous and we are all working and dancing very hard! I am proud of their diligence Today is the final day with much drilling and then the…testing (drum roll). And then tonight, the performance of Caravan Soul Collective, International.  A very exciting day for all.

The Adelaide markets are amazing—so much great food, coffee, fruits, cheeses, bins and bins and stacks of beautiful bounty. It seems to go on forever, turning another corner and there are fresh flowers, and rows of delicious roasted nuts, and more fruit. It is hard not to fill up bags with all of this food. I opt for a few fresh figs, a lovely hunk of local triple cream cheese,  an eggplant and olive tapenade, and of course some Australian wines. It is all I can carry, but I am heading back this morning before our class. Must have some passionfruit and I’m looking for mangosteens, but have not found them down here. I had them in Cairns last year and they are amazing little fruits of juicy white flesh.

We celebrated Dee’s birthday yesterday morning by having breakfast in the market. I had a plate of scrambled eggs with feta and rocket, and the most delicious mushrooms smothered in a pesto gravy, so rich and delightful. With a beautiful cappucino. I am ready for another one this morning!

Did I mention that I have been waking up at 3 or 4 am every morning? My clock is a little wonky… but time for writing and yoga before my day begins.

Collective Soul dancers, minus Becky………………Breakfast with Dee on her birthday

c

celebrating with gluten-free cake and bubbly!

ah, so great to see the dancers performing! This time Gina, Pamela, and Kristi took the stage at a bellydance show at Pasha’s in Portland!

Thanks Anthony, for filming!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xz8F_FJXVrw

don’t they look great?

As I was going over notes from the past, little tidbits of writings that I have filed away, I ran across these two quotes from fellow dancers.

Peggy wrote to me a bit about the spider, “Spider teaches, spider awakens. Spiders can spend a day weaving their web and if it doesn’t work untie it and let it float away. Spider can teach us to weave our lives, but we always have the ability to re-weave what we don’t like.”

*** Niamh wrote, “There is honestly nothing more brave and beautiful than a woman living, and living for herself. What an adventure! If only all women could have that adventure.”

Thank you beautiful women, for writing, it means so much to me. Our dance can be so simple, sometimes so difficult, but always so profound. I so believe the dance has helped to make to make and keep women connected together in a strangely beautiful community of sorts, and helped to make them strong and beautiful individually and collectively!

Niahm also suggests these two books as making an impact on her and wanted to share them as well…

1. The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand

2. The Sweet Breathing of Plants, Women writing on the Green World by Linda Hogan & Breanda Peterson Let me know what you think!

from a dancer from Slovenia!

Manca Pavil interviewed several dancers and teachers about tribal bellydance—Kami Liddle, Carolena Nericcio, Rachel Brice, Jill Parker, Amy Sigil, Kajira Djoumahna, a few others, and including me!

here is her film…

link to youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8LfGr-E-b8&fmt=18

link to facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/video/video.php?v=47421444677