Welcome to Suhaila Unveiled, the official e-newsletter for Suhaila Salimpour, and the Suhaila Salimpour School of Dance.

Greetings

Wooo Hooo… .the new studio is OPEN! Yes it is, and we are so happy with the move. Thank you all for the support on opening day. It felt so good to see everyone's loving smiles as they came through the doors of the new "Mother Ship" location. The new home for the certification program is done and feels more like the solid and organized platform that it is meant to be. It is bright, clean, and full of positive energy. We continue "MOVIN' FORWARD". And thanks to all of the wonderful people that helped in the move to create this new home. You know who you are!
So Spring Caravan is just around the corner, and we are all really excited. It will be Isabella's debut as a "Rakkasah Instructor" making it official that three generations have taught for the DeVine family. We are honored. Then, right after that, we are off to Raks Brittania for our first UK workshop experience. Thank you Miles for your generosity towards Isabella and myself during this rough year. I am excited to be a teacher in this event and bring "glute squeezes" to England. Don't worry; I won't tell too many people that you were a nice guy and care about me and my family. We don't want it to ruin your reputation, now do we?
The Choreography Collective Week Long is very exciting! It will be an annual Week Long experience that the "Salimpour School" will be offering. This year I would like to thank Amy Sigil, Vashti, Michelle Joyce, Rashid, Paulette, and Rachel for bringing their stylization to this intensive.
And last, but not least, I am roaring to go for the "Solo Show" at the end of this month. As well as performing myself, it is also my first Level 4 test. I will be testing Sabriye and Gina at this performance. The show is improvisational using a live seven piece orchestra featuring Fathi Al Jarrah. Rashid will be a special guest for the evening as well. Thank you, Vashti, for your continued friendship and guidance. I look forward to many wonderful projects in our future together.
So the Summer has begun! I hope to see you all in the new studio… until then… THANK YOU FOR ALL OF YOUR SUPPORT DURING THIS LAST YEAR!!!

Editorial by Suhaila®

I remember the summer that I turned 9 years old. It was 1976, and my father had just passed away. My mother (who was afraid to fly) booked a U.S. tour by train to get away from the reality of my father's death. The trip was an adventure, and it was very exciting for me to see the United States from our private sleeper cabin. Some of my favorite moments on the train were playing chess with my mother with our magnetic chess set. The first day I won a game of chess with my mother was a highlight in my life.

That year after my father's death, I grew up almost immediately, and to this day, I am able to look back and see the effects of that time both positively and negatively.

The experiences I had being by my mother's side were invaluable. I was a child with the ability to assist my mother by teaching, organizing, and developing skills as a leader that I would use throughout my life. By the age of nine I was the front desk "role taker" for my mother's classes and her assistant in class. She would have me break down movements and lead the class as the example. I did what I was told and, when I was asked to break down a movement, I went on automatic pilot and out came my mother's words. To this day when I teach "Jamila Salimpour Format" I use the same wording with the same tonal quality and speech pattern. It still makes me giggle when I listen to myself.

It was almost a year ago in June 2008 that the plane lifted off for my world tour, and I knew my life would never be the same. Even though I'm afraid to fly I made sure to look out the window as our plane got higher and higher. San Francisco looked smaller and smaller, and it would be two months before I saw this landscape again, this place that I have always called home. Isabella was asleep on my lap, all curled up, and I held her tight as I stroked her hair. Wrapped up in an airplane blanket, she was so tired and ready for the plane to land in Paris even before it had taken off. It was just the two of us for the first time touring together around the world. We were about to begin our adventure. Having Paris as our first stop was really soothing since we had been there the year before; our host, Amana, was like family. Her studio is professional and had really grown since the year before. Her hospitality was generous, and some of my most enjoyable evenings were just being in her home having dinner together and then listening to music.

Paris is charming and magical, and the streets filled until all hours with always something to do. Isabella loved getting hot chocolate and a croissant each morning before heading to the studio. Our walk from the hotel to the studio was beautiful passing through a cemetery as a short cut. We would often wonder about each elaborate tombstone making up stories of the families to entertain ourselves. I think only in Paris could one "stroll" through a cemetery and find it magnificent and romantic. The weather was perfect and we really enjoyed taking our time to get to class each day. We had a four-day workshop, and this year I felt that most of the students were ready for the intense work out. The rumor had gotten out, and students came ready to sweat. We worked mostly on Jamila and Suhaila Format with a drum solo choreography for the final day. We would only take a 30-minute break between 2-hour sessions -- just enough to have some tea and a little snack without getting too relaxed.

Isabella was my assistant just as I had been my mother's. Her ability to break stuff down and lead a class is amazing. I know that students had issues with me when I was nine being "too young" to lead a class, but the reality was that I did know what I was doing, my mother was in the room, and I was being trained to carry on the legacy. So how I was trained is how I am training Isabella. She also did the cool down each day. The students seemed to really enjoy how sharp Isabella was behind the product booth as well. She learned how to add up final totals of sales and then make change as well -- better than any math class she has had so far. The nights were filled with strolls on the streets of Paris, Isabella and I eating as many crepes as we could hold, hanging out with Amana and her family, or spending time with Marissa Harris who joined us on the first three countries of this tour. Marissa is a student (and level 2 certified) from Las Vegas who comes to as many workshops as she can, even out of the country.

Paris was an amazing experience and our last night was extremely memorable. Amana took us to a fantastic restaurant in The Louvre. We enjoyed our meal, watched people, and sipped our wine as we spoke of when I would be able to return. Thank you, Amana, for producing a fantastic workshop, for having integrity in your art, and for being a powerful woman with great advice on business. I look forward to our next trip back to Paris and to see Amana and her family again. Now stay tuned for the next newsletter: Off to Italy…. Milano!

Chapter 3: 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 begin to trust each other and, most importantly, ourselves, relying on our intuition and perceptions in the moment. It gives us good reason to believe in ourselves, sometimes for the first time. Dancing is hard work, but when we commit ourselves to anything challenging, the experience feels good and can be truly rewarding. The outcome is greater than you ever expect, just from a dance class!

The attraction to this dance is simple, yet complicated. When I first started belly dancing in San Francisco, I did not have the knowledge about it that I do now. Back then, we were just dancing. But as the group evolved, the improvisational quality of the dance brought us closer. As we stared into each other's eyes, we not only were using our peripheral vision to see what the rest of our partner's body was doing, but we were looking deeper inside—even though we did not know it at the time. It was as if a bond was taking place—intimate, soul-reaching, connecting. While some of us find this intimacy initially uncomfortable, in the big picture of the world, isn't that what we all want? To be seen and to know that we are worthy of consideration.

It is important to be acknowledged for our roles in the world. It takes all of our personality types to make up the world. One person can be vivacious and raucous while another is quiet and shy, but we still take up the same amount of space. An adage says you have no personality until you speak out loud to someone. This seems so true—in life and in this dance—it is our way of expression, of communication, of creation. We are here to take up space, to be seen, to live, and it is important that we do it together, in support of each other, without competition. We are here to dance.

Even when she's not dancing, she's dancing. She moves through time and space with grace and dignity. She is aware of her body and spirit. As the dance inhabits her, she listens to her body and intuition. She can dance along her life's journey. She moves through her daily life in the body of a dancer.

Bridging the Gap
as Only an American Bellydancer Can
by Janet Hanover

Book review of Tamalyn Dallal's '40Days and 1001 Nights'.

Lately, a plethora of books and articles have flooded the market, telling us we should understand more about Islam. "Why?" I wondered while balancing a teetering stack of books into my arms and heading for the coffee shop section of a local book store.

One book, with a bright orange cover splashed with passport stamps peaked my curiosity. Titled "40 Days and 1001 Nights", it turned out to be a pleasingly humorous and touching romp through life with a diverse array of Muslim peoples- in far fetched places ranging from Asia to the Middle East and Africa. This is written by a belly dancer named Tamalyn Dallal, a woman with an exotic name who was actually born on a ranch in Colorado. She does not offer a popular truth that gives us black and white answers about Muslims and Christians. We neither get a viewpoint of the virtues of Islam nor does she seek to establish our western superiority over these mysterious people.

"40 Days and 1001 Nights" is not unlike "Eat, Pray, Love" another book about a woman discovering a whole new world through world travel during a crucial moment in her life. Tamalyn's story wets our appetite with culinary delights, encounters with handsome men, and spirituality.

This is a woman who leaves her glamorous life as a belly dance school operator in South Miami Beach to live in five Muslim countries for 40 days each, writing about life and the people she meets.

Most inspiring is the spirituality that saved people's sanity in Indonesia. She lived in a house with twelve devout Muslim men, while doing volunteer work in the tsunami ravaged city of Banda Aceh shortly after the disaster. Veiled women who got around on motorbikes shared stories on how they lost their families in the tsunami. With the help of Allah, they had not lost hope. She also explored magic and how Islam views genies, who are purported to live among us, in a dimension that we cannot see.

Time spent in a tiny Egyptian oasis puts another spin on the Muslim world. The author expects innocence and naivety as she listens to donkeys bray outside her window amid date palms and olive gardens. Instead, this desert world offers a sordid tale where domination by the Egyptian government makes it into a machine gun toting police state and throngs of tourists create a market for young boys to fall into the hands of foreign pedophiles. Ms. Dallal actually gets abducted in the desert, and is rescued by one of Suhaila's dancers, Sabriye Tekbilek who happens to be visiting from Dubai. She houses Tamalyn in a luxurious hotel room in the big metropolis of Cairo until she recovers from the shock.

Tamalyn's planned trip to Iran instead becomes a boat ride to the little east African island of Zanzibar. This is the most compelling part of the book. The police in her neighborhood provide heroin for the kids to get hooked, and heroin addicts line the streets. She exposes the world of trafficking and addiction that is destroying parts of Africa and funding civil wars and child soldiers on its way to more affluent markets. Woven into this story is her tale of learning to speak Swahili, and becoming a groupie for a band of little old men, spending evenings in their clubhouse during electricity blackouts. She winds up at an all women's trance ceremony where Muslim women become men through channeling the spirits of Christian soldiers and drinking large quantities of forbidden alcohol. She then takes us to Jordan, with an interesting story of Bedouin hospitality and peace seeking refugees.

Humorous moments made me chuckle throughout "40 Days and 1001 Nights". When I got to the last section, "Islamic China", I was laughing out loud at her run ins with officials who refused to help her track down a lost suitcase, her snarling at a Pakistani merchant who later becomes her lunch date, and learning the true meaning of "turtle egg".

The Xinjiang Autonomous Region is the largest province in China. Predominately Muslim, it suffers the same oppression and human rights abuse as Tibet, with no Dalai Lama to bring the people's suffering to the international spotlight. Tamalyn's book offers a rare glimpse into life in this remote area.

"40 Days and 1001 Nights" is written by a woman who ventures beyond the fear factor and give us insights into the real Islamic world- not what we hear on the news.

I knew little and cared little about the occasional covered woman who sat alone watching her kids play in the park, or shopped in the supermarket swathed in anonymity in my suburban Seattle neighborhood. Now, I say "Hello" and usually get a wide smile in return.

"40 Days and 1001 Nights" has evolved into a multifold project, which includes a musical documentary film, a music cd, and a dance concert dvd, as well as the "1001 Nights Fund" in which ten percent of the cost of each book and DVD go to help people in the countries she visited and beyond. The best way to live "40 Days and 1001 Nights" is to read about one country in the book, then watch that section of the film. Once you have finished the book, take a look at the film in its entirety. Check out the project and read excerpts from the book at: www.40daysand1001nights.com

A huge 'thank you' to all that expressed their love and support through their signing of the wall at the old studio. A big thanks to Camino Espana for creating and sharing a wonderful slide show commemorating it. Click on the link below to view...

Studio Wall Slide Show

Bring Suhaila to your event!  
Suhaila and the Suhaila Dance Company travel all over the country and the world performing and teaching workshops. For availability and booking information, contact Suhaila at suhaila@suhailainternational.com.

Classes (IMPORTANT UPDATE)

Suhaila Salimpour -- P.O. Box 8612 -- Landscape Station -- Berkeley, CA  94707 510-526-4344

suhaila@suhailainternational.com

www.suhailainternational.com

www.smartcart.com/Suhaila  

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