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

Greetings!

This is my favorite time of year. Ever since I was a child the holidays have been so special to me. Maybe it is the lights, early nights, holiday smells, and over all energy that fills the streets. I love it. It is also my birthday month so that makes it even more special.

I want to take the time to give you all a little encouragement to keep up your classes and dancing. Sometimes we can get so overwhelmed with holiday stuff that our bodies and minds are the first to put on the back burner. The dance and what it can bring you is such a release and important part of mental health and well being that the stress of the holidays will evaporate if you just committee to "your time" and keep up your dancing. Allow yourself to take 5 deep breaths a day during some point. Play a piece of music that means something to you. Treat yourself to your favorite meal. Allow yourself to gain those 5 holiday lbs. and feel OKAY about it. This is your life... so enjoy it!

So I say with all my heart.... Happy Holidays. You all have been my gift and I only hope that I can make you proud and give back to a community that has given me so much.

Editorial by Suhaila

It was a family day and we took Isabella to see The Incredibles. I had been traveling so much lately that I think I was more excited about family day than my husband or child was. I was going to get to have popcorn and sit and be entertained for a change. It is a kids’ movie so I knew that I wouldn’t have to think and the movie experience wouldn’t be too deep. It was just what I wanted from an afternoon. But after the movie I found myself in a very deep conversation with my daughter about how when you are a grown-up you must always be honest and be who you really are inside all the time. Never compromise or do anything that will make you unhappy inside. Oh well, so much for a light afternoon. The movie was wonderful and full of many of the issues we have each day - being true to what we are and not changing into what we think we should be. We came home and I pulled out pictures of my life before she was born and we held each other on the couch as I took her on a tour of mommy before Isabella. I told her how lucky she is to be who she is and never try and hide who she is or be anything else.

At each workshop I give I try and spend a little time lecturing on the impact of growing up in a Middle Eastern home and being first generation. It isn’t enough to have gone through the little cultural things such as henna tattoos, exotic spices in food, Islamic rules in the house, keeping my eyes down and not speaking unless spoken to… but becoming a professional belly dancer was out of the question. Yes… my mother was a dancer when my father met her, but the family tried to hide it, and the fact that she was American teaching other American’s made it “okay” as long as she came home and handed her father in law the pay check. So I grew up with so much shame… shame that I was half American and shame that I was very much in love with dancing. Maybe no one would notice.

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Read responses to last month's editorial

Interview with Suhaila

Interview with Suhaila, first published in The Chronicles.

Dancer, Daughter, Mother:
An Interview with Suhaila Salimpour Khoury
By Renée Drellishak

Five year old Isabella Khoury finished her solo on the Rakkasah stage and ran to the waiting arms of her mother, Suhaila Salimpour Khoury. Suhaila led Isabella back to the center of the stage, sat her daughter down, and began to dance just for her. The vocalist sang about being advised that having a child might end her career, but choosing to have a baby anyway and discovering the love of her life.

Suhaila Salimpour Khoury is a busy woman. In addition to running a dance studio, teaching classes, choreographing and producing her new stage show, Sheherezade, producing a line of bellydance videos, and flying around the country for workshops and performances, she is also wife to Andre, mother to Isabella, and daughter to the legendary Jamila Salimpour. After several false starts attempting to write this article, Suhaila and I finally managed to connect via telephone. She was on her cell phone at the local pool with Isabella, and warned me, just as Isabella declared in the background that she needed to go potty, that the interview would probably have a few stops and starts. A perfect way to begin an article about mothers and daughters.

Read complete interview...

Survey

Last Month's Question:
Do you spend more money on classes/training or costumes? Why?

Here are some of your answers:
This one is easy. I spend more money on classes/training, rather than costuming because it doesn't matter what you're wearing if you can't perform well...and a little craft ingenuity can go a long way in costume design.

It's not 'what you're in (body or baubles) it's how you give voice to your passion and love of the dance'.
- Sabine

I spend the most money on training; videos, seminars, etc. I make most of my costumes so I am able save there, it allows me to use my ingenuity with thrift shop materials and such.
-Yamil Fuentes

I spend more on classes. A well trained dancer looks good in anything - including blue jeans. Not even a great costume will make a bad dancer good.
-Kamila

Read more answers...

This Month's Question:
How long do you think you should train regularly before you accept a professional job as a dancer?

Send your answers or comments to:
bellydancesurvey@yahoo.com

From a Young Dancer

Today's college admissions officers advise high school seniors to pay special attention to their 500-word essay. With so many kids getting outrageously high test scores (after taking the SAT 20 times) and spending all their time bumping up their grade point averages to +4.3 and beyond, the essay is the only distinguishing factor. This essay is my daughter Melissa's original writing, mailed to her first set of colleges today. This is from her heart.
-Mar Jung

For Dances' Sake
By Melissa Junge
About four years ago, I was at my grandmother’s house for Christmas. To my half-Polish, half-German family Christmas means cabbage rolls, potato dumplings and parents comparing notes on who has the most talented child. Dinner is usually followed by a gift-exchange bingo game in the living room, but that year my Aunt Marie had a surprise for us. She put on a CD and a deep, ancient sound drifted into the room like incense. The music, a rhythmic drum beat accompanied by a chanting woman, definitely was not our traditional polka music!

Aunt Marie stepped into the room wrapped in vivid silk with a belt of tiny silver coins around her waist and miniature gold symbols on her fingers. As she danced, her finger “zills” and coin belt jingled like sleigh bells and her skirts twirled around her with an entrancing, fluid motion. She looked so beautiful and confident as she demonstrated her new hobby that we all watched in awe until the music stopped.

Despite how easy my aunt made it look, at Rakassah West I learned that belly dancing is an art that takes years to master. Rakassah is an annual festival where dancers from all over the West Coast gather to sell and shop, to dance and meet other dancers, and to enjoy sharing something they love. My Aunt had convinced me to take a belly dancing class with her at Rakassah, so on Friday morning we got up at 5:30 a.m. to drive to the convention center. I was nervous and doubted that a tall, blonde “tomboy” like me could fit in with Middle Eastern women who had been dancing all of their lives.

The festival was held in an old brick building in the middle of a run-down neighborhood. The dreary, overcast morning gave the building a cold and unwelcoming look. But as we got closer, I could hear the familiar drumbeat. Inside, women of all ages and sizes, some with full henna makeup and others in colorful costumes, weaved in between vendors hawking luscious silks, rich velvets and mysterious treasures. A few women were even dancing down the aisles; their graceful serpentine movements were mesmerizing.

At Rakassah, I fell so in love with their dance that it became my dance. Not only is belly dancing good exercise, it also helps me to release the stress that builds up during the school day. Whether in full costume or just a simple skirt, when the music begins to play all I think about is matching the beat of the drums and making every movement fluid, yet precise. When I dance, I'm beautiful and feel confident. No matter what happened that day, I can just let it all go. Yet what I love the most about belly dancing is that women who have generations of experience in this Middle Eastern art will embrace anyone who has the courage to try something new...even an uncoordinated, American tomboy.

Would you like to share your thoughts and ideas with your fellow dancers? Send articles and ideas for Suhaila Unveiled to suhailaunveiled@yahoo.com