by Anuka
Watching Aziza perform is seeing never-faltering fluidity and perfect control. Dancing since the age of three, she did twelve years of classical ballet and explored several dance forms before being introduced to Oriental dance in 1988. She has received numerous awards for Middle Eastern dance and is a featured performer and teacher at the Rakkasah Festival.
Her two-day workshop hosted by Arabesque Academy at the Estonian House in Toronto drew a lot of attention from the local dance community, filling the hall with enthusiastic bellydancers of all ages and levels of skill. Both days started with a warm-up that thoroughly explored range of motion of the ribcage and the hips through precise isolations and included a twenty-one minute long shimmy! After two hours of technique and conditioning drills in the morning, a one hour break was followed with two hours of learning a number of short combinations in the afternoon. A gala performance featuring Aziza, Nath Keo and Yasmina Ramzy was held on the first evening.
During the first workshop, To Know A Veil , Aziza talked about working with the "personalities" of individual veils and discovering what moves work best with which kind of veil, preventing the veil from getting caught on your costume, recovering from dropping one or both ends, and making the veil an extension of your body instead of treating it as a prop. Most importantly, she reminded dancers not to get so caught up in doing showy veil tricks that they are no longer expressing the music.
The second day, Traveling Steps and Short Combinations , focused on posture, arm positions and smooth transitions to improve quality of movement. Aziza talked about establishing muscle memory, the benefits of doing moves slowly, and the importance of mental preparation for both practice and performance. She assured us that people can tell if you are putting your heart into the dance or merely going through the motions; having seen my share of bored bellydancers treating shows as just a job, I agree. Aziza told us she avoids this by trying to recapture the same sense of wonder she had when she first discovered bellydance before every performance.
Aziza’s innovative technique and great sense of humour made the weekend a very enjoyable learning experience. She is a wonderful instructor whose teaching goes beyond technique to the spirit of the dance and holds nothing back.