So I’m going to be dancing to a live drum this weekend with Troupe Alima at Club Vegas. If any of you Logan girls want to come up and see the show you are more than welcome to stay at my house. I have and extra bed and some couches you can sleep on.  Call me if you’re interested.

I’m working on creating a new site for the Shimmering Sands ladies but in the mean time they are teaching classes.

Shimmering Sands Belly Dance New Sessions

At the Whittier Community Center

270 North 400 East

Logan UT

435-770-1391

Beginning Level Class : Wednesday 7:30 pm

Intermediate Level Class : Thursday 7:30 pm

Advanced Level Class : Tuesday 6:30 pm

K, please bear with me as I struggle to finish my thoughts on this. Our troupe had been using the name of Mountain Veils (even though we didn’t even know how to use veils) Danse Orientale for a while since Lisa Duskin had given us this name since our time at the Whittier. I thought the name was fine, even though we didn’t use veils but Lisa came to us one night to tell us that she since she thought of that name that she would like to keep and I thought “fine, what’s in a name?”, apparently everthing.

This was also a time of transition for us as a group. What do you do when some of the girls you danced with for so long just aren’t in the same place as far as commitment and skill while others are busting their butts to get things done. Our solution, create 2 new dance troupes. One for the OCD super committed dancers and one for the people who like to come and go. The hard part I think was telling the other girls what troupe they would be welcome in. I don’t know if anyone else has ever been through this but there were some hurt feelings and a small amount of drama involved. I guess it’s like breaking up with someone, only at the time I had never been the bad guy before.

The troupe was better for it, it was easier and easier to get more technical and polished when everyone showed up. This was also about the time we got invited to dance at the Mirage in Winter show for the first time. I remember how excited I was that we finally got asked to dance at a public belly dance event. Our hard work was finally paying off.

Memories: Dancing at Sulisha’s International Dance Gala at the Galivan center in our gold and silver tooth costumes. Sara dancing in huge man sandals at the belly dance festival at Snow Bird. Ya, metal stages that are painted to look like wood, they get hot in the sun and burn your feet. I think me and Traci had those hermes sandals on, I remember burning my knees during the floor work part, ouchie.

April 18th-19th the fabulous Shems will be returning to Logan, Utah to belly dance in USU MED’s Spring Hafla and teach a workshop the next day. Shems will be teaching oriental technique and combinations, using both modern and classical styling. She will also be teaching us how to use a Tahtib. Check our activities page for more info.

The video below is of shems dancing.

Just what everyone was waiting for new pics of the Shazadi girls. Looking good ladies. I enjoyed your performances at Spring Fest.

Sedonia was a good president for our club. She was smart articulate and organized, she even made everyone a laminated performance checklist so that you wouldn’t forget any costume/make-up pieces before a show. I think I still have that check list somewhere. She also did the bulk of the work in writing a club constitution, which is required to have a club at USU.

This year we hired Aziz to teach us a choreography, the song was from a Warda cd, can’t remember the exact name, but it was also the dance he was teaching to his performing class. He drove up a few times and brought Raffa with him. I remember Raffa shaking his head at us as we over twirled our hands too much. I really enjoyed learning the choreography and Raffa drilling us on swivel hips. So I’d like to thank him for that, I know how to do swivel hips because of Raffa. I wish either one of those two were still dancing and teaching….

While learning the Aziz choreography we met Rebecca Habtour(Shems) . She was one of Aziz’s students and Aziz had here come up to Logan one time to help us with the rest of the choreography because he couldn’t. He said “You’ll like Rebecca, she’s a good dancer and she’s not a bitch”. He was right. She came up to Logan to teach us and I think we went out to eat at chili’s with her and asked her all sorts of annoying questions.
We also danced a cute dance to a Natacha Atlas song that Zoe, a graduate student from the UK, taught us. I remember how fun it was and how sexy I felt dancing to the slow parts. I think I still remember the choreography to that one.

I think we were really starting to come into our own as dancers. We weren’t quite a troupe yet so to speak but we worked hard and practiced and got better and better. Traci was starting to choreograph more and more of her own stuff as well. We even got our first paying gig, a baby shower.

People dancing with Mountain Veils: Sara G., Zoe, Sunny, Sarah W., Sedonia, Carrie, Me, Tracy P., Amber and Traci

Memorable moments: Usha’s Indian dance and one of our students wanting to do a solo to disney’s You Poor Unfortunate Soul via the Little Mermaid.

Sad moments: Sedonia was getting ready to defend her thesis, and could no longer be president or dance with us. She was successful, graduated and left us leaving me to take over.

Karla left us to pursue a career in Moab and again we were left with no “real” teacher to help us learn to dance. There wasn’t a lot of options in small town Logan, UT for belly dance teachers. With no teacher in sight we looked to Salt Lake for help.

We started making enough money from classes to bring in teachers from Salt Lake to help us learn to be better dancers. Aziz was the first and he is still one of the most talented dancers I’ve ever known. Some of us drove down south and took workshops with Isis, Zahirah, and Mashara Rabia.

We even danced for the first time as a group at Kismets Annual Utah Belly Dance festival, this is when it was up at snowbird. I think I still have that purple skirt

Pictures:

Traci, me and Amber dancing in Moab.

Sedonia drumming and me and Traci dancing.

1999 Utah Belly Dance Festival

I remember having a few classes in the summer with me and Sedonia and maybe a few other girls. Taking some time out to help Sedonia with her FrankenShimmies. I think even one time we split the upstairs usu dance room with the girls who felt they were “better” dancers than us. Ya, we closed that huge curtain in there. Niki left that year and Sedonia took over as President. The club was a little bit in limbo, I don’t think any of us knew what direction to go or how to get there. I think we all just wanted to be better dancers.

Then Sedonia found Karla and drug here out of dancing retirement. I think she even tried to bring Lisa Duskin back but got a referral to Karla instead.

Karla was no-nonsense American Tribal Style belly dancer. She wasn’t afraid to call people on their crap and she would do it in front of everybody. If you weren’t coming to class to listen to what she had to say or follow along with what she was teaching, then you could leave for all she cared. It was definitely a huge change from what we had before and it weeded out a bunch of the “better” girls who didn’t like the stricter format of the class.

We twirled our hands(very quickly) and danced to Loreena McKennitt’s Marco Polo. I think me, Traci, Amber and I can’t remember who else but there was 4, danced to one of Traci’s first choreography’s. There was a definite divide beginning at the time, from the girls who were willing to work harder and put in more time and the ones that weren’t.

The picture is of Karla dancing in Moab, I think she is still there teaching. She has a group called Desert Veils.

I think it’s safe to say that USUMED would be nothing without the tireless efforts of the Deblois girls (Traci and Krista are still keeping the group going, even after things end on campus). Niki was the one who really got things going up at USU. She even contacted Lisa, one of the teachers at the whittier, to get involved.

Lisa Duskin was the first president. The same people who were going to the whittier class showed up for the first club classes plus a few more students (Dejah and the modern dance girls, and quite a few biology majors) and the feel of the classes was very similar, spotty attendance (even by me), not a lot of structure but Lisa was a good dancer and she new a lot. I think there was even a few performances and she choreographed a dance to a light rain dark fire song, wish I remembered the name… Lisa also introduced us to Aziz and Mashara Rabia via a few workshops.

Lisa decided to leave the club shortly after a few performances, I think the work of holding a club together was stressful and she didn’t have the time to commit to it. Which lead to an impromptu election with no one really wanting to take over the responsibility of running a disfunctional club.

Niki stepped up to the plate to be President and I have to say she probably had it the worst. Classes were very chaotic with no “real” teacher. Some of the girls didn’t want Niki or anyone else they felt were not better dancers than they were trying to teach them anything(and of course they never volunteered to teach). The vibe was a little negative. Classes consisted of a clique of girls dressing up in costumes and huddling in front the mirrors, dancing on one side of the room. On the other side of the classroom everyone else including me and Niki trying to teach a bunch of “new girls” how to dance. I think we even split a choreography and danced with the other girls only they would leave the room when we were practicing our part.

Things weren’t all bad though, that was the year I met Sedonia and Traci(Sumra). I think even me and Niki choreographed a duet together. I remember practicing in Niki’s basement apartment, it was cold and the weren’t any mirrors.

Niki did get the brunt of most of the criticism from the other girls. It all led up to a boiling point one night with some of the girls yelling and Niki and Sedonia, in frustration, exclaiming (in her cute Texas accent) “Can’t we all just get along”. My only regret is that I didn’t stand up for Niki better. Honestly I think the other girls intimidated me and I looked up to them (although I don’t know why).

The picture above is of Niki and Krista at the 2003 Soiree.

With this being the last year of USUMED I was feeling a little nostalgic about the club and all of the experiences I had with belly dance over the past 10 years and if you bear with me I’d like to share some of those with anyone who cares to read.

I might be a little off on the actual timing of when the club started but, I’m going with 1996 because that’s when it all started for me. In a little class room at the whittier center (where I took ballet as a small child). The class was full of girls with varied shapes and sizes some wearing full costumes and others wearing a little more than a poorly decorated bra. The attendance of the class was never consistent, some days there were 20 girls and other days there were 2 or 3 girls. I don’t remember how much it cost but the class was sometimes taught by Lisa Duskin and another lady and god if I can remember her name but I think it was Kathryn. This is also where I met Niki Deblois, one of the founding members of USUMED.

Other people I remember taking that class my sister in-law Becky, her cousin Kathryn, my sister Rachel, Jennet Shook, Andrea, Sherise, Terri, Lalove, Jenni(sevda) and Joni (she was a buser at my first job at Papa G’s, she also introduced me to belly dance and my husband), oh and Harley’s girlfriend I think her name was Heather but my memory is fading a bit.

I’m also going to be sharing some old photos with everyone. The picture above is me, it’s a picture I took of myself while I was in a photography class. I colored the picture with water color, it was shot in black and white. No photoshop work.