I know this is a month or two late, but I definitely wanted to recap our amazing weekend with Lisa Zahiya of Asheville on her return trip to Pittsburgh!
Lisa was in town to teach 3 incredible workshops that were not only fun and entertaining, but challenging and rewarding. Lisa’s first workshop, Hips of Fire: Technique, redefined hip work as I know it. I always find it fascinating to see how teachers break down movements into bite size pieces for students. Good communication is a gift, and in this area, Lisa is a gifted teacher.
In her second workshop, Hips of Fire: Choreography, Lisa introduced us to a choreography to a Nancy Ajram tune, El Dounya Helwa. The song is sickeningly sweet yet undeniably catchy. The movements and the combinations fit the tune perfectly. We did our best to emote saccharine! All joking aside, the choreography was fun to learn and practice.
Lisa’s final workshop, Pop, Lock, & Undulate helped us to learn how to fuse elements from a different style of dance into bellydance and what a fusion piece really entails. In this instance, we worked with bringing traditional hip hop movements into our bellydance repertoire. The waving exercise towards the end was absolutely mesmerizing!
As a host for the weekend, I was honored to have the line-up of talented dancers who not only participated in the workshops but then performed their hearts out at the Saturday night gala show. We had our local favorites, Mehira, Unsuk, Nawal, Berna, Kari, Hakan, and our very own ISHTAR! From out of town, I was honored to have Athena Nile, Khalisay, Aya of Virginia, and Lisa Zahiya herself performing!
JANIM 