Ever seen a dancer performing beautiful technique but her arms are weak and lifeless? If you have you will know just how important learning how to dance with your hands and arms is.

Arms are the last piece of the puzzle and are often what challenges dancers the most. Arm and hand work is essentially another layer to your dancing.

The way you hold and move your arms can greatly change the way a dance is performed.

In this workshop you will learn arm strengthening exercises to help you create strong and controlled moves. How to make the same move look different each time you perform it with basic arm frames and paths. We will also go over fluid hand movements so that your technique goes all the way to the end of your finger tips. Lastly we will see how dancing with our arms to a drum solo is much different to a slow taqsim.

An exciting choreography created by Joanne which has all the basics of an Oriental piece.

The dance includes an intro, medium tempo section, slow section and a fast finale so you will get a better understanding of the structure of Middle Eastern music.

In this workshop you will learn an intermediate choreography to an edited version of ‘Escape From Cairo’ by Mohammad Al Hasan Abo Abid. This includes many ballet style moves edited for Oriental dance such as arabesques and ronde de jambe as well as earthy Egyptian moves and simple layering.

Dancing with a veil adds that extra mystery to your performance which is why it is Joanne’s favourite prop to dance with.

Often dancers stick to a few basic moves with the veil and either discard it soon after or over use the veil so it becomes the star of the dance rather than the actual performer.

In this workshop you will learn how to use the veil to enhance your dancing though techniques such as framing, transitions and crescendos. You will also use the veil to create an emotional response with speed and intensity.

Basic chiffon veils will be supplied but a rectangular silk veil is preferred due to the way they flow

Knowing basic Belly Dance rhythms can help you to prepare when improvising and choreographing. Knowing how long a rhythm is and where the accents are in the rhythm will allow you to become familiar with Arabic music and know that no matter what happens you can follow along to the beat.

In this workshop we will explore 4 popular belly dance rhythms – Saidi, Malfuf, Chiftetelli and Maqsoum. We will talk about the sound and counts of the rhythms as well as the Doums and Teks.

So if you want to be more confident in Middle Eastern music as well as your dancing then this is the workshop for you.