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

Greetings!

As I sit down to write this months greeting I am full of excitement. So much is going on! Our “Suhaila Design” pants are finally online (yahoo!). Sheherezade is going to be performing in North Hollywood for 4 nights (we usually only have the opportunity to do one night at a time). We have new dancers that are level 1 certified (Congratulations!) from the three-day level 1 workshop in St. Louis. My husband turned 40 and we had a huge blow out surprise party for him. I got Andre’s friends together that have not been in the same room for over 20 years. And…. Isabella can do pelvic pyramids with three quarter on the up (I’m not even kidding).

It feels like I am ready to go through another re birth. I have been cleaning out my closet like crazy. I always know that is a sign. Our class schedule is about to change and we are adding “Folkloric Fusion” (thank you Rachel Brice for encouraging us to add this to our schedule). This class is dedicated to learning finger cymbals with footwork. It will focus on the basics of finger cymbals and learning how to dance with them and movements that are Folkloric in root. Each class will have a new combination and the warm up is only 10 minutes (I promise J). I look forward to teaching this class myself. We have also added a circuit training class (6am, 7:30am, and 9am) Mon, Tue, Thurs, and Fri. Soji is my personal trainer and I have convinced him to teach a class that is what he puts me through. If you want to work out with me come to the 6am class. I am not looking so cute, but I do get a good workout and so will you.

So with another weeklong workshop just a week away (and sold out…ya!), I can’t believe summer is almost over. Looking back I can say we had a blast and that I have accomplished so much thanks to all of you and all of your love and support.

Editorial by Suhaila

By the end of the night I am exhausted and I know that my dancers must be too. I feel guilty for keeping Isabella out so late until I tell her it is time to go home and she begs me to stay longer to practice the fire dance just one more time (and she isn’t even in the fire dance). I leave the studio each night after our rehearsals and look up at the poster that hangs on my studio wall. It is the poster that was from our first performance of “Sheherezade”. It reminds me of the beginning, a moment in history for my career. The first night was so magical and the thought of it still can bring tears to my eyes.

I can’t sleep at night. This always happens the closer I get to a big performance. I haven’t started getting hives yet, but I’m sure they will be on their way soon since it is like a tradition. My chest will break out in a heat like reaction that my dermatologist now calls my “performance hives”. The funny thing is that when I was just a soloist and didn’t have my dance company I never got hives. Gee, I wonder if there is a connection. But with Sheherezade only two weeks away from its return to Los Angeles and San Francisco, my hives are surely around the corner.

The amount of responsibility of a project like this is unbelievable. Since “Suhaila Productions” also produces the show (in Los Angeles we co produce with Leela Belly Dance Productions). I created the show, wrote the script, choreographed the dances, produced the music, designed the costumes, directed the show, and star in the show. So I I guess I feel like I have the right to get hives for sure. But it is labor of love that is like no other sense of accomplishment. The vision for Sheherezade is mine from beginning to end and that makes it even more special. At this stage in my career it makes me so exhilarated to feel my dreams actually come to life.

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Art of Inspiration

by Tiffany Bisconer

I remember trying so hard as a girl to create a sanctuary for my sisters. Our whole family structure was unstable from the ground up. Sometimes we would move 5-6 times a year just to escape the messes my parents would make from associating with the wrong types of people. I wanted so badly to be happy and stable. It meant the world to me to make sure I buffered as much as I could from my sisters. In our environment the only thing that saved my spirit was being with them. I wanted so badly for them to see the beauty in life even if that meant I had to create it as a daily fantasy to show them a world of possibilities. One night, like any other night in Tiffany’s Fantastic Fantasy Circus, I choreographed a skewed version of Swan Lake that involved face paint, a bunk bed and of course, excessive drama. In attempt to get the “flying off the bunk bed as a delicate feather” technique down I drilled my sisters through an extensive emotional prep session before sending them up to the top of the bunk bed to practice their “graceful” descents to the floor.

Through the laughter and weezing so hard we would just burst into tears, we spent our nights together following my new visions and youthful production concepts. I felt like I had a mini tribe with me every step of the way and I felt completely responsible for their happiness. They looked up to me with this sparkle of hope that I wanted to grab hold of and nurture.

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Props for Suhaila!

Market Midriffs...Riverdance Redux in Bellydancer

By: Nicole Panter

Excerpt....

"Copeland has always been a fascinating and controversial figure in the music business, and it is interesting to see him at work.  He is abrasive and vaguely lecherous, freely admitting that he is choosing his dancers on the basis of looks and not skill, something that no one, except superstar bellydancer Suhaila Salimpour, calls him on.

The intellegent and outspoken Salimpour is by far the most compelling person in the entire film, and would have been a wonderful star subject, rather than just a tangential figure.  Salimpour is the product of a Persian musician father and a professionally bellydancing American mother who met while working a gig.  As soon as her parents were married, her father forbade her mother to dance anymore, telling her he would "break her legs" if she did.  Suhaila herself dances professionally, despite being shunned by the entire Persian side of her family.  Salimpour refuses to join Copeland's troupe, telling him that she won't sell out her art, and she appears several times in the film as a foil to Copeland's mercenary showman looking to make her beloved art form the next middle-brow, American-vanilla, multi-culty stage spectacle.  Perhaps Copeland will relinquish the spotlight in American Bellydancer Part 2 and give the more interesting (and deserving) Salimpour her own documentary."

Missoula Independent
April 7-April 14, 2005