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

Greetings!

Happy New Year!  I hope that this year brings much joy and fulfillment to your life, family and dance.  I can only hope that your days are filled with a feeling of excitement and enthusiasm to dance and to always continue to train and grow.  Having the Suhaila Salimpour School of Dance has given me such joy.  I enjoy being a part of and watching students evolve and progress.   Each year at our studio holiday party I enjoy seeing the families, dancers and love in the room as a reminder of the seed that Andre and I planted only a few years ago. 

We are getting ready to have another teacher training program and with each new student I have such high hopes for future teachers in my school.  I always admire someone coming into my school and working so hard under my format and training.  It isn’t easy, the format isn’t easy, and the demands are not easy… but the rewards are huge and I can say from experience that the feeling of accomplishment is worth each drop of sweat.

I am looking forward to so much this year.  I have a huge list of things to do and I am hoping that I can get through half of it by the end of 2006.  But I try and try to create a positive forward motion in life that will drive the forces in an upward direction.  My upcoming live Solo show, my biography, new DVD’s and the transfer of all my old videos onto DVD is keeping me very busy.  We also just recorded another album with the incredibly talented drummer Ziad that will be out by the spring.  Oh … and how can I forget…. we will have the scrunchy butt pants out in two new colors by March plus a whole new line of  “Hipeze” that will be a hot new Suhaila Design hip scarf option.

I just want to say to all of you that are reading this monthly newsletter…. THANK YOU.  For your support, patience, and your belief in me and my vision.  Each new year I feel a greater sense of responsibility to you and our community. 

Editorial by Suhaila

Back in the 70’s and 80’s it was a very big deal to go to the Middle East and work as a professional belly dancer.  Not only did people think it validated you as a real professional in the field, but it also was a dream that almost all dancers shared.  Dancers never separated the Middle East from Belly Dancing back in the day because the Arabic music and culture surrounding the music was what initiated most students to class.  For me it was a given that the culture be a part of the dance since I was first generation and therefore my ancestors were not that far behind me.  I can remember at a very early age thinking that being able to dance in the Middle East would mean I had “made it” and the days didn’t count down fast enough for me to be old enough to work in nightclubs. 

Most little girls would play “normal” role-playing games such as Barbie, teacher or house, but my favorite game was nightclub.  I had this old curly brown wig from one of the sword dancers in Bal Anat.  She gave it to me on the last day of faire and I was so excited that it fit me.  Aida (who was one of my mother’s top students at the time) gave me one of her old silver coin bra and belts.  And I had an old pair of my mom’s high heels.  I had placed all of my favorite “toys” into this special brown paper bag that my mother would keep on top of her closet shelf.  It was always at the highest level in her shelf just in case I would try and take it down myself and play “nightclub” at non-designated play times. 

Each night, for a reward in either doing my homework or chores for that day, my mother would bring down the paper bag and give me a time limit to play nightclub.  I was so excited at the thought of getting to dress up and be one of the big girls even if it was just all my imagination.  The kitchen served as my nightclub with the sink being the bar that I would always go and hang out at after my pretend shows.  I put on my wig, coin bra and belt and came out in the middle of the kitchen dancing like crazy.  I had the music blasting in my head and I was the star of the club.  I felt so secure at those moments like I was truly on top of the world.  I could even hear the applause at the end of each of my shows as I left the stage.  Nothing felt like it and I wanted to grow up so badly so I could live this life.  

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Dancing to Survive

by Tiffany Bisconer

I was sitting backstage warming up before our first presentation of Sheherezade (ahhh….!) and I was watching Isabella run all of the company dances on the side of the stage as we were going through tech.  In seeing Isabella grow up it didn’t take me long to realize that aside from my mentor she is my prime source of inspiration.  Her purity and strength is a constant reminder of what really matters in dance and in life.  Over the months of extensive rehearsals Isabella had learned the whole show just by watching. Every once in a while, if she had a technique question, she would whisper to one of the dance company members when they finished running a dance to explain a movement to her. Then, she would place herself on the outskirts of rehearsal and practice.  Her mom ran the rehearsals, drilled and prepared the dancers and her Nona (Jamila Salimpour) sat in the lobby of the studio and was a staple part of the process.   Though Isabella knew her place in the structure of a rehearsal, on some days, when her mom allowed, she would be placed into the line up if a dancer was missing during a rehearsal, or on a special day she would proudly play the role of Sheherezade.  Even now, the night of the show, Isabella was hoping she would be allowed to do the dances with the big girls.  Being only six was hard on her.  I smiled with my whole body as I watched her mini self practice the dances all out, knowing that she would be performing them one day….in her eyes hopefully sooner than later.   Her desire to dance radiates from her every pore.  With Sheherezade as an example of the type of artistry to strive for, she eases through the struggle of learning the choreography and practices her artistic expression with the dancers in the Suhaila Dance Company.  Isabella doesn’t even know what a nightclub is.  She envisions herself on a large theatre stage, and already has a desire for perfection in her technique and takes for granted her emotional expression and freedom in her body…..which is exactly the way it should be.  Having her heritage as the most poignant muse, she cultivates her role as a director by organizing all of her friends both real and imaginary, into line ups and with confidence gives them director’s notes.  In her reality there’s no question on what inspires her and lies at the forefront of her life. 

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Rashid's Old School Corner

HAJI BABA’S CARPETS…..the 70’s Answer to a Belly Dance Website

Every Sunday morning, 8 or 9ish, Haji Baba’s Carpets would sponsor a belly dance program on a local bay area television channel.  It was a simple a vehicle to sell his imported carpets.  Campy and exotic for the time, it all just worked and served the Bay Area Belly Dance Community with a performance outlet and a little “who’s who.”

Remember at the time, answering machines on phone were just being introduced and communication was much different.  Keeping track of your immediate BD community in the provinces was really the first days of the nomadic/tribal stuff.

The show would open with Haji and guests lounging on Persian carpets in a pile, the perpetual fantasy.  He would introduce the show and his guests and kick back for the entertainment to begin.  He might introduce a local “famous dancer” by name and occasionally transition to commercial, plugging his carpets.  Otherwise you never heard from him and the dancing became the focus of the program.

We were still groupies then.  Not knowing where Jamila was from or how to reach her.  We knew what we were looking for in style and technique from analysis made of every Bal Anat show we could witness at the Faire. Always knew when someone had taken classes or been influenced by Jamila.  Haji Baba’s show gave us an early opportunity to discover who was out there and how close they might be to us.

Haji was pretty PC about having a variety of different troupes and styles on his show.  Every week was different.  You never knew what to expect or who you would see.  You know it was painful to miss a Sunday morning broadcast in those days...

The distinction between club and “ethnic/tribal” styles was not so great then although there was politics to remember.  It was my taste for the Renn. Faire interpretation and an early interest in anthropology that led me to explore the cultural origins of what this was.

One of my favorite dancers who appeared occasionally on Haji Baba’s was Nedjma.  A beautiful Hispanic woman who looked all the part of “ya binti beledy,” I only knew her from The Casbah where she danced at night.  Seeing her on Haji meant I was going to see a good dancer.  Not to digress, but yes, I was sneaking into the clubs at 16 and 18-ish.  Nedjma’s style was typically cabaret of the time.  She had this zaftig figure and her signature moves, this great “Gush Spin” and her veil work, screamed Jamila. 

Masha Archer was another dancer I always enjoyed on Haji Baba.  She never worked in the clubs but cut a distinctive profile as a local dancer and occasionally she and her troupe would appear.  I enjoyed her interpretation which reminded me of ancient priestesses or pagan worshippers of times forgotten.  She and her dancers were decked out in assuit and loaded up with to-die-for jewelry.  They often wore flowers in their headdresses.  Her style was to stand still, more or less and undulate and zagahreet.  She did Basic Egyptian and a gentle ¾ Shimmy.  Masha, like Nedjma, had a great pelvic figure 8 Jamila called “Maya” and this upper body circle step she would do often ending in a ribcage circle, arched far back and pivoting from the pelvis.  Her arms were held high and away from the body playing finger cymbals as were later to be called West Coast crucifix arms.

Once I started classes regularly with Jamila I began seeing the difference between the technique of movement and the styles in all the dancers I’d had contact with.  I think it was my western dance and theater training that gave me an eye for the “authentic” stuff.  I started at the beginning to organize and develop my vocabulary based on purity of movement and whether or not it seemed connected to Arabic dance as I knew it.  I always wanted to know where so-and-so learned that step and where it came from. 

Early on, my projection was completely Bal Anat, although we went to the clubs as much as we could.  Good dancing was defined by body movement, not how you dressed.  In later years the fusion of jazz from the European scenes, especially Paris, greatly inspired me.  How the Arabs interpreted the western influences in their music inspired me to look for authenticity in the dance based on the view from that angle.  That same perspective provides endless inspiration today.  In retrospect, I guess I’m lucky to have had such a long history in this dance form and to be able to watch it evolve and morph in both the west and east.  It’s never boring. 

As things have changed, my perspective has allowed me to keep an eye on the origins of Arabic dance and music in the west and understand a lineage.  I feel that is so important if one is to interpret and perform an art form that can change right under your nose.