Art by Karen E. Gersch

Melina Presents her Cirque Passion Halloween Night at Karoun Restaurant!
Come out for a Delicious Trick-or-TREAT circus show.
Come in costume! Prizes for best costume, best make-up, best attitude! Goal: FUN.
Family-friendly show if you want to bring the kids after trick or treating and get some protein into their overly-sugared little bloodstreams. You are welcome to do your own act after the main show!

Featuring..

Miss Celia's Spintillating Hoops
Sacha's Ghoulish Unicycling
Melina's Balancing of Sharp Objects on Body Parts
Aerial Dance
Belly Dance
and more!

Reserve your table at Karoun's: call 617 964 3400. Showtime is 9:30.

MELINA PHOTO BY DREAMER'S REALM PHOTOGRAPHY
Melina to teach workshops in Enfield, New Hampshire on Saturday November 7th. Registration details at http://www.raq-on.net! Right on Raq On!!!

Last week I was fortunate enough to perform at two museum galas -- one at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, and one at the MFA. They were among my favorite museum visits ever! There is nothing like shimmying through museums in a belly dance costume. The Peabody Essex Museum Gala was in honor of Iris Apfel, whose extraordinary exhibit, Rare Bird of Fashion: The Irreverent Iris Apfel, is currently on display at PEM through February 7, 2010, and the MFA event was a members-only gala for the opening of their new Egyptian exhibit, The Secrets of Tomb 10a.

Here's the blurb from PEM's website about the Iris Apfel exhibit:

Rare Bird of Fashion: The Irreverent Iris Apfel presents more than 80 dramatic ensembles from the personal collections of legendary tastemaker and style icon Iris Apfel. Known for her eclectic mixing of haute couture with costume jewelry and exotic baubles, Apfel has inspired bold developments in the fashion industry through her spirited irreverence and pitch-perfect taste. Now in her 88th year, she continues to challenge visual culture with radical juxtapositions of disparate influences. These spectacular and unexpected wardrobe combinations are exhibited with inventive staging and playful displays that underscore Apfel's inexhaustible creative spirit.

If you have a chance, GO TO THIS EXHIBIT! It is great fun. Iris Apfel is a trip, and her work is inspirational. I love the Peabody Essex Museum, it is a cultural and artistic gem in the Boston-area.

The gala was elegant, warm-hearted and Moroccan-themed. PEM's atrium was lavishly decked out Moroccan-style with pillows, carpets, tents and bronze trays from the exquisite collection of Moroccan Caravan (www.moroccancaravan.com). As the guests arrived, each in an outfit more extraordinary than the next (it was in honor of Ms. Apfel, after all), my dancers Odella and Celia were dancing with me to the musical gorgeousness of the highly talented duo Okbari (Amos on oud/vocals and Eric on doumbek). The guests sat nearby at round tables and under Moroccan tents clearly relaxing and enjoying themselves. As we danced and enjoyed ourselves on our magic carpet we watched them in their wonderful outfits as much as they were watching us. At one point Celia had her tray balanced on her head and Odella and I danced behind her with swords on ours, and we were all transported -- including Okbari -- to an exotic Belly Dance land of hazy beauty, charm, elegance and flow.

On Saturday I danced with the wonderful Jamal Sinno quartet at the MFA opening. Goddess I love dancing to great live music. A crowd gathered round our area outside the gift shop (which was closed) watching us and I felt a like a sizzling street performer with an audience that didn't expect to stop and watch ...but they did. Well, I was balancing on candlesticks, balancing swords on daggers, and trays of candles on my head. I HOPED they might pause and take a peek, remembering live entertainment is better than TV!!! But sometimes that doesn't happen...

I didn't get to visit the new MFA exhibit but did read up on it on their website and it looks interesting, full of new finds from an Egyptian tomb including a mummified head and golden objects meant to accompany the dead to their afterlife dwelling...but...sometimes I'm sad when tombs are excavated and all those sacred objects are uncovered: don't they lose a bit of their magic?

http://www.mfa.org/exhibitions/sub.asp?key=15&subkey;=7332

The inspirational Kanina (www.KaninaDance.com) is hosting a hafli featuring Morwenna and Walid Assaf on October 9th, 2009. This is a rare opportunity for New Englanders to have the pleasure of seeing Morwenna dance and should not be missed!

The venue is about 45 seconds off 95 to make it easy for dancers coming from the Boston area and the ticket price includes dinner (tickets are advance-sale only).

For those of you who may not be familiar with Morwenna, there's a very nice write-up at Belly Dance New England website, http://www.helade.com/.

Hope you can make it to Kanina's hafli!

Kasik Oyun Havasi - Turkish"Spoon Dance Song" (When you see a Turkish song with the words "Oyun Havasi", it is meant as a song to dance to). Music we use in class for this combo is by the Huseyin Turkmenler Ensemble. Song is from the CD Turkish Belly Dance : Desert Night Dance.

We will not be dancing with spoons, but we will be using folkloric Turkish belly dance movements while we play zills. We will use two zill patterns, the triplet (RLR) and the "shave and a hair cut" rhythm. (doom ta ka doom ta - R, RLR, R).

Rough Combo Notes for Kasik Oyun Havasi
Begin after 45 second taqsim style intro in which you stand in place moving gently to the music and adjusting your zills:
Weight on left foot, right heel stomp two times (bending both knees in between)
Step right, step left.
Step forward, putting weight onto right foot with shoulder shimmy, lean back into left foot with two knee-bend bounces
Step forward onto right foot for pivot turn, pivot turn back to front
Suzie Q step right foot over left traveling left (4 times)
Hip pulls to right, right foot, left foot (4 times)
Step forward on right foot, left foot folk-style kick up
Step on left, right foot folk-style kick up
Feet together, cutesy knees to right, bounce bounce left, bounce bounce right, bounce bounce left --
Then, adding more energy, we will HOP this move...

Combo Notes for Oglan Oglan, from the Album Kef Time Detroit by Richard Hagopian.
Suzie Q right over left (4)
Tunisian Tip Toes Twist in Circle (4)
Turn to your right, step hip, sit hip (2)
Step hip, sit hip with Peek-a-Boo Look behind
Facing Audience: Step 3 hips, Reverse Mayas with hug arms and paint the floor feet (2 times)
Step forward, shoulder shimmy
Step back, two sit hips, then pause for isolated hip circles with music
Step forward, shoulder shimmy
Step back, two sit hips, then pause for isolated chest circles with music
Lively step hip forward for 4
Back, 2, 3 step with "pull on the long glove" arms.


To be continued, check back for additions.

From the archives: Report From Rhea On Turning 61 & 1/4

Rhea's favorite examples of women she admires are Tina Turner, Cher, Joan Collins. Timeless women, always admired. Both by men and women, who, by constantly reinventing themselves & changing with the times, remain in the forefront of their profession.

These women are owned by no men, but have certainly loved enough in their lives. They are self-determiners, which does not preclude partnership with men.

By continuing to dynamically entertain and stay ahead of the pack, they embolden all women, even of a lesser dynamism, to remain in the fray as long as they desire, instead of being cast to the sidelines as the offical baby sitter for grandchildren (although they can also do that and grandchildren like peppy grandmas).

There is nothing wrong or paranoid or pathological in trying to remain youthful and attractice for as long as we can. Whey shall we "act our age?" For whom? Society? I think society can stand the strains of the results of wanton individual self-expression. "Do no harm," but be yourself as much as you can understand what that is. Death comes all too soon. What balm is acquiescing logic? "Oh well, we all get old and die. Might as well start now." Indeed, logic can serve us only so far, although of course it should not be abandoned altogether.

Rather, a search for the soul in all things, yearning to be free, will result, I believe, in a more sane society that is dying to be rescued from ideas and mores anchored in the past century. Because, in addition to the joy of expressing the soul, and maybe more important, in a kazantzaki-ish way (Zorba, Report to Greco), is the search for that expression. The joy is in the ascent, not necessarily in the end result.

My father once told me "the times allow of different expression." To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven (Ecclesiastes).

So let it be with us. We are the result of a long line of women, not who suffered, but who responded to the times.

Don't give up the ship. Do not go gently into that good night. Neither a living example nor a martyr. "Just do it!" CARPE BELLY-UM. --Rhea

Melina's Circus!