Artist Circle, by Tracy Helming, www.alimahdances.com

I have been dancing for a while now, and I've noticed how the phases of my dance pursuit have evolved. I was a baby belly dancer, in love with everything and everyone for at least two years. Then, I started dancing in restaurants, continued to take many workshops and lessons, traveled, but somehow lost sight of the belly dance community surrounding me. About a year and a half ago, I started dancing together with a dance acquaintance: the beautiful Manon, who I had always admired and enjoyed, but had never really worked with. We began to get together to simply dance, practice, and search for means of heightening our artistic experience and expression through dance. We were looking for the Juice, in other words. Through this search we got to know each other's dancing more intimately, and this lead to really learning more about who each other was as a person, and this has in turn blossomed into a really fantastic friendship.

At the beginning of January, a woman who was another belly dance acquaintance called me and asked if I would consider getting together and just brainstorming about dance. Why not? So she came over, and we did just that: my turn, your turn, what inspires your movement? What do you think about when dancing? When practicing? What do you yearn for? Though we come from different dance backgrounds and styles, it was a wonderful collaboration, and I felt again that wonderful spark of friendship and community that comes out of women dancing for women.

I have done this several times now- I think of it as getting in the Artist's Circle (and that is Manon's beautiful term). It is a time to leave the stagename persona behind, and just communicate and explore together. It is not a "lesson", no exchanging of money for ideas. We learn together. There is rarely an itinerary for the trip, and there is always the possibility that the session will fizzle and that will be that. But, so far, it has yielded nothing but friendship and epiphanies.

Below are some of the ideas that have come out of these fruitful sessions. I invite you to try them out, and, if you like, email me ideas that have come out of your own Artist Circle endeavors. I will post them, along with a link to your website. It would be wonderful to extend the Artist Circle to all dancers who are moved to explore and share the beauty and artistry of Middle Eastern Dance.

Emails may be sent to: vlnhappy@hotmail.com. Enjoy!