Manon, Tamalyn Dallal and I met last night and brainstormed about an Artist Circle project on which we would like to collaborate. The project is in the early planning stages, but here is a brief outline of our ideas:

Artist Circle is a non-hierarchical meeting of dancers for the purpose of stretching our means of expression and movement in dance. During Artist Circle sessions we each bring a concept or dimension to explore along with a combination or exercise to demonstrate and practice that idea.

We would like to take our ideas to the stage now, and are planning on holding Artist Circle sessions monthly in order to create a show which not only entertains but also teaches, demonstrating our favorite concepts which we discover during the Artist Circle sessions. The show will likely be held in October or early November of 2011. It will be filmed and edited to produce a DVD which we will market and sell.

Each piece in the show will illustrate one of our favorite concepts from Artist Circle. Each dancer will be the focus of one piece, however we will also play supporting roles in different numbers to create contrast, and to expand into a more theatrical dimension of dance production. We will use our time during Artist Circle sessions to shape each number so as to best illustrate the concept with dance as well as staging and lighting. Artist Circle meetings will serve as rehearsals as well as a bellydance lab!

In between Artist Circle meetings, we will also make a mission of attending different genres of dance. We want to learn about other dance forms, and gain a good sense of what a theatrical stage show can deliver.

In addition to creating an outline for this project, we also held a little Artist Circle of our own. Here are some of the ideas we explored: lightness and heaviness in movement (this differs from sky and earth energy and focus); genuine facial expression and allowing the dance to move through us as opposed to controlling and planning each movement; yin and yang in bellydance – allowing for a balance between feminine and masculine energy in movement as well as balancing the flow of communication between audience and dancer (speaking and listening through dance.)

This will be an epic dance journey and I hope you will join us along the way! We will blog about our work throughout the process, and also hold monthly haflas on the 2nd Sunday of each month in which we try out these concepts and dimensions in performance! All are welcome to dance at these haflas: simply email me (Alimah): vlnhappy@hotmail.com.

For more information on Artist Circle, visit http://alimahdances.com/artist_circle.php