Eight days from San Diego to Alcapulco and back on a huge cruise ship. Sounds great, and belly dancing too? How can you top that?

The eight-day Acapulco cruise was fabulous. Shandi and I left from San Diego and had one day to get our bearings and find the food and drink, both of which were in great supply. We soon learned that pizza and ice cream are available 24 hours a day. Our food, (room service too) was included unless we went to the fancy restaurants.

Next, three days of classes. One long session in the morning, a break for lunch, then two shorter classes. The teachers were mixed these days, so you have your pick of teachers if you just wanted one class. I was under the impression that we took all three classes the first day, but looking back… We took Jim Boz's baladi combinations and Saqra's finger cymbals in the afternoon, apparently we stayed up so late the first night dancing in the disco that we missed Princess Farhana's morning extreme taqsim.

So, the schedule was shot early. Partly due to the dressing up and dancing late into the nights. In the morning, the Jacuzzi's were nice and a steam room in the spa. This was free along with the workout equipment that we never got around to trying, but we could watch other people working out while we sat in one of the Jacuzzi's.

Next, three days of off shore visits, the break was needed. So much belly dance on a rocking boat is hard on the knees. We didn't make it off the boat until it was time to meet at The Pirate Bar, Barbarroja, in Acapulco. This was the Gorilla Hafla in which we gave the bar our music and danced it up. Good fun. One of the girls got her belly pierced on the way back to the boat in a surprisingly sterile looking shop. Next day Ixtapa/Zihuatenejo we got off in time to buy souvenirs and get back to the ship. I didn't make the third day, Manzanilla, on shore, but Shandi and Jenny had some excitement. There were many shore excursions: horseback riding, visiting ruins, shopping, cliff diving etc. in which we did not participate, but many of our new friends enjoyed them.

Then there were more classes and spending the evening in the karaoke bar. We had a few formal nights where everyone on the ship was to dress up for dinner. Lots of fun and dancing too. We really enjoyed the fan dancing class and got to see Princess Farhana's big feathery fans, ooooh.

The waves got rough the last two days, (apparently an unusual occurrence, the surfers in San Diego were in heaven) and there was significant nausea going around. Ice cream and chicken soup seemed to help this.

So, the last day the Blue Lotus tribe, from Chicago, taught some Eygpto-tribal fusion. I never did get to one of their classes. Shandi and I were trying to recover our stomachs and balance and put on eyeliner etc., to get ready for the belly dance show, while the ship went up and down, yikes. The show was really fun. We had invited many of the people we met at the pool and karaoke bar. Some showed up and we got to see all our new belly dance friends, most of which we had learned names for and chatted with, dance. It was challenging dancing on the moving boat. The disco, where we performed, was lower and near the back of the boat, it didn't rock nearly as much as our cabin. However, many of the dancers said they left out a lot of moves because of the rocking. We did a dance and drum solo that was choreographed, so there was some questionable balancing, but we felt good about our performance. Saqra danced with the wings and double veil. We took lots of pictures. We went and packed up for our last night.

That evening one of our new friends, Heather, sang as Gloria Estefan in the karaoke show. The next morning we were ready to get off the ship and spent the next few days in San Diego staggering around trying to get our land legs. We had a really great time, made new friends, and learned some new belly dance. I would recommend this cruise. I think any belly dance cruise would be great, but getting to know Jim and Princess Farhana made it a really fun experience. I'm not sure how many cruises they have done, but it's enough that they know the ins and outs, how to pace themselves, and have a great time mixing belly dancing and fun. Next year the Caribbean???

Jen Baird is a local Belly Dance instructor/performer in Springfield and Willard. Jen is also the
co-director of the Ozark Mountain Gypsies dance troupe. http://www.aliveandwelltherapies.com/ for more information. Above picture of Jen and Princess Farhana on the cruise taken by Shandi.

Natasha Senkovichdid such interesting and serious work on her documentary "The Belly Dancers of Cairo" (reviewed in our last issue) you might be misled into thinking she's a good dancer.

Her instructional DVD is so awful I had to force myself to watch it again without skipping big chunks of it, so that I could give an in depth review.

It's hard to know where to start, it's all so bad.

What is good belly dance? Posture, alignment, and muscle isolation are the foundation elements of technique. Stage craft, a fluent vocabulary of steps, the ability to feel and move in time to the music, and an understanding of transition combine with that foundation to form the absolute basics of good belly dance.

When I say a belly dancer is dancing or teaching bad belly dance I'm making a value judgement based on my criteria for good dancing and a lifetime of enjoying Middle Eastern music and dance. I'm not judging the dancer as a person and I always beleive there's hope that a dancer will improve.

What saddens me is the thought of someone who knows nothing about the dance buying this DVD because it is affordable and it promises to turn the viewer into a belly dance goddess with ten easy moves. But before I get too dramatic over this tragedy I have to say that two of my favorite students tried this DVD before they started studying with me and they could tell when they watched it that it wasn't going to teach them what they needed to know to belly dance. I just wonder how many potential students have watched this and then became too disenchanted to find a real teacher?

First of all, Natasha gives lip service to being "lifted"; she says the key words most teachers use to describe good posture but her own posture is poor and she does not isolate correctly, every move is sloppy and every step has at least one element that is just incorrect.

The worst moments in the instructional are during step 7 when she shows a supposes undulation (it's just wrong) with wave arms (a move suitable only for audience members at a ball game), and step 9 shoulder shimmy with a ghastly rolled movement of the shoulder and a hunchback sort of stance.

She dances in costume twice and these performances show a lack of feeling for the music and the poor technique is very obvious. I think it is interesting that her back up dancer with 2 years experience has poorer technique than the dancer with 6 months experience.

Natasha has a personable teaching style, she's fun, and she obviously loves belly dance but she's teaching very bad belly dance.

For more articles and reviews by Angela Belle Shikany visit the Dream Dancers website listed below...

Middle Eastern Dance, Belly Dance, Middle Eastern Rhythms and Drum class and more. All ages for most classes.

Classes offered six days a week

For complete class listing, call 417.881.4477 or check out the link below...

"The audiences' ears hear the music, and their eyes see you being that music. Dance  is the music made visible.  You are the music!" - Morocco