Bellydance: Opulent Motion with Sarah Skinner

Bellydance - Opulent Motion: The Artistry of Slow Moves explores techniques, styling and expression for dancing to slow belly dance rhythms and rhythmless taqsim. It is open level, but a special section reviewing the foundation movements of belly dance makes it accessible for beginners. Slow dance leaves a lot of room for emotional projection, expressivity and story-telling.

It is also demanding: As you slow down, every nuance of your carriage, technique and styling acquires prominence. Elements of styling, such as arm positions, poses, body angles and hand flourishes become crucial. Pacing must be dynamic and versatile to keep your audience mesmerized.

Celebrated for her lyrical, highly-emotive dance and magnificent improvisational talent, Sarah Skinner teaches you to combine structured and technical dance with organic movement - poses, body angles, and natural expressive motions that emerge when dance is telling a story and borrowing from pantomime. Sarah's improvisational method relies on story-telling and visualizations that prompt you to find organic gestures and modes of expression that will infuse your dance with meaning.

In the Rhythms and Movements section Sarah analyzes the structure of popular slow belly dance rhythms - ciftetelli, masmoudi, slow maksoum, slow 9/8 rhythm and rhythmless taqsim. She offers combinations that respond to the rhythms in different ways - catching different accents and varying the pace.

In the Movement Sequences section Sarah mixes structured belly dance steps with organic movement including expressive gestures, walks and turns, and offers longer combinations. Sarah breaks down the slow dance sequences step-by-step, and then offers a non-stop practice flow that will help you commit to muscle memory various ways of moving to slow rhythms, explore your own response to the music, and discover ways to maximize your expressivity and the emotional potential of your dance through styling.

In the Musicality and Expression section Sarah performs a number of improvised slow dances and explains how she blends classic belly dance techniques with organic expressive movement. She discusses which types of movement work best with different musical instruments, how to select accents that bring out the interplay between the melody and the rhythm, and ways of reflecting the melodic flow and textures of the music in your dance. Sarah details pacing, setting the mood in slow dance, and relating to your audience. She narrates the stories she enacts in each improvised dance and offers advice on how to turn plain technical dance into a true show, where every step and gesture is meaningful and deeply emotive. This section also includes Sarah's performances with dance props (candelabrum and swords) where she demonstrates how using a prop transforms the mood and the styling.