plaza de anaya

Sharon Kihara

Sophia Ravenna

Hello there, internet. Did you miss me? I was sick in bed for a week. It was wonderful *eye roll*

I got well just in time to head up to Tempe for the Sharon Kihara Spring Intensive at Plaza de Anaya! I had only purchased one workshop this time around, since I decided to spend all my fun money on a tattoo, but I also bought myself a ticket to the show, because really, $15 is a STEAL for the sort of show that Plaza always puts on for the intensives! It felt really strange to be at the show and not have been at workshops earlier in the day, though, and then it felt strange to get up this morning and have a few hours to hang out instead of rushing to the workshop!

The one workshop that I did take was SO MUCH FUN! It was all about creative collaboration in a group setting. We were split up into random groups and we had to come up with a story, and then a choreography to express it. I found it really amazing how much 7 people from varying dance backgrounds could accomplish together in just an hour. All four groups came up with really beautiful choreographies, it was great to just sit and watch them. I had a wonderful time working with my group, I was lucky and ended up in the same group as two of my former Anaya troupe mates and a few other people I knew!

Sharon struck me as a very warm, friendly, and fun person. I didn’t get much of a sense of her teaching style, since this particular workshop was more geared towards group interaction with her guidance, but friends who had taken the entire weekend spoke really highly of the more technical ones, so I have a feeling I’d enjoy learning more from her in the future.

Now I’m ready to throw myself back into dancing this coming week. I can’t wait to see my Fire & Gold troupe mates tomorrow night!

Teacher Profile: Anaya Tribal

Teacher Profile: Anaya Tribal

Sophia Ravenna

When I decided that I wanted to make the weekly commitment to go to Plaza de Anaya for belly dance classes, I then had to decide who I was going to study with. I knew I wanted to learn tribal, but there were group tribal classes on THREE different nights! Which to choose? I ended up settling on Anaya Tribal over ATS or Domba, because Thursday was a good night for me and I saw that Cari and Tiffany used to dance with Nawari at the Ren Faire, and I LOVED that group!

I’m happy to say that I made the right decision — although there probably wasn’t a wrong decision. Learning from Cari and Tiffany has been a treat! They have a very polished and exact style of tribal, with a lot of the basics that you’ll learn in any class but also a lot of unique combos. The vocabulary is staggeringly large and varied, and ever changing, with new moves occasionally added and old moves dropped out when they fall out of favor. This ever-evolving style means that after over 2.5 years with them, I still don’t have the entire curriculum committed to memory and there’s always more to learn and room to improve.

In addition to teaching beginner, intermediate, and advanced ITS, Cari and Tiffany occasionally offer classes in sword and skirt. They travel to many belly dance festivals and SCA events to teach workshops and vend their costuming wares. Oh, did I not mention the costuming? I did now. They have the best pantaloons and the cutest vests, not to mention gorgeous bras at affordable prices. You can learn more about Anaya and do a little shopping at the Anaya Tribal website.

Cari and Tiffany also direct The Anaya Tribe, a student troupe of various levels of dedicated students. I spent several happy, albeit frenetic, months as a member of Anaya Tribe performing at a variety of shows. The Tribe is a great way to improve your dance, get performance experience, and make friends. I’m sad to be leaving it at the end of this month!

By the way, Anaya member Danna was also helping with the classes for a while but then she had to take some maternity leave. Her daughter Zoey was born yesterday! Congratulations, Danna!

Big Dancing Weekend!

Sophia Ravenna

My goodness did I dance a lot this weekend! Hours and hours of dance, in fact!

Last night was a big birthday bash for Kimberly, owner of Plaza de Anaya and all around awesome lady. Not only was there live drumming to dance to, but Spiritchaser (the Dead Can Dance tribute band) played a live set, too! That was SO much fun to dance to. I enjoyed getting my Anaya on with Tiffany and No-El to beautiful live music.

Today I had not one but two troupe practices, each two hours long. First, my last troupe practice with Anaya Tribe, where we did our usual general practice and crazy layering warm-up, and then we worked on our piece for the Unmata show next weekend. Second I came back to Tucson for the Collective’s practice, in which we talked about what we were going to do, practiced a bunch of dancing and made a lot of noise with zills.

Now I am ready to relax for a bit before I have to tackle another class-filled week!

Back from Class

Sophia Ravenna

Another long Tempe night. I had fun seeing my friends in class and getting my dance on, and meeting a new student or two and buying yet another “Rukie” style overskirt, because 3 is not enough. Got some homework to work on between classes, too!

Back to Anaya!

Sophia Ravenna

The New Year Session at Plaza de Anaya finally started this week, so it was time for fresh Anaya classes. Had a good time, enjoyed seeing my Phoenix friends, swapped out some of my retail items and collected my earnings… But dang am I tired out from the drive and the dancing!

Have to say I did feel good in class… I “got” some things that I’ve had trouble with in the past. Studying with other teachers and practicing more has done well for me.

See me dance this weekend!

Sophia Ravenna

I have two performances this coming weekend, so I hope I’ll see at least some of you there!

On Saturday I will be performing at the Plaza de Anaya student recital in Tempe. From 5:30 to 6:30 there will be an open drum and dance, then at 7pm the students will take the stage! This event is free, and you can bring a dish if you want to participate in the potluck meal. I will be performing with the Anaya Tribal students. Click here for the Facebook event page, which has more details.

Then on Sunday I will be performing at the Belly Dance Holiday Show at Fluxx Productions here in Tucson! This hafla will feature visiting dancer Raven Ebner as well as many talented local Tucson dancers. I will be performing with my Wednesday night classmates and debuting my Lovely Creature solo. The event costs $5 and we will also be collecting non-perishables for the food bank. Doors open at 6pm. Click here for the Facebook event page.

Holy crap, it’s December

Sophia Ravenna

Day 335 of practice.

There’s just one month left of my year of practice! Can’t believe 2011 is almost over.

Tonight’s practice was 2 hours of Anaya Tribal classes. I’m happy that they’ve been adding more challenges for the level 3-4 students in the level 1-2 class. Tonight we had to play 3-3-7 on our zills while the newbies learned 3s, and we had to layer shimmies over our Turkish and Arabic. I am slowly getting better at that. Turns out that most of my problems with dance all stem from just being too tight, so as I relax more and stretch all my tight places more, these problems will go away. Also I have to keep practicing, of course.

I also added some items to my Plaza de Anaya gift registry! Yes, that’s right, Plaza has a registry this year, so that your friends, family, and significant others can make sure to buy you the right dance pants. Wait… there are no pants on my registry! What is wrong with me?

Busy, busy weekend

Sophia Ravenna

Days 322, 323 and 324 of practice.

Whew! My last super-jam-packed-travel-weekend is behind me! I can spend some weekends at home. Hooray!

Friday, day 322. Practiced in my car. But really, honestly practiced. Tried Fonda’s advice of practicing chest lifts while singing to make sure I’m not using my breath. This is basically the perfect thing to do while driving alone down the highway after dark, because there’s no one to see you looking silly and singing horribly. Also listened to the song for my next solo and got some epic inspiration. I need to learn how to do the Berber walk.

Saturday, day 323. Last Anaya Tribe performance at the year! Headed up to Faerie Fest early with Jen, so we could spend a few hours getting our faerie on. Got a scarab henna tattoo with green glitter on it. Danced on the scariest stage ever, switching off with the lovely ladies of Divine Chaos and their skirt troupe. Had a good time despite scary stage. Later, we went to Aura, the black light party hosted at Plaza de Anaya, and I got to play with my sweet new glow fans and practice some Anaya style with Jen.

Sunday, day 324. Troupe practice! Since we don’t have any upcoming performances to drill for, we focused on honing our zill skills and developing a new formation. Pretty exciting.

Now I have to get ready for a meeting with my local Tucson dancers. Like I said, it’s a busy weekend!

Coughing my brains out

Sophia Ravenna

Days 307-310 of practice, sorta.

Well, my year of dance kind of fell apart with this sickness. I flat out did not practice on Thursday and Friday. I was so sick, and in such a bad mood from being sick, that it just didn’t happen. But you know what, I’m okay with that. I’ve been doing this for over 300 days and I only missed one before, also when I was sick. So I think I’ve proven that I can practice every day. I’m going to continue onward, having acknowledged the fact that sometimes I am physically and/or mentally incapable of doing anything that truly resembles dancing. From now on, sick days will be for non-physical dance journey enrichment — maybe I’ll spend the day watching videos on YouTube, or sorting through new music, or reading a belly dance magazine or on-line articles.

Anyway, the weekend was full of dance. I went to the Plaza de Anaya Intensive, featuring Elizabeth Strong and Silvia Salamanca. I couldn’t fully participate, due to low energy and coughing fits, but even sitting on the sidelines and taking notes when I got too tired was fun and inspiring. Plus the show pretty much knocked my socks off! Other fun parts of the weekend were carpooling with Jolie and getting to know her better, spending the weekend with my great friend Jen, and being paired up with awesome fellow Tucsonan Gina and my beading belly dance friend SaraBeth for an exercise in upper Egyptian group dancing :) All that and I got a badass femme fatale hairclip from local vendor extraordinaire Kyla, as well as DVDs from both instructors so I can pick up more of their style when my health improves.

Now I’m left with a horrendous cough but a strong desire to dance (especially since my husband found more awesome music tonight), so I’m facing a week of going to my dance classes but dancing at partial capacity — Jolie has already given me permission to skip the torturous crunches, push-ups and hip bridges during her warm-ups, probably because she’s had to listen to me cough all weekend :)

elizabeth strong, jolie roberson, plaza de anaya, practice, shopping, sickness, silvia salamanca, weekend, workshops 8 Comments
I’m a water faerie!

I’m a water faerie!

Sophia Ravenna

Days 260 and 261 of practice.

Here’s a picture of my costume from yesterday’s performance! I danced to “Ocean” by Collide, and my character for the piece was an amoral water faerie… Shy, seductive, alien, and graceful. Also she wears tiny winged bird skulls over her ears, because I’ve been waiting for the perfect excuse to wear them. I got a lot of compliments on the costume and the dancing, so I’m floating on Cloud 9.

Over all, the Healing Through Dance benefit was a success! All of the performances were great, we had an enthusiastic crowd, and we raised a nice amount of money for the Sessoms family! Speaking of raising money, we ended up with a lot more rummage sale donations than we expected, and Plaza de Anaya has kindly allowed us to leave a rack of items in the store, so if you were unable to make it to the benefit but would still like to shop, head over to the studio this week! There are some really nice items! I personally came home with a new tie top, gahwazee coat and panel skirt all in beautiful Autumn-appropriate colors. There are things for tribal, fusion, and cabaret dancers, and some clothes that can be worn for day-to-day stuff, too!

Today was troupe practice, where I got my brain broken by more zill patterns! I really need to work harder, and also get myself a private zill lesson with Mahin, because she is awesome and I need help. We also talked about upcoming gigs, costumes, and our dance levels. I am pleased to announce that I am now a Level 2 Anaya Tribe Dancer and I only need 1,000 more EXP before I level up (a little joke for my gamers there).

We have a troupe gig next weekend but it’s for a charity event and I don’t think it’s open to the public, so if you want to see me get my group tribal improv on, you need to come to the Desert Shakedown on October 8th!