Article - Review for Raqs Wa Risala
by Tamara Heeren
http://buikdansen.web-log.nl/files/raqswarisala-10-17.pdf
Article - SUMMER SCHOOL IN BELGIUM (Ishtar 5/2010)
by Meri Sierla
The idea to combine my summer holiday trip and bellydance (BD) came up in Sept 2009. At that time I was attending the International Bellydance Congress in England, and two workshops of Artemisia, who is a Belgian BD-all-rounder. I was impressed by Artemisia's inspiring teaching style and her sparkling stage performance, and after I had made friends with her on Facebook, I found some information on the RAKS Summer School.
Belly Dance Boot Camp
RAKS stands for Razia, Artemisia and Khalida Summer School. There are two other founders in addition to Artemisia. One is the American-born Razia, who currently teaches BD in London, and the other is Belgium-born Khalida, who currently teaches BD in Germany. The 4th member of RAKS-team, "an honorary member" is Belgian BD teacher Queenie. All RAKS teachers teach and perform constantly in various BD events in their home countries and abroad.
The idea of RAKS was born in 2008 when Razia, Khalida and Artemisia spent a weekend together studying with their mutual idol, Aziza, who currently lives in Canada and who is famous for her shimmies and skillful veil technique. The first 4-day-RAKS, which sold out quickly, was held in the old university town of Leuven in Belgium in July 2009. The thirty participants gave the summer school a nickname "Belly Dance Boot Camp". The second RAKS was held in July 2010, and I attended the third RAKS which took place in Aug 2010.BD From Dawn Till Night
The home countries of the thirty participants, who represented nine nationalities, included Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, the United Kingdom, USA, Denmark, Norway, Estonia and Finland. The summer school was held at Phillipsite Sport Oase - a sports centre which is located near the centre of Leuven. The daily lessons lasted from 10 AM until 6 PM. We found out quickly why there is the nickname for the summer school, "Belly Dance Boot Camp", and what is "kick-ass training". The content of the summer school was multifaceted, and the topics included for example arm- and upper body technique, a rhythm class by Khalida, and a sagat workshop by Razia. We had a lunch hour in the middle of each day, and there was a stretching session by Razia or Khalida at the end of every BD-rich day. We had a movie night after the first RAKS day, and the theme of the movie night was -of course- BD. We saw video clips of many famous belly dancers from the "Golden Era of the Egyptian film industry" up until the present day. Between the video clips Khalida told us about the dancers, and we discussed for example Fifi Abdou's legendary stage performances, and Randa Kamel's physically strong technique. We also saw Samia Gamal's and Naima Akef's dances which were the basis for one of the workshops of the second RAKS day, "The Golden Age Style" by Razia. There was a bubbling atmosphere in the classroom when Razia, who has lovely and sweet face expressions and who is always cheerful, guided us through how to enter the stage ā la Samia.
One topic I was especially looking forward to was Artemisia's veil choreography workshop. I was very impressed by Artemisia's fluent veil technique skills at the International Belly dance Congress, and I was extremely happy to find out that Artemisia's 2.5 minute sweet choreography "Cheezy Veil", which has been inspired by BD movies, satisfied all of my expectations. The training rooms of Sportoase Philippsite Leuven were equipped with mirrors and there was lots of space to do veil choreography, which is usually required.
The RAKS Hafla took place after the second BD-rich RAKS-day. Hafla performers included both Artemisia, Khalida, Razia and Queenie, in addition to a bunch of volunteer summer students. There was a stage make-up workshop before the Hafla, and we summer students received lots of stage make-up tips from the teachers. As a result, thirty sweaty and hard-worked summer students had changed remarkably, and there were thirty sparkling beauties - with false lashes, of course! We were asked a few weeks before RAKS if we would be interested in performing in the Hafla. One of the performers was the beautiful movie star-like Maarika Merirand, alias Safran, who is familiar to many Finnish belly dancers from, for example, the Tallinn International Oriental Dance Festival. RAKS Hafla was very special for me as I did my very first solo there. The solo was an Alexandrian-style melaya leff choreography called "Iskandaria" by Katja Haanperä. Afterwards we all danced to BD classics and modern oriental songs. After I returned to the hotel I didn't have to wait for the Sandman too long!
New expansive experiences
One difference between a "traditional" BD festival and RAKS Summer school is the same participants during the whole four-day-event. Hence, the intensive study program was based on individual needs, goals, development needs and self-assessments which every summer scholar had to determine by e-mail before the event.
There were two groups, and we were assigned to groups depending on the topic. The small group size guaranteed that RAKS teachers were able to give individual feedback all the time. We summer learners were taken excellent care of (by the RAKS team) throughout the summer school, and everything was well-planned, punctual and represented execution excellence and professionalism. We summer scholars received detailed instructions on multiple topics by e-mail before the summer school, for example instructions on stage make-up gear recommended for the stage make-up workshop.
Our summer school secretary, Femke, took care on practicalities, assisted summer students with their lunch orders and translated the lunch menu which was in Flemish. Belly dance, travelling and summer holidays are wonderful things, but a combination means three times more fun! At a summer school one gets new expansive experiences and new aspects, a bunch of new BD mates, and the possibility to share information on BD events and everything possible related to BD or studying BD. Nowadays it is easy to stay connected with one's new foreign BD buddies or BD buddies in other (domestic) towns via Facebook or other means of electrical communication like e-mail.
The writer is a belly dancer from Helsinki