Boheme Belly Dance
Belly Dance Performance & Instruction based in Kalamazoo, Michigan
Mystery. Grace. Strength.
Flexibility. Community.
Learn the ancient art of Belly Dance!
Locations
Friday Night Meet & Greet
Time and Location TBA
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Saturday and Sunday:
Dormouse Theater
1030 Portage Street
Kalamazoo, MI
All workshops and showcase are at Dormouse Theater.
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Kindle Cimmerian
A founding member of international art collective, Black Lotus Kult, Kindle utilizes many different styles to celebrate the spiritual, sensual and unusual through her art, with a primary focus on dance and movement. Since 2002, she has held audiences captivated by fire performance, using poi, fans, and fire palms. In 2005, during a move to Sacramento, she found herself fall in love with the experimentation and fierceness of belly dance ignited by instructor Amy Sigil. In the time since, Kindle has received intensive instruction in this art from world-renowned masters, and has traveled all over the country enjoying and sharing this dance with others. She was recently awarded 1st Place Pro Fusion Dancer at the 2019 Orlando Belly Dance Convention.
Kindle performs at events coast-to-coast, and offers lessons around Nashville, TN.
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Saturday Afternoon with Kindle (4 hrs)
1pm - 5pm
"Blood Magic" - Come learn this alluring choreography to a delightfully dark and enchanting song. The choreography encompasses sultry and hypnotizing movements and controlled isolations. We will get into some technique on muscle engagement to understand the execution of the quality of movement for this song. You may use this choreography as a solo or in a group.
Sunday Afternoon with Kindle Cimmerian (4 hrs)
12pm - 4pm
12pm-2pm - "Escape Tools" - Trapped in a creative movement block? Creating choreographies can be difficult. We get stuck, it just doesn’t feel right, which direction do the arms go? In this workshop, we’re going to look at very helpful tools for movement and ways to help us structure a choreography that will get us out of that creative block when it hits us. We’ll be creating combinations in the workshop so you can see the live work of your progression of the combination. If you would like, we can show our work at the end of class, to further inspire us and see what others used in their pieces.
2pm-4pm - "Winter’s Grasp" - Kindle will be taking us through some of her favorite Datura Style vocabulary combos and movements that focus on slow, serpentine, and gooey qualities. Deeper talks of technique and muscle engagement can be discussed here. Don’t be fooled- just because something slow, doesn’t mean it’s easy *wink*
Dawn Xiana Moon
Dawn Xiana Moon has appeared on Britain's Got Talent and was named "Best Stage Performer" (twice), "Best Choreographer," and "Best Dancer" (twice) by the Chicago Reader. She has performed in London, Toronto, and Washington, DC; WGN-TV called her "spectacular!"
Dawn is the Founder/Director of Raks Geek / Raks Inferno, a bellydance and fire company that was named the Chicago Reader's "Best Dance Troupe" (runner up). Raks Geek has garnered international accolades through their commitment to blend a high degree of artistic and technical mastery with fun, creativity, and themes from geek culture; they were featured on UK Channel 4 TV's "50 Funniest Moments," and The Daily Mail hailed the group as "sci-fi seduction."
In addition to her work as a dancer and fire performer, Dawn is a singer-songwriter who's sung the National Anthem for the Chicago Bulls; she's performed in 10 states and released two albums, fusing elements from traditional Chinese music with folk, pop, and jazz. She was named runner up for "Best Singer-Songwriter" (2019) and "Best World Music Act" (2020) by the Chicago Reader. Dawn has a degree in theatre from the University of Michigan and over 25 years of formal acting training and performance experience.
Workshop - Saturday 9am - 10:30am
"Storytelling and Crafting Characters: From Rubber Duckies to Your Most Vulnerable Self"
Can bellydance be funny? Can you make an audience fall in love with how ridiculously cute you are? Can you tell your most vulnerable stories onstage? Yes, yes, and yes!
Break all the rules and push past what's expected. Learn how to create characters that appear larger than life. Express real emotion rather than simply pasting on facial expressions. And learn how to tell stories without using words.
Dawn Xiana Moon has appeared on Britain's Got Talent and was named "Best Stage Performer" (twice) and "Best Dancer" (twice) by the Chicago Reader; she is the founder/director of Raks Geek, a bellydance and fire performance company that's garnered acclaim from MSN, The Daily Mail, UK Channel 4 TV, and more.
She has a degree in Theatre from the University of Michigan and over 25 years of formal actor training and performing experience. We'll apply acting techniques directly to dance, and you'll leave with concrete ways to leave an unforgettable impression on your audience.
Andrea Sendek
With a rich background in the performing arts, Andrea Sendek brings a lifetime of passionate involvement in acting, music, and dance to her role as choreographer, instructor, performer and organizer. She began belly dancing in 1994 in Los Angeles with Mesmera. From 2004-2014 she trained at the Salimpour School under Suhaila and Jamilla Salimpour. In that time she held the titles of staff instructor, Assistant Director of both the Suhaila Dance Company and Bal Anat, company dancer, and soloist in both SDC and Bal Anat. Andrea studied Baharatnatyam with Mimi Janislawski PHD from 2005-2013. In 2020 Andrea began studying extensively with Egyptian artist and master instructor Tommy King and is currently still under his mentorship. She has taken countless workshops and private lessons from Egypt’s top artists including Dandesh, Rabia Abotoleb, Mohammed Shahin,Tito, Aida Nour, Hassan Khalil, and Zaza Hassan to name a few. In 2023 Andrea was invited to teach and perform annually at the Crazy Night’s Festival in Egypt. Andrea has also taught and performed in Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Canada, South America, and across the United States.
She performed as a featured soloist to a live Arabic band from 2006-2010 at Marrakesh Restaurant in San Francisco and is an in demand artist throughout the Bay Area performing regularly at private events. She founded Khepri Dance Company in 2015 and in 2016 the company was selected to perform at the prestegious San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival. She produced the theater show Crique Arabesque in 2018 and 2019. And produced the Catwalk at Steff’s,a monthly variety show highlighting the Bay Area’s top talent in drag, burlesque, and belly dance. Andrea also teaches Pilates and has completed her training in Mat, Reformer, and Springboard, with Balanced Body Education. She currently teaches 15 Pilates classes weekly alongside of the 4 belly dance classes she teaches. She loves to intertwine Pilates training with belly dance training and is known for a great expertise in the mechanics of belly dance technique. She is loved by her students and is known for her generosity in her teaching. Andrea continues to grow and evolve in her dance and is grateful to all of her teachers for fostering an environment where she surpasses her wildest dreams in her dance career.
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Workshop - Saturday 10:45am - 12:15pm
"Egyptian Stylizations: Oriental & Baladi/Shaabi"
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Learn Egyptian stylizations with Andrea Sendek. So you’ve been taking classes and your technique is solid but when it comes to performing you still feel like you’re not quite sure how to belly dance. This workshop is going to help. In Egyptian style belly dance the two most common styles are Oriental and Baladi/Shaabi. Each genre uses the same movements but they are stylized differently and have a different character. Andrea will explain how to identify if a song is Oriental or Balady/Shaabi, how to dance in the right character for each genre, and teach classic steps with the different stylizations for each genre. Students will leave with a better understanding on how to dance to the music and with a stronger connection to the source of all styles of belly dance.