Belly dance performances, classes, and workshops online and in Delft and Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Voorstellingen, lessen en workshops buikdans online en in Delft en Rotterdam, Nederland.
I think we’ve all leaned in to support local and small businesses during 2020. So I’m super excited to share this Ladies Holiday Guide because it promotes women-owned local businesses in Delft, Rotterdam, and the Netherlands showcasing their special holiday offers just for you!
Click the button below to download the guide, and peruse a unique mix of art, food, crafts, self care, dance, hair and business expertise. We created this guide in an effort to introduce you to new options of supporting your locals. So you can buy holiday gifts and feel great about it!
I was delighted to be invited back again to talk with Tiffany on the Yallah Raqs podcast last month!
We chatted about Middle Eastern rhythms, and, especially for dancers like me who are guests in this culture, how we can train our ears to better hear and understand Middle Eastern music and rhythms, in order to better interpret the music with our bodies.
Click the image below to take a listen!
Click the image above to listen to Siobhan Camille on Yallah Raqs podcast episode 62, or click the button below!
I’m super excited to have been interviewed by Tiffany from the Yallah Raqs podcast to talk about injury prevention for belly dancers! In the episode I talk about my research on injury in belly dance to share some tips for injury prevention for dancers.
We are offering an open 30 minute fundraiser class on Instagram Live on Wednesday August 26 at 17:00 CEST (5pm Amsterdam/Berlin/Paris). The class will be focused on shimmies, and we’ll dance a short combination!
We welcome you to join us, and consider making a donation to one of the above links. We are also happy to donate on your behalf, and 100% of all proceeds from the fundraiser class will go to the causes (10% of all proceeds from the regular Belly Dance Summer School classes go to the causes).
Want to hear about future special series and workshops from Siobhan Camille and Greenstone Belly Dance? Subscribe to our (maximum once-monthly) informative newsletter to stay up to date.
This article was originally written for Greenstone Belly Dance Newsletter recipients in June 2019. Want to receive nerdy new belly dance articles as soon as they’re published? Sign up to our semi-regular newsletter!
As belly dancers, it’s important we work on our musicality so we can better understand and interpret the music that we dance to. If we are not from Middle Eastern or North African countries, this can mean spending a bit of extra time getting used to new sounds! Let’s spend some time learning about some rhythms you’ll often hear in belly dance music.
Masmoudi Saghir (also known as baladi)
4/4 Rhythm: DD TD T
Listen to a sample of this rhythm below:
I prefer to call this rhythm “masmoudi saghir” (“saghir” means “little.” This rhythm is the little masmoudi; there is another rhythm called “masmoudi kabir”, which is the “big” masmoudi, and sounds a bit different). I prefer to use this name instead of ‘baladi,’ because the word baladi actually evokes the image of a particular style of dance.
Baladi means “of the country/land” in Arabic, and there is a music style that is usually improvised called a baladi progression. For belly dancers, the performance style that goes along with this progression is also usually improvisied. A baladi progression may or may not have the masmoudi saghir/baladi rhythm in it. Just hearing the masmoudi saghir/baladi rhythm does not indicate that the song you are listening to is a baladi progression, or that the song is suitable for a baladi-style performance.
Masmoudi saghir is a super common rhythm, so you’ll hear it in a range of styles of music, not just in ‘baladi’ style music. Here’s an example of the masmoudi saghir rhythm in a song, starting at 2:50:
Looking for more resources Maqam world is a great place to learn more about Middle Eastern music! Check out the Maqam World Reference on the masmoudi saghir / baladi rhythm.
Want to learn more about Middle Eastern rhythms? Join our upcoming online Belly Dance Summer School class for our Middle Eastern Rhythm study!
Join us on Wednesday August 5 and 12, 2020, from 18:30-20:00 CEST (Amsterdam timezone; around lunchtime for most of our North American students) for a deep dive into Middle Eastern musical rhythms, and some fun combinations to dance on them! We’ll be covering some of the basic rhythms, as well as some special tricky ones! This mini-series is suitable for belly dancers of all levels. Register and find all the details here.
Learn more about the Malfouf rhythm in another blog post here.
