There are some exciting events coming up in the next few weeks! Who will be there?


 Thu, 26th of March 2009: Performance at Planet Egypt, a monthly showcase in London. My very first performance in the UK!

Sun, 29th of March 2009: Judging at the Benelux Belly dance Championships in Eindhoven, NL.

Wed, 15th of April 2009: Workshops with Khalida in Antwerp, BE! Raks sharki and veil - technique, hosted by the lovely Sarah Chebaro

Thu, 16th of April 2009: Workshops with Khalida in Antwerp, BE! Raks sharki with veil intro - choreography, hosted by the lovely Sarah Chebaro

Sat, 18th of April 2009: Performing at Leyla Jouvana's orient party in Duisburg, DE. Guest stars are Samantha and Petite Jamila of BDSS!

Sat, 25th of April 2009: Performing at Serkan's 1001 Nights showcase in Gent, BE. Check out the great lineup!

Sat, 09th of May 2009: Performance at Saida's World Belly Dance event in Tienen, BE!

Sat, 16th of May 2009: Performance at Bondok's Folklorient Show in Marl, DE.

Sun, 24th of May 2009:  Workshops with Khalida in Aachen! Classical oriental/raks sharqi and veil technique, two of my favorite subjects Email me at info@khalida.biz to sign up for these!

Hope to see you all there!
xx Khalida
www.khalida.biz

The show with Magdy el Leisy and his troupe last Saturday was absolutely amazing! And we had great fun to boot

There were some great dancers in this show and I am very proud to have been part of it! 
Our program: We started with an intro which showcased the dancers and different styles of Egyptian folklore, then we had a variety of group and solo dances including Skanderani, Hagalla, Shamadan (with zills!), Tanoura, Debke, Balady, Classical oriental and we ended with a massive Saidi finale with 14 dancers!

Group intro pics:


Saidi troupe girls! (I'm the small one on the left in the back row :-)



Solo pictures:
   
  



Lots and lots more action pics can be found here.. :-)

http://www.andre-elbing.de/pixlie/pixli..e.php?action=showgallery&pfad=2009-02-28+B..D513+Orientale+Magdy+El+Leisy+Fascinatin..g+Oriental+World+Dances+HTML

All in all it was a wonderful experience and I'd like to thank Magdy El Leisy for directing, choreographing and organising this beautiful show. I was very honored to have shared the stage with such excellent performers.

End pose!


So Magdy, Nwarin, Ahmed Fekry, Nour el Hadi, Saleh, Bondok, Marat, Verahzad, Delanna, Michou, Mirimah, Zabinah and Sitaara.. you all ROCK! :-)

xx Khalida
www.khalida.biz

I just got back this Monday from a long weekend at Orits bellydance festival in Eilat. I went there together with Artemisia of Belgium and we met up with some other dance friends from the Netherlands as well..

It is the 5th time that this festival is organised, and it featured top dancers and teachers like Mayodi from Paris, Amira Mor from USA, Asi (who is also an excellent costume designer!), Orit Maftsir, Yael Moav, Marina Oganyan (Russia), Gul, Aziza of Canada and many more!

There was so much good quality dancing and teaching during the weekend that I can wholly recommend it to anyone! Not only that, but the organization was flawless as well. There were a lot of participants running around but things went very very smoothly considering.. At times it felt more like a 3 day party than a
festival really

The first day started with a welcoming party outside and live drumming in the tent, it was fun to see the people starting to stream in. And some of them with the craziest outfits! After that there were workshops, we took Aziza's veil class and Asi's choreography..

On Thursday evening it was competition time!! I was pretty nervous but everything went fine after all.. The girl who won (Stephania) did a sassy drum solo, second place went to a young and very talented male dancer from France and I shared third place with Sophie (yay!!), who danced an amazing zill dance - sans music!! The announcements were pretty funny, all in Hebrew so I missed most of the talks afterward ;-) But I'm *very* proud to bring home another award!!  
On Friday there were more workshops and an open stage, where both me and Artemisia performed a solo. And I have to say: we represented our homeland well :-) People were *very* enthusiastic and they even asked Artemisia if she could do her dance again!

Furthermore I absolutely loved Mayodi's balady workshop, he's a great dancer and he knows his stuff.. I do hope he will be there again in the future! Asi was great as well, very nice and a super entertainer, he did a comedy piece that had people in tears from laughing at the competition show.


After the workshops we watched the gala show, with 2 different performances fro m all the main teachers of the festival. They were a treat to watch, Mayodi danced a soulful number, Amira Mor lit up the stage with her engaging personality, Marina danced a beautiful bollywood song and Aziza well.. Aziza was lovely as always, she won the hearts of every single participant with her first set and she borrowed my galebaya (the one I got from Katja, Annamae and Lena in Sweden!!) for her Saidi piece.. *swoon* Good costume mojo!


Orit did not dance at the shows herself, she did the presentation of
the competition and shows and even a little duet with Asi at the party, but seeing her dance at the workshops is a delight in
itself.. Man, that lady can dance!!

The only downside of the whole adventure: Security in Eilat airport while going back can be tough.. Be prepared for loonnng questionings and to have your suitcases rummaged through.. Better safe than sorry, but its good to know and arrive early enough to not get stressed!

But all in all I'd say: It was a great festival, I hope I can make it back next
year! Would be fun to meet up with more dancers then!!

Eta: About Asi's costumes: Look for the pictures on the festival site
that say 'fashion show' because all those costumes are from him. The designs are very original and they look amazing on a stage..

More pictures will be added soon!

I have to share my enthousiasm :-) The show and workshops for "Because we care" this weekend in Leuven were absolutely 100% of pure AWESOME!!

I will post more piccies as soon as I can, but the jumpy one says it all I think.. Thank you so much Artemisia and Nicole for organising this event and for getting such a GREAT lineup to dance at the show! It was fun to meet up with La mezcla, Razia, Béa, Charlotte, Ishani and oh man I am sure I am forgetting people here.. The student troupes did great as well and I LOVED the costuming.. It was an honor to share the stage with such a bunch of talented beauties :-)

The workshops were so much fun as well, I did Razia's Egyptian styling and Béa's beledy deluxe, we flapped our wings on Saturday and shimmied for 2 hours straight on a Sunday morning!! Aah.. my legs.. I think I will be a bit more gentle than usual in class this evening ;-)

On this pic from left to right: Charlotte (UK), BéaFarhana (UK), Razia (USA/UK), Khalida (BE/DE) and in front Artemisia (BE) who organized this charity festival. Photo by Sven Terclavers.

Last weekend I taught 3 workshops in Middelburg (NL) hosted by the lovely Majidah, and they all SOLD OUT!! Whee, great way to start the new year 
We had a lot of fun during the day, and I'm especially happy with how the raks sharki workshop turned out. We started out with a short talk about the different styles and eras and learned some classical combinations and a few modern ones. Then a short section on veil intro and to close it off we incorporated all of these in a follow-along dance to the intro song of Leila: Helwa.

The group did great! They were very attentive during all three workshops (kudos for that!) and I was touched by their enthusiasm.
Overall a great experience, I hope to be able to teach there again soon!

A big big thank you once more Majidah for hosting me, and also to the students who joined us there in Middelburg.
Best wishes! x Khalida
www.khalida.biz

I got back this Monday from a weekend full of workshops with Aziza in Stockholm, Sweden (yay!) and we had a fabulous showcase there on Saturday!

The girls from troupe Sheherazade (http://www.sheherazade.se) did an excellent job in organising this event and they were super sweet to boot.

They danced their award-winning(!) melaya piece from Duisburg and each a lovely solo. Aziza completely brought down the house at the end of the show and I danced a veil piece (*that* veil piece ;-)) in the first set and a beledy improvisation in the second one.

The second set was really a last minute decision, I wore a gorgeous galebaya from Lena (thanks Lena!) and was able to borrow music (Leila presents: Helwa) from Azizas CD collection. Fun fun fun! And: There were storm troopers, princess Leias and and everything! Plus a magic fireplace :-)

Will post more piccies later today!

xx Khalida

www.khalida.biz

Yessss, I managed a complete website redesign, for all 3 languages, all in one day!   Update: Used a piccie from the performance in Duisburg now. New new new!

It took me a few hours and I'm sure there are still some hiccups and maybe broken links here and there but I am VERY proud of the result Yay for .css!!

Check it out here: www.khalida.biz

Yesterday was a great day full of dance at Oriental Magic IV!! There were several workshops, 3 full show blocks and shopping from 12.00 till 24.00 at the festival

Me and Artemisia performed 2 of our own solos in the afternoon/evening blocks and we taught several workshops throughout the day. Artemisia did American veil combinations (including some neat veil tricks of her own) and 'walk like a dancer' which was obviously all about 'walking the walk' Great fun!  I taught a workshop in the afternoon on improvisation/choreography techniques AND right after that a short but intensive shimmy workshop. And I have to say: we shook it up good!!   

  
It was a *very* fun day with a really relaxed atmosphere, a varied show program and several interesting workshops. I spotted Rachid Alexander, Kyria, Artemisia, La Mezcla, Majidah, Harlemin (who won the Dutch Championships for bellydance last month!) Arya, Aveyanda and many more!

To top it all off: My beautiful yellow bella costume found a new home, which means I now officially have funds for my flight to Israel to visit Orit's Eilat festival (www.eilatfestival.com) in January 2009!! Yay!!

Hope to see you soon!

xxx Khalida
www.khalida.biz
 

.. The Liteside festival in Amsterdam was all kinds of awesome last Sunday!!

There were lots of familiar faces in the audience, too

There was a 2-hour masterclass with Sharon Kihara in the Flexbar before the show (See Kyrias pich with DJ Sharon!) where we did a yoga-warmup and some neat drills and mini-combinations. The WS could have been longer for me tho, it just seemed to fly by!

There was not very much time for makeup and costume afterward, and only a tiny space with one mirror for all performers, so a small panic ensued Thankfully the Liteside team was very creative, they made sure that in the end everyone survived *and* looked fab just in time for their act

The backstage atmosphere was great (but it was difficult to be quiet haha). I had the honor to meet Charbydis (they won the Shimmyshake as a duet last year and danced their award-winning choreography at the show) and Karin de Wit (who did a spectacular hoop dance!) and many other great dancers there.

Miss Sharon Kihara was gorgeous as always of course, she danced a medley of songs and that great piece I saw in Utrecht to close with. Serkan rocked the house with a classical peace and drum solo. My bellybreak performance at the start of the show went well (I pimped it a bit with eighties moves and used dance music this time, so hello armwaves and moonwalk hehe ) and I was *very very* happy with the second number at the end  to Savina Yannatou's 'Kemal'. (veil dance, inspired by Aziza of Canada/US) So all that practice was not for nothing! 

Thanks so much Milka for the performance piccies by the way!
After the show I met Aisa Lafour (*waves*) and my dance friends Milka and Ramona from Holland.

There was some time to chill out after the show outside and to close off the day Serkan took a few pics with Sharon, me and the organisational team (will post them when I get them!)

In short: It was a great event with very nice people and lots of interesting activities and I was very honored to be part of it.

Thank you to all who came to see the show and a BIG thank you to the Liteside team for taking such good care of us!

xoxo Khalida
www.khalida.biz

PS: Our hoopgirl (Karin de Wit) closed the show, she won Liteside's Shimmyshake competition last year! Check her out at www.youtube.com/user/karindewit

  Got my lush postal package yesterday and tried out all the stuff that seemed combine-able this morning. End result: I feel all luxurious and pampered and glowy. And Ernst says I smell funny.

I tried:
- Aqua marina face wash. loved it, or at least after I figured out to mix it with water BEFORE trying to put it on my face. Skin felt clean but not dry or squeaky afterwards.
- Flying fox honey shower gel: feels great, no lather, smells a bit funny
- Wiccy magic muscles massage bar: heats up like mild tiger balm, smells REALLY funny
- Brazened honey face mask: great stuff, exfoliates but doesn't dry out my skin, easy to wash off, smells okay
- Gorgeous face cream: wish it wasn't so damn expensive, feels good, smells great
- Helping hands hand cream: love it.