A bellydance extravaganza inspired by little Joseph Wren to benefit the Prune Belly Syndrome Network ( http://www.pbsn.org ), an organization dedicated to helping families of Prune Belly patients. All show proceeds will be donated to PBSN.

Dance is the visual representation of the music. Our bodies are the vessel of that creative expression and art in motion. In this master class, we will move beyond the belly dance box to explore ourselves as performance artists, creating shapes, story, and captivating performances from beginning to end, and take our performance to the next level. This workshop will pull from Deb's studies in dance, music, somatic inquiry, theater, and yoga to push our edges and draw out personal style, intention, emotion, and innovation that can be applied to either solo work or group pieces. We will explore concepts such as "throwing energy," "the tension of opposites", pacing, and 'the art of doing nothing', as well as practices to become more comfortable in our own skin being seen and interacting with an audience, and directly apply them to your work-in-progress musical selection that you bring in. Exercises in this workshop will help build performance confidence and cultivate your own unique voice and style in the dance. Please bring a journal, water bottle, and a playful spirit. *Dancers, please bring 1-2min. song (on an ipod) that you are working on, to use during workshop.

Next Level Slink! This workshop will begin with Deb's signature core-integrated yoga for belly dance warm-up as the foundation for slow/slinky tribal, with a focus on asana which will increase space and articulation through the upper thoracic spine/ribs/sidebody for maximum expression in the traditionally 'stuck' places. Class focus is on refining your torso and upper body technique, and new slow combos will be introduced to drill the concepts. Moving beyond the basics, however, this 2012 workshop edition will focus strongly on how to create deeper, core-integrated movement quality, suspension, and hyptonizing subtleties and transitions to bring your slow&slinky dancing to the next level of intoxication, presence, and decadence. She has been coined "The Queen of Slink". Come learn Deb's unique tribal stylization and critically-acclaimed teaching perspective of some of her favorite material.

This workshop will focus on pops, locks, ticks, tocks, and glitch. Pulling both from belly dance and hip hop, we will explore the balance between sharp hits and controlled fluidity in your dancing. Be prepared to sweat! Class includes high-energy, multi-layered technique drills, and new combos inspired by the heart of the San Francisco Tribal Fusion scene in which Deb lives and dances, featuring music selections from some of the leading dub and electronica dj artists. (Also included: Deb will share her unique perspective in how she builds up a glitch dance combo from bassbeats to lyrical, in order to adequately represent the different instrumentation and feelings in the music with her body). *Some parts of this workshop featured on the cbs evening news, Las Vegas!

As the genre of tribal fusion continues to evolves to being featured on big theater stages and rightfully deemed as powerful performance art, we must evolve as dancers, widening our training and our dance repetoire to include the necessary core-integrated, embodied elegance and underlying form on which all belly dance layers can be laid. This workshop focuses on how we travel through space--moving across the floor, extension of lines, grace, and fluid transitions and turns while keeping our center and floating upper body for stage. We begin with a personal practice sequence(core-yoga for bellydance), and a high-energy drills section to clean up our shimmies and hipwork and build stamina. Then, we will move across the floor, layering torso isolations and bellydance hipwork over our fancy footwork, long lines, and traveling steps. We will also play with creating interesting body angles, levels, and shapes to frame your torso isolations in flattering ways for your own physique, in order to inspire your own brand of fusion. (*Across the floor material inspired from Deb's studies in Tango, Modern, and Ballet, directly applied to tribal fusion bellydance.)

Some content of this workshop will be determined by requests of students. Please come prepared with any questions/issues/areas of focus you would like me to address.

Does not include a show ticket.

Does not include a show ticket.

Does not include a show ticket.