Chaikhana show and ANAR DANA intensive training intro weekend in Seattle, Sept. 21-23, 2012

It's time to register for the upcoming ANAR DANA 2012/13 Training Project Introductory Weekend. (For more information on the training program please scroll down.) Please register to secure your spot ASAP.

To kick off the season there will be a Chaikhana (tee house) performance on Fri, Sept 21st. This performance will be in a really cozy tea house-like atmosphere and some of my students and colleagues will be performing as well.
All of the intro weekend activities will all be the Tin Can Studio in the Tully's building, which is our new home for ANAR DANA this season.

Please don't hesitate to call or email if you have any questions!
Helene
843/599-1089

Sat/Sun Sept. 22-23, 2012 USA/Washington Seattle
ANAR DANA Intensive Training Project

Learn Technique, Choreography, Dance Notation, Yoga, Music Analysis, Staging, Costuming, Stage Make-up, Historical and Cultural backgrounds for 7 different styles of women's dance from North Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia. On this weekend we will pick our repertoire together and you can become acquainted with my work before deciding to take part in the whole 9-weekend project and show. The project will then start in October. Cost: $160 per weekend.

In addition to the weekend dates I will offer in-depth cultural evenings at my house in Ravenna/Seattle on the Tuesday evenings before each project weekend. These evenings are designed to explore the cultures of our project’s dances in more depth, including costumes, films, music and more. The cultural evenings are open to the public and cost $15 for general public and $10 for ANAR DANA members.

27-28, October, 2012; 17-18, November, 2012; 15-16, December, 2012; 16-17, February, 2013; 2-3, March, 2012; 16-17, March, 2013; 27-28, April, 2013; 18-19, May, 2013; 1-2, June, 2013; Dress rehearsal: June 13, 2012 (6-10pm) Recitals: 14 & 15, June, 2013 and most probably performances at NW Folklife and the Seattle Iranian Festival. (Dress rehearsal and recital weekend is free of charge).

The introductory weekend in September is open to anyone who wants to come and acquaint themselves with my work and what I propose to do in the training program. We will try out many different dance styles, look at videos, see photos of previous training programs that I have led. You will have the chance to ask any and all questions about the work and together we will pick the 7 dance styles that we will work on over the following year. Yes! Whoever comes to the introductory weekend helps to choose the repertoire! Some of my ideas for this season's repertoire include Ottoman court dances, Misket spoon dances from Turkey, Macedonian Rom Dance, Bulgarian dances from Thrace, Omani dance, Daghestani dance, Afghan dance from Paktia, Qashqa'i dances of southern Iran, Ghoomar dances from Rajasthan, Tunisian dance, Moroccan Berber Dances, and more. What we do is all up to you!

The project itself will then be a series of 9 intensive weekends of 12 hours each. We would have a theme and a repertoire of 7 dances...decided upon in the introductory weekend, after which one must decide to participate or not and commit by contract. We will learn the techniques of each of the dance styles decided upon, do dance training and yoga, learn about the cultural and historical backgrounds for the different dance styles, learn about choreography, staging, stage make-up and costumes. We learn 7 different group choreographies...each student will be in aprox. 4 choreographies, but is expected to be able to stand in for the other 3 if necessary. We will also make decisions about costuming at the introductory workshop...which will mostly come from my collection. At the end of the project we do a recital...I do solos in between the group choreographies so that we have a smooth running, full evening performance. There is a certificate of participation for all who complete the program.

To see a feature length program that the Seattle Channel did about ANAR DANA please click here: