Bellyfest 2010 Part 2 of 3: Belly Dancing Workshops and Performances

Bring out your hip scarves and shimmy your way to the PETA Center for the first part of PETA's East West Danse: Bellyfest 2010!

As I have written in my post-it notes last Tuesday, I am one of the 10 bloggers chosen to get free passes to see the Philippine Educational Theater Association (PETA)'s East West Danse.  The first part of this month-long celebration of dance is Bellyfest 2010.  This is where we watched and experienced Belly Dancing and the Middle Eastern dance fever!  This post is all about the afternoon program wherein we belly danced, won raffle prizes and saw a number of dance performances!




The afternoon program was hosted by the Peak Performance Dance Instructors, Jill, Lovely, Arcel and Nilda.  They were so full of life and funny!  It's very clear to see that they are all friends and they really enjoy dancing, specially belly dancing.


It started with a game sponsored by Slenda.  Meann of PETA told us a few facts about this weight loss capsule.  It contains, Resveratrol, which we later found out that this could also be found in red wine, EGCG, Banaba and Turmeric.  It's only for 12.00 Php per capsule and you would just need to take it three times a day, about 10 minutes before every meal.  It is also readily available for you in all leading drugstores nationwide.  If you would want more details you could visit their website at www.slenda.ph.  There were questions asked about these facts, and those who would be able to rush to the stage answer the question would get free sample packs of Slenda and the DVD that features The Slendance.


To start the festivities, they had a Belly Dance Parade.  The Belly Dancers lined up and shimmied through the festival area.  They were all wearing colorful belly dancing costumes!  It was a parade of gyrating hips and a myriad of colors.

The first performance was by Tonette Mendiola.  She performed the Egyptian Cane Dance.  I admire her confidence and the flexibility of her body!


The first workshop was with Mr. Louie Angsico.  He discussed and demonstrated Martial Arts and Dance for Flow and Success in Everyday Life.  He taught us the "Yes and.." principle and Sticky Hands.  He also said that our body is contains the memories of our experiences and in everything that we do, it exudes our thoughts, feelings and actions.  Together with his comrades, they demonstrated a few capoeira moves.  It's an Afro-Brazilian art form that combines music, dance and martial arts.  There were a couple of kicks and tumbles!


Another performance was given by the Peak Jazz students together with their teacher and choreographer, Donna Salubayba.  This was a fresh break from all the belly dancing going on.


The next workshop we had was Bollywood Belly Dancing.  Who else could better teach this but an Indian National.  Ms. Priya Murugesan taughts us a few Bollywood belly dancing moves!  The dance steps were very much Indian of course.  It started with the lotus hand and ended with a whole lot of sweat, dancing and fun!


The next workshop was by the Korean-based Australian Ms. Belynda Azhaar.  The workshop featured Belly Dance Drum Solo.  There were a lot of isolations and she's sooo good at it.  It looked as if her body parts are not connected!  Really!  It was such an honor that she was able to teach us a few steps.



One of the out of the norm forms of belly dancing was also presented and performed that afternoon by Zumre.  He was amazing!  It was an American Tribal form of belly dancing.  The movements in his belly were unexpected and breath taking!


The Bellyfest Cast, which includes the hosts of the afternoon show also performed.  They did the "Harem".


Aside from their moves, another eye catching factor of the Bellyfest are the costumes.  And it's nice to know that the one who did the costumes also can dance:  Ms. Donna M. did the flamenco and of course, she had one of the costumes she created on.


The More than Medals group also had a wushu demonstration.  I love wushu!  But this demonstration was extra special because of the ones performing the wushu moves: it was kids!  I don't think anyone of them would exceed the age of 20.  Maybe the small girl is just seven years old or even younger!  It was just sooo cute for me!


All the workshops were fun!  But of course there was a time limit for every session.  I did not realize how many people was there participating, because there were very few at first.  But when the air conditioning units could no longer take the heat produced by the number of bodies gyrating, I need to stop and look around.  Wow!  A lot of people are already dancing! It was like one big party!

The performances were inspiring.  Dancing is one form of art that I am very much reluctant to dive into.  And seeing them, in all shapes and sizes is really an inspiration.

The afternoon activities seem to be the heart of the Bellyfest!  I enjoyed every minute of it.  Plus!  There are raffle draws!  They gave away about 10 bars of collagen soap from blueluvspink, make-up (i'm sooo sorry i did not get what brand of make-up) and 5 free belly dance class from Peak Performance.  And the best part is, we won!  Weeeee!  We won 2 out of the 5 belly dance classes that was given away!  I'm sooo excited to avail it!  I guess, I'm not really jinxed because of all these blessing! :)


It really was an eventful afternoon for us, but the day is not yet over..

Up Next: Bellyfest 2010 Part 3 of 3: The Grand Evening Show

Previously: Bellyfest 2010 Part 1 of 3: The Arabian Bazaar

more photos here!

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Laarni Lopez

Your oblivious but observing blogger.

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