I have decided to maintain my weekly Concepts and Contexts class, on Monday mornings in the Goddess Hall, but take a break from my weekly Thursday classes to concentrate on other projects. More specifically I will be offering a number of short courses, focusing in depth on specific styles, or preparing for and learning a choreographed dance.
These courses will offer a structured approach with specific objectives that will allow students to track their rapid progress in the chosen topic.
The first of these will run in February/March, and I am doing something I have never offered before in the context of bellydance classes.
I have previously taught movement - posture, deportment, gesture and ecstatic dance - to ritualists in the context of magic and ritual. Movement is a language that speaks from our very core, to that of others and can be incredibly powerful in a sacred context.
In the past I have always taught dance from the perspective of teaching the "language" so that dancers might go forth and use it however they will, but I have decided, for the first of my short courses, I am going to teach technically accurate and well executed bellydance (theatrical fusion style) in a sacred context.
So here's introducing:
Dancing with the Red Goddess.
Exploring and expressing the power of Our Lady Babalon, and associated goddesses (such as Ishtar, Innanna and Astarte) through moving meditation and devotional dance.
These extended classes will consider the initiatory and transformative nature of the Red Goddess, as the participants bloom, and through their dancing their interpretation of Babalon will be born.
Movements and technique will be learned through themes of that explore the nature of the goddesses. I am already building a beautiful collection of music to complement our dancing. Finally the course will culminate in learning a devotional choreography, that brings together all these aspects and may be performed as a solo or group dance in the future.
" I gather up every spirit that is pure, and weave him into my vesture of flame. I lick up the lives of men, and their souls sparkle from mine eyes. I am the mighty sorceress, the lust of the spirit. And by my dancing I gather for my mother Nuit the heads of all them that are baptized in the waters of life. " A. Crowley, The Vision and the Voice.
