Ostara and Amina Khaleegy Sydney Multicultural Festival

Ostara and Amina Khaleegy
Sydney Multicultural Festival
Originally uploaded by Nico Nelson

Here are two of the girls from "Desert Roses", Josefina Daley's bellydance troupe that I'm part of. This dance is in the khaleegy style, from the United Arab Emirates. The dancers pick up the front of that voluminous robe and use it as a prop. The other very important prop is hair - it gets swung around a lot in this style of dancing.

The photographer, Nico, is the husband of Chani and takes lovely photos. We're very lucky he comes to all of our performances!

Anara, Drum Solo, Avalon Street Markets 2008

Edit: Sadly all of the photos have been removed by Sammis Co, I hope he will put fresh ones up at some point in the future. Meantime I have some photos of my own here.

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This is what I get up to when I'm not knitting. I belong to the Desert Roses troupe which performs at local spring and Christmas markets every year. At Avalon (on the Northern Beaches) we literally dance in the middle of the street which is actually a lot of fun - except when it's threatening to rain!

Veils are fantastic props, they make for great photography. This photo is taken by the husband of one of the girls in my troupe. I love his photos, they are all up on Flickr - his user name is Sammis Co. Check them out!

Bellydancing Princess Leia

So here's something clever and different....a bellydancing Princess Leia from Return of the Jedi. The dancer, Amira Sa'id, dances at a lot of conventions. You can read more about her on the Wired Blog.

As a bellydancing star wars fan and sometimes costumer, I was tempted to do something here in Australia, maybe work up a costume and do something for the cosplay at Supernova. But the negativity of the comments on the Wired blog made me wonder....perhaps the worlds of bellydance and Star Wars don't mix too well. When it comes to bellydancing, it is really a celebration of womanhood by women, primarily enjoyed by women as well. The Star Wars world, much as I hate to say it, is quite male dominated....and perhaps not quite ready for the art of middle eastern dance. Plus the connotations of Leia, dancing as a powerless slave...again, not celebrating the true strength of the dance.

That said, I think Amira/Leia is an awesome dancer, her technique is a delight to watch and more power to her!