Candle Dance (Candle Dancing) with Alay'nya

<%@LANGUAGE="VBSCRIPT" CODEPAGE="1252"%> Candle Dance (Candle Dancing) with Alay'nya

ANCIENT, SENSUAL, AND SACRED
Bring the mystery and enchantment of fire into your solstice and holiday celebrations with friends, family, and special loved ones. Twice-yearly *Candle Dance Workshop*s are held near Summer and Winter Solstices. (The Summer 2009 workshop is closer to Lammas Day, in August.) To book Alay'nya for a candle dance performance, contact alaynya@alaynya.com.

Belly dance is perhaps the oldest dance form in the world. It hearkens back to not just centuries, but aeons ago, when women used a very body-centered dance as part of their rituals, both for themselves and for their entire community.

For many women in today's world, dancing with flame is a way to connect with that ancient - and sacred - heritage. The immediacy of dancing with fire brings us to a more elemental and archetypical state of mind. As we do a dance that might have a more "ritual" than "entertainment" component, we feel ourselves connecting with our nonverbal history as priestesses and oracles; gatekeepers for communion with the sacred.

The secret to a mesmerizing, powerful, alluring candle dance performance is to have full body integration.

If you are not completely connected within your body (and most dancers are not!), then dancing with candles will not make you more alluring. It will have the opposite effect: you'll be boring.

If you look like a marrionette when you do your "regular" dance, then you will look like a marionette with candles in her hands when you attempt candle dancing.

The result is that your audience - who yearns and craves for that mystical connection through you - will be turned off. They won't want to see you perform.

To learn more, go to total body integration for candle dancing.

Resources for Candle Dancing

Recommended Music

Recommended DVDs and Videos

... and Candle Dance Books:

*An unknown and possibly useful reference*
	Mid Eastern Candle Dancing (30-page instruction booklet and practice CD) Surprise! There's actually a book out on Middle-Eastern Fire Dancing. I can't vouch for its quality yet. Referred by Gregg Schoenberger.

... and even a Candle Dance DVD!:

*Just found -- have not reviewed - potentially of interest*
	Bellydancing with Fire by Leslie Rosen A new find -- not had a chance to review it yet. Available from Amazon. As always, click to the left to order.

WEB-BASED RESOURCES FOR CANDLE DANCING

There is a strong tradition of using fire (candles, candelabras) within belly dance. Here are some of our favorite links.

CLICK HERE to read about fire dancing with contributions from different belly dancers.
CLICK HERE to read about traditions of candle dancing.
CLICK HERE to read about Delilah's candelabra dance at a recent Goth Fest.
A beautiful, totally surreal fantasy Cirque de Solais aerial acrobatic dance done by multiple dancers clinging to huge chandelier-like structures. Lovely (but probably not what we'll do in our next show!)

Recommended Links to Non-Belly Dance Sites:

Fire dancing, in its various forms, is part of the mystical tradition of several cultures. In others (such as ours), a fascination with fire finds other expressions - such as pyrotechnic displays.

CLICK HERE to read about Bulgarian fire dancing (Nestinarstvo), part of the ancient, pre-Christian tradition of that culture. Site referred by Gregg Schoenberger.
CLICK HERE to read about "Burning Man." (Who says we don't have a fire tradition in the United States?) Site referred by Gregg Schoenberger.
It seems as though the Hawaiian ethnic dance tradition ("hula") contains a fire dancing component, called "poi dancing." CLICK HERE to read about Hawaiian poi dancing - enough to get a sense of this powerful tradition.

CANDLE DANCE WORKSHOPS with ALAY'NYA