The 1st International Belly Dance Congress (Part 2: workshops with Leila Haddad & Beata Cifuentes)

Soon after the belly dance workshop with Randa Kamel, I attended a three hour workshop with Tunisian/French belly dancer Leila Haddad. The workshop with Leila Haddad was very interesting and challenging, as her teaching style was completely new to me. There is a lot to be learnt from this extremely experienced artist, who has fought a lot for the rehabilitation of raqs el sharqi, an art form that has been often misunderstood and underestimated. Personality wise, Leila struck me for her strong character and witty sense of humour.

After Leila Haddad’s workshop, a short break and a much needed chocolate muffin, I headed towards another belly dance workshop. This time the workshop was one hour technique with German belly dancer Beata Cifuentes, who is based in Berlin. On Sunday morning I also attended another one hour workshop with Beata.

Altogether I liked Beata’s teaching technique, which is very clear. Also, I liked her sense of humour and the funny names she gives to different moves, and which make the movements easier to remember: I will never forget Micky Mouse number 1, 2 and 3. (Read more about the Annual Belly Dance Congress).

The First International Belly Dance Congress – part 1: workshop with Randa Kamel

During the first Belly Dance Congress, I had the opportunity to attend workshops with some of the most famous belly dancers from around the world. In these blogs I will describe my impressions on some of the belly dance workshops I attended at the congress.

The first workshop I attended on Saturday morning was two hours with Randa Kamel, on Randa’s style and technique. The workshop with Randa Kamel was jammed packed, as Randa is an internationally well known and appreciated belly dancer from Egypt. Fortunately, Randa managed very well with the lack of space, by splitting the dancers into groups and dancing in different parts of the room, so everybody could see and follow her.

The workshop with Randa Kamel was the most energetic workshop I attended during the International Belly Dance Congress. It was fun, physically demanding and it was great to have an insight into the style of this energetic belly dancer. Randa Kamel is a lovely teacher, very approachable and the workshop was even nicer because a drummer was playing live music for us. Randa Kamel performed on Sunday night at the Belly Dance Congress. Her performance was great; I loved her style, and so did the rest of the audience, who cheered at her enthusiastically.

News: Check out the new and updated Belly Dance UK and worldwide events page and also Valeria's belly dance news page.

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