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| Tribal Happenings, the Intertwine Project and an
interview with Paulette Rees Denis |
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By Devi Mamak
I hope you have
all had a wonderful holiday season and a break from dancing for
a few weeks. I know many of us prepare for our end of the year
concerts and haflas so it is always nice to catch up on time
with family and friends after such a busy time.
In this
edition of Oasis we talk once again to Paulette Rees Denis
of Gypsy Caravan. She has been visiting us pretty much every
year since 2003 but it has been awhile since we last caught
up with her. She has a lot of exciting projects up her
sleeve so read on to find out more. But first let’s have a
quick look at some of the exciting events that have gone on
around OZ.
July saw
Festival Mystique happening in the lovely Central Coast of
N.S.W.,hosted by Anne Dunston. Unfortunately I wasn’t able
to be there this year but fellow Ghawazi, Cristie Fuller
taught ATS moves as created by Ghawazi Caravan. This was a
very well received workshop and sounds like a lot of fun.
Other fellow Ghawazi April Erzetich conducted a Khabelia
Gypsy workshop. In 2009 April spent 4 months in
India studying Khabelia & Classical
Odissi dance with Colleena Shakti and has plans to return in
2010. [We will talk more with April in the coming months to
hear all about her trips to
India]. Both April and Cristie said
they had a wonderful time in the wine capitol of N.S.W and
thoroughly enjoyed performing, teaching and sharing with the
ladies from the coast.
August we had a
luxurious time at one of the first Tribal retreats in Australia.
“Tribal Mosaic” hosted by Jacqueline Pepperkamp of Tribal Jewels
in Wollongong N.S.W. This was personally one of my fav weekends
of the year. It was held at the beautiful Govinda Valley Retreat
Centre. The setting was divine and from the moment we arrived it
really set the mood for a relaxing and fun weekend. The 3 day
retreat began with a most glorious meal, tribal jam and hennah
evening to welcome ladies that had come from all over the
country. Saturday was a full day of workshops in which I taught
2 sold out workshops which was fantastic. There were many other
exciting workshops available such as Dayl Workmans “Dance as
Art Therapy” as well as Kylie Morrisons “Dance Pilates”
Saturday night was a casual blackboard style performance night
which was a lot of fun. Jacky and I had put together a Tribal
Veil duet which was lovely as it was the first time we had done
anything together. I think we are both hopping that this will be
the first of much collaboration. As well as your usual dance
fare there were also 2 masseuses on site to help ease away any
pain caused from too much dance and fun from the weekend! Greg
was our yoga instructor who led daily yoga sessions. Sunday was
a half day of workshops before another fabulous meal and then
pack up and go home. Now did I mention the food!? I could go on
for ever about how fabulous the food is at Govinda valley. All
vegetarian food & absolutely amazing. So much so I think Jackie
is going to have Govinda Valley hold cooking workshops as part of
the next Tribal Mosaic in 2011.
October I was
off to the Bi annual festival Fire in the Belly held in Albury
Wodonga. It is a lovely bunch of ladies that work hard to bring
belly dance to their small community. It is a really fantastic
little festival and a great opportunity for women in the
neighbouring towns to learn with some very special teachers from
around the country. This year saw me, Shamira from Adeliade, Fee
from Canberra & Andrea from Melbourne as special guests. The 4 of us felt
very special & privileged to be able to share with such a
special group of ladies.
As soon as I
got back from The Fire in the belly Festival I played host this
time to Carolena Neriicio & Megha Gavin. This is Carolenas 5th
time here and Meghas 3rd visit. They presented The
General Skills Certificate together. This particular trip also
saw Carolena conduct her Teacher Training certificate for the
first time in Australia. It was a sell out. So much
so that we had to offer 2 sessions! Dancers came from around the
country as well as N.Z, New Caledonia & Japan! Carolena loves Australia and
the people that live here and I am sure we will be seeing more
of her so keep watching this space and keep checking out our
website to find out when she will be visiting us next time.
INTERTWINE
As promised in the last
edition of Tribal Corner I wanted to tell you all about an
exciting project that I am working on with Ghawazi Caravan along
with some very special guests. We aptly named the project
“Intertwine”. The idea was to draw together dancers,
musicians and artists of varied disciplines and styles, braiding
their talents together into a compelling and cohesive whole,
intertwining cultural traditions and an ebullient creative
spirit... and to present the result in a theatre style
environment.
The percussion
side of things was easy. I am very fortunate to have Tarek
Sawires live in my suburb. Many of you may know him from being
present at many of the festivals in particular the Sydney Middle
Easter dance Festival. For those of you that do not know Tarek
he is darabuka master but also extends himself to just about any
percussion instrument you can think of, many of which we did use
in Intertwine. Tarek is a Rhythm genius. Not formally trained
but being Egyptian himself he has an enate feel & sensibility
for the music of his culture but working with Tarek on
Intertwine I was constantly amazed at how he was able to work
with and find the rhythms of music from other cultures so
easily. Supporting Tarek was Jamie Bohm & Kalon Captain. Jamie
is an amazing all round great percussionist, friend, neighbour
[lives across the road] and partner to fellow Ghawazi, Cristie
Fuller. He works hand in hand with Tarek playing a variety of
different percussion instruments including the Cajon [basically
a box used in many Flamenco pieces]. Kalon is my 13 year old son
and is an amazing percussionist being proficient in Arabic,
African and Samba styles as well as funk, jazz & metal [o.k so I
am a proud mum!] Kalon has also been working closely with Tarek
and Jamie with Tarek being Kalons Arabic drumming teacher.
But it was not
enough to just have percussion. I wanted beautiful melodies in
there as well. What sort of instrumentation? I had no idea. I
just knew that when and if I ever heard the right person playing
I would know it.
Some years back
now my partner Anthony decided to take up playing the Shakuhachi
which is a Japanese flute. For those of you that have never
heard a shakuhachi before I suppose you could compare it to the
Ney with its beautiful ethereal like quality. He managed to find
a local teacher Bronwyn Kirkpatrick who is recognised as a
master in Japan which is
highly unusual for a woman. It was a few years before I would
hear Bronwyn play but when I did I knew that she would be one of
the musicians. But it was still not complete enough to start.
In 2007/2008 I
was lucky enough to be a part a great funded project called The
Firebird. This incorporated dancers and musicians of many
different genres and sensibilities. It was here that I found the
final people I needed to make Intertwine happen. The Firebird
was also one of the most exciting things I had ever done. Hard
work, but worth every moment. It was what I needed to get me
off my butt and make something happen.
The last
musician we needed to make Intertwine complete was Colin
Berryman. Sitar master. Colin and I had worked quite closely
together on the Firebird as the Sitar was my characters sound. I
have always loved the Sitar & Colin’s playing is to die for.
After much
thought I decided on the 2 things that I would need to make the
show work. Everyone involved had to be very good at whatever it
was that they would bring to the show and the 2nd
thing was that we all had to like each other and get along.
Giving each other space to create, but also welcoming new
challenges presented and therefore learning from each other.
As far as I was
concerned I had found the combination I was looking for and
never gave it a second thought as to how we were going to fuse
musicians from an Arabic tradition, Indian tradition and
Japanese tradition? In hindsight I think it was good that I did
not ask myself this question as Intertwine may not have
happened! I just knew that these musicians were all top in their
field and that it would work beautifully. I am pleased to say
that I was correct!
As far as
dancers go I wanted to present some of our most loved
choreographies over the years but also wanted to challenge
ourselves as dancers and work with other artists who would bring
their own brand of talent to the show. We invited Jrisi Jusakos
and Emily Cooper. Now if you are a belly dancer in Australia and
don’t know who Jrisi Jusakos is then you have been living under
a rock!
She is for me
without a doubt my all time favourite oriental dancer HOWEVER I
have seen her dance proficiently Indian & Flamenco fusion
styles, contemporary, African & gum booting, AND she did
them all
beautifully. Jrisi & I have worked together on a number of
occasions fusing what she and I do best. We always work well and
hard together and I always come away feeling that I have grown
as a dancer. It made sense to have her in Intertwine.
Unfortunately she was not able to be present at all of the shows
due to the birth of her little boy Javier but it was nice that
she was able to make her debut comeback performance [after
little Javier was born] at one of out intertwine shows. We even
named one of the pieces Javier as he too felt like a part of the
show in some way.
Emily Cooper is
an old friend of mine and runs a hugely popular African dance
school with her husband John May, Hands, heart & Feet in the
Blue Mountains where I live. Emily was the Artistic
Director of The Firebird which gave us the opportunity to work
closely together. She is an amazing performer and I have seen
her jump from one style to the next with no problems at all…oh &
did I mention that she is also an amazing percussionist as well.
Emily brought a raw and bright energy to Intertwine which was
lovely. We have enjoyed working with Emily so much on intertwine
and she with us that she has since joined Ghawazi Caravan!
Of course we
had all the fabulous Ghawazi talent. Cristie Fuller, Kate Obrien,
Catherine OBrien, April Erzetich, Rachelle Bryden & Alex Wright.
All of
these talented ladies worked hard on their own speciality.
Cristie with her sword, Katie with her Hip Hop & Funk
background, Catherine with her eye for detail and wings,
April with her Indian dance background, Rachelle with her
innovative body percussion ideas and Alex working on fire.
Over months of collaboration, creativity and
rehearsal, the show eventually became a visual and auditory
feast of dances and music from around the world. From
current re-workings of the ancient Middle East, through to
the ‘gypsy’ dances of India, the raw
energy of African dance, passionate Flamenco, right through
to contemporary dance and back again. Old 'Ghawazi
favourites' presented alongside entirely new work.
No one was precious about their work. If
it worked for the show it stayed and if it didn’t the idea
got scrapped. We were all on the same page and this was the
most beautiful thing about the whole project.
It didn’t
take any of us long to realise that this was going to work
really beautifully. Our local annual Winter Magic Festival
quickly snapped us up as one of their top bills for the
festival and we performed to an incredibly excited sell out
show. After being called back on for an encore we realised
that we simply cannot stop at just one performance so we did
2 more sell out shows also in The Mountains. This time we
received funding from our local council which was great to
get recognition from our local council for all our hard
work.
Once this was all over we all
agreed that this was far too special and that we had worked too
hard just to let it all go.The project will continue
using the collaborations already in place from ‘Intertwine’ as
well as expanding the network of talented people that I and
Ghawazi Caravan work with. The goal is to create beautiful
theatre shows combining the talents of our friends in ways that
may never have happened before, changing and developing over
time. We have already started on the next installment of
Intertwine and are hoping to take the show to other cities
besides our own. If you are interested in having Intertwine in a
city near you please don’t hesitate to drop me a line.
WHAT HAD BEEN HAPPENNING IN THE
WORLD OF PAULETTE REES DENIS?
WE HAVEN’T INTERVEIWED YOU IN
AWHILE. WHAT HAVE YOU BEEN WORKING ON IN THE LAST FEW YEARS?
Where do I start? So many
wonderful opportunities have come up for me. Along with my farm
life out in the country with Jeff and my goats, chickens, dogs,
and cat, life is full of dance and traveling, mostly teaching
and not quite as much performing as before. It’s hard to take
all the gypsies on the road with me because of the expense, so I
usually travel alone. It is great when all my dancers, or even
just another can accompany me when I go to teach, because it
really helps to show the true spirit of tribal when we dance
together, as opposed to me solo, but most sponsors can only
bring me. I love teaching and I am blessed to have so many
dedicated dancer friends around the globe. So besides my classes
and troupes at home in Portland, OR, I have been developing
different dance and writing workshop ideas, along with my
certification dance intensives (Collective Soul and Teacher
Training), to help spread the love of tribal! Plus with my
writing, I am blogging a lot now, Tribal Bellydance Blog, and
love that (www.tribalbellydanceblog.com).
Of course I still have my monthly enewsletter, Caravan
Trails/Tribal Travels, going on it’s thirteenth year I think!
(about seven years of being online, and six of being a paper e-zine)
And there are always new ideas in the mix!
CAN YOU TELL US MORE ABOUT THE
COLLECTIVE SOUL?
Collective Soul is a
certification program in six levels, which is about getting
into the nuances and the details of Tribal Style Bellydance.
We include talks about dance history, ethics, art, rhythms,
zil playing, and of course we dance and drill for hours,
starting at the beginning level. It is so important to get
the basics to tribal down first, because that is what the
rest of your dance is built on, besides proper posture and
body alignment and how to become a stronger and fitter
dancer. My job is to make you the best dancer you can be,
and help guide you along your path as a dancer and artist.
It is a three-day intensive and started percolating about
ten years ago when I started my Teacher Training program and
realized the dancers need more dancing instruction before
embarking on their teaching journey. Collective Soul is a
prerequisite for my Teacher Training Certification course,
but of course, not everyone wants to teach, so the CS series
is an invaluable tool along your path as a dancer.
WHAT IS THE TRIBAL DANCERS
ANTHOLOGY?
The first edition of A Tribal
Dancer’s Anthology, a PDF download, was released in November
2009 from my publishing company, Cultivator Press, and I am
very exited about it. It is the last year’s collection of
words—stories and poetry—along with photos, art, and bios
from dancers around the world that have been part of the
monthly D-Quad column in my monthly enewsletter, Caravan
Trails/Tribal Travels. Every month I raise a different topic
and ask dancers to write in and share their experiences. I
have gotten long stories about the first time someone saw
tribal, short snippets about a dance moment, to a poem about
dance as a gemstone. It is a place for dancers who want to
share their stories and is for every one. Being a writer, I
love to get dancers to write because I think it is important
to read about other dancer’s experiences, and this dance
brings about lots of stories!
The other difference is that
the Anthology is a paperless publication, so I am trying my
part at paper-conservation, and it is up to the reader if
they want to view it online as a PDF, or print it for
themselves. This helps keeps the cost down, instead of
having booklets printed, and the choice is yours!
WHAT IS THE DELICIOUS DIVAS?
Delicious Divas Dancing Dreams, is
a play on the words around the Anthology writing project. It
could also be Dancing Divas Delicious Dreams, or mix it up, to
be called D-Quad!
CAN YOU TELL US ABOUT YOUR
PUBLISHING COMPANY & YOUR VISION FOR IT?
I have had a few publishing
companies, starting in the early Gypsy Caravan days, with
Caravan Productions, and our first musical cassettes turned CDs,
and all my videos turned DVDs (I have eight instructional DVDs,
an award-winning documentary called Tribal Travels-A Collage,
and other out-or-print productions). Yes, I’ve been doing this
dance for 22 years!
A dream of mine was to go back to
school to get my Master’s Degree by the time I was 50 years old,
and I did it, with a Master’s in Writing and Publishing. I had
been working on my book, Tribal Vision: A Celebration of Life
Through Tribal Belly Dance (Cultivator Press, 2008) for so many
years, and with the culmination of all that work and my degree,
I started Cultivator Media Group, to combine the loves and
publish works of music, dance, words, and multimedia. Out came
Tribal Vision, the Caravan CD Remarkably Remixed, my Teacher
Training manual, a college journal, and now the A Tribal
Dancer’s Anthology.
Tribal Vision is my baby, and is
such a big accomplishment for me. I am so proud. I am also
thrilled to have the opportunity to share, not only my story of
tribal, but many other dancers’ stories along the path. I hope
you all get a chance to read it.
And there are other books in my
head, just need a bit more time to write them!
WHAT HAS GYPSY CARAVAN DANCERS
& MUSICIANS BEEN UP TO & ANY EXCITING PLANS FOR THE FUTURE?
The Gypsy Caravan and the
Caravan Dance Collective continue to be busy dancing,
teaching, performing. As dance is about evolution, we are
all changing, yet, most importantly, dance is a constant in
our lives, which feels great and is continually grounding.
The Gypsy musicians have disbanded for now, and Jeff (my
husband and horn player extraordinaire) is working on
different musical projects. He sometimes gets to travel with
me, teaching his melody workshops and performing with other
musician friends. I think part of the power and magic in
what we do is the ability to play and dance with others, no
matter what style or level of exptertise, to enjoy that
collaboration and the beauty of the moment. And it brings us
together with so many talented and delightful artists.
Improvisation at its finest!
WE HEARD THAT YOU HAVE CLOSED
UP GYPSY CARVAN STUDIO & THAT YOU & JEFF HAVE MOVED TO THE
COUNTRY. HOW HAS THAT BEEN?
Life is so about living and
experiencing what the world has to offer, and I love to try
new things. Jeff and I moved to the country two years before
we closed the studio. It had been a long-time dream of ours
to own some land and be away from the city. The farm life is
grand, I love being out on our land, and am trying to live a
more sustainable life, being conscious of the planet and
the economy, by growing much of our own food, raising fiber
goats (not for meat as we are vegetarians), chickens for
eggs. We wanted to simplify and slow down and keep some
tradition in our lives, and it is absolutely delightful. Of
course, the farm work is harder and I’m not sure that I have
slowed down! But I am trying to take time off for myself,
and my family and friends now, which is very important.
It was an extremely difficult
choice to make to close the studio, and it was hard on the
students as well as me. But I had to close up for many
reasons, the economy was the biggest. Running the studio was
draining me, which is not a good place to be when you are
trying to do good work, and be a creative artist, as well as
try to make a living. There comes a time when you just can’t
make everyone else happy, but have to look inward, and
reevaluate your life. And of course, you do not need a
permanent roof over your head to dance, and my classes still
continue, the dancers are busy as ever performing, and all
is good!
CAN YOU TELL US MORE ABOUT
THE COLLECTIVE SOUL INTERNATIONAL DANCERS?
It is a networking idea
which is to bring dancer’s together, to dance and enjoy
the love of tribal, to be inspired by each other and
learn from each other, while they continue their studies
with me. It is about being connected globally through
this dance, and because of computer technology, we can
all communicate together. These women have studied with
me and are learning how to perform with me, usually with
only a short time to prepare. But because of Tribal and
how I teach, they can all come together with the common
language, no matter what dialect, and share each other’s
dance. So it is not necessarily about performing but
just dancing together. Sometimes too much emphasis is
put on performing. Some dancers just don’t want to go
there, but they want to dance. Performing is another
subject altogether!
LATELY YOU SEEM TO BE
TRAVELLING THE WORLD. WHAT DO YOU SEE HAPPENNING WITH
TRIBAL GLOBALLY?
Evolution of art and dance
is exciting. Tribal is expanding around the world. More
and more dancers are meeting up, studying and dancing
together. More dance festivals are popping up everywhere
along with variations on the theme of tribal Many
dancers are now coming full circle and want to learn the
roots of tribal, as this is important in the big picture
of being a dancer, to really know the basics before
splitting off into creative mode! At the same time,
there does seem to be some separation in the tribal
worlds, which is incredibly sad to me. That is so not my
philosophy, and you can see in dancers who study with
me, that they can dance with anyone and any style
because they know how to move their body, use their
eyes, and love what someone else has to offer. As the
true spirit of tribal is about dancing together, no
matter what background. It is not about dancing with
exactly the same moves or only doing one format. But it
is about falling in together to dance and be in that
magical moment. Learning tribal is about opening up your
eyes to each other’s dance and women are being empowered
because of the dance.
WHERE ARE SOME OF THE
PLACES YOU HAVE GONE TO IN RECENT YEARS?
I travel around the states
quite a bit, and have taught in your beautiful country
almost yearly for about seven years, first thanks to
Alaine, and you Devi! Tribal has taken me to Taiwan, Italy, Spain, England and Scotland, Germany, Holland. This year I also travel to
Mexico and
South Africa
for the first time, which I am thrilled to experience.
YOU OBVIOUSLY ENJOY AUSTRALIA [& WE
LOVE HAVING YOU!] WHERE WILL YOU BE TRAVELLING WITHIN OZ
IN FEB 2010 & WHAT WILL YOU BE TEACHING?
I love teaching in Australia! The
dancers that I have had the pleasure to work with are
strong and dedicated dancers, who love the philosophy of
tribal, and dance in general. On this tour I will be
starting on the west coast, teaching in Albany for the first time, with Rebecca as
sponsor. Then off to Brisbane to teach for Dee of Tribal Blossosms,
for twelve days—Collective Soul Level One, Level Two,
and Teacher Training Level Two, as well as a weekend of
workshops. Then back to Wollongong with Jackie for
a weekend of classes. It always seems to go so quick,
but it is hard to be away from home for so long too.
VISIONS, HOPES & DREAMS
FOR THE FUTURE?
Oh I have dance dreams,
writing dreams, farm dreams. We’ll see….
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