Sport & Societies

Belly Dancing Summer Workshop: Dancing with a sword

Belly Dancing Summer Workshop: Dancing with a sword

When: 18:00-20:00, Tuesday 21st May

Where: Activity Space 1, Floor 1, Union Building

Tickets: £10 for members, £12 for non-members – on the door or on the Union website

As featured in last week’s Felix, during the summer term ICU Belly Dancing hosts a summer workshop series instead of regular classes, due to the disruption that arises from exams happening at different points in term across departments. All of our workshops are suitable for beginners, so even if you’ve never danced before, you’re more than welcome to join us! The series is starting tonight (10th May) 6-8pm with Polynesian Fusion in Meeting Rooms 1&2 in the Union Building (£15 otd for non-members). If that’s too short notice (or if you’ve only just picked up a copy of Felix and it’s now Tuesday), then here’s what to expect next.

In less than two weeks we are hosting our second workshop of term: Swords. We’ve invited our Advanced Plus class teacher Sureya to give this workshop, after she gave an awesome double swords solo at our annual showcase back in March. Sureya is a professional belly dance performer, instructor and choreographer based in London, her passion for belly dance coming from her Turkish background. Sureya has been described as an energetic, vibrant and versatile performer who is keen to share her love of dance through teaching around the UK. For more information, please visit www.sureyabellydance.com

Whether you are new to dancing with sword or want to sharpen your sword skills further, this workshop is a great challenge to extend your dance repertoire. Sureya will demonstrate and break down the important techniques for sword dancing including holding and balancing it, using a sword to improve your isolations and travelling steps.

We unfortunately cannot provide swords for everyone during the class (Sureya will have a few to pass round), but we will be providing canes to use in their place, in order for you to practice the techniques (it is quite common to start with canes when learning the sword, as they are much lighter). We have a limited number of canes so it is advised to book online in advance to avoid disappointment on the day!

We hope you’ll join us for this workshop – if you can’t make it but are still interested in learning to belly dance with us, we have a belly-hoop class on 4th June and a “vintage combos” tribal fusion workshop on 18th June. Our regular classes will start up again in October, when we will run a weekly beginners’ class for newcomers to the style! You can email bellydancing@imperial.ac.uk if you would like details on any of our activities.

You can follow us on social media to keep up with our classes and performances. We have Instagram: icubellydance, Twitter: @ICUBelly, a Facebook page: ICbellydance and a YouTube channel: ICBellydance. We also have a lot of info on our website: www.union.ic.ac.uk/rcc/bellydancing, so do check it out!