Byzantium Near East Music & Dance's topics - tribe.net

Last WV hafla - Fire, friends, and HOT performances (10/5/08)

weathervanedance — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 17:15:20 GMT

If you haven’t marked your calendars already, please note that our last hafla of the year will be held on Sunday, October 5th at the humble abode of Lee and Georgina. Feel free to arrive anytime after 6 pm.

This is a super-special hafla for a number of reasons: 1)it’s a FIRE hafla meaning it’ll be outdoors with the night sky, your favorite people, and really cool performances, 2) there’ll be a fun Shimmy-Off with prizes and 3) it’s the last one in 2008 and commemorates our first year of putting on haflas. We are planning something really special to share with you all!

Our lineup includes Jessica Martinez, She’en-edra, Khani of Nataraja, Kashmir, and Karma. Candles, fire fans, poi, maybe a candelabra??? You really don’t want to miss this!
Don’t forget to bring warm clothes for when the sun goes down, something to sit on (camping chair, blanket, pillow), your middle eastern musical instrument if you have one, and a finger food or drink to share… there’s no admission fee otherwise! See you at 3521 Lesser Drive, Newbury Park, CA, 91320 – 6 pm or after on 10/5/08!!!

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Ojai Party photo highlights

weathervanedance — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 15:57:55 GMT

http://www.weathervaneimages.com/ojaidanceparty

These are Weathervane's photos from the Ojai bellydance party at the Acacia Mansion on Saturday, August 16th.
It was an amazing party - the location couldn't have been more beautiful and intimate and the food must have been REALLY good because it was all gone by the time I went to get some! :)
Thank you Natasya and Daniel for the personal touches which it made so wonderful!

Love,
Georgina (Gigi) and Dahab
~ Weathervane Arts

posted in Byzantium Near East Music & Dance - 1 reply

Amazing live music at the next Weathervane hafla (7/26/08)

weathervanedance — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 22:32:49 GMT

Sat, July 26th - the next Weathervane Arts hafla!

Location: EPICA, 840 Mitchell Road, Newbury Park, 91320
Time: Doors open at 7 pm, performances at 7:30 pm
Admission: $5 -and- food or beverage to share

Please join us and come out for an exceptional evening... in addition to our performers, we'll be joined by musical guests Burju, Lisa Milena, Gorkem Somer, and member of Sol 'Y Luna. If you like music and songs performed in Greek or Turkish, folk, tribal - this is the night to come out and play!

Meet new people, visit old friends, have fun, eat, drink, be merry and shimmy... This time we're having a shimmy-off and giving away a prize to the one who can shimmy the longest!

Looking forward to seeing you again or meeting you for the first time at this intimate, bi-monthly event.

XOX,
Georgina

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OJAI BELLYDANCE FESTIVAL - NEW VENUE & PARTY

Natasya — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 20:25:24 GMT

Dear Dance Friends,

Due to renovations at our site and issues with air conditioning ... we have changed the Venue.

Please join us for music and dance under the full moon and stars at Ojai's Acacia Mansion, a historic Spanish villa often used for weddings and movie locations. Ojai nights are balmy and clear ... perfect weather to enjoy Acacia Mansion's gorgeous gardens, sumptuous parlour, and rustic saloon (w/ full bar).

Party in a lovely Moroccan tent complete with live Near Eastern music, drinks, food, henna, and of course, DANCING.

PARTY: Saturday, August 16, 6 pm to Midnight
ADMISSION: $6
LOCATION: Acacia Mansion of Ojai, CA 93023
Overnight Accommodations: Kristina@acaciamansion.com
Dancers e-mail Natasya to confirm dance spot: neareastdance@aol.com

Link to Party Page:
http://www.neareastdance.com/Festival_Party.html

OJAI BELLYDANCE FESTIVAL is rescheduled to March 21, 2009, which will have lovely weather and we can just open a window if we want air };>

cheers,
Natasya
www.neareastdance.com

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HAFLA - Newbury Park, Epica Studios - May 30

weathervanedance — Thu, 22 May 2008 15:55:50 GMT

HAFLA - Newbury Park, Epica Studios - May 30
~ Brought to you by Weathervane Arts ~

Please join us for our intimate, fun, performance-filled hafla where you can eat, drink, and be amazed by our local bellydancers! We bring this to you with a lot of TLC for your enjoyment and the benefit of all the bellydancers who practice so hard and rarely get a chance to perform! This hafla features Dunya Sol, Karma (Enchantress), some buds from Santa Barbara and hopefully Buellton... just to name a few! Tribal, Egyptian, Cabaret.... we've got diversity for you!

Details details!
Date: Friday, May 30
Time: Doors open at 7, performances start at 7:30
Admission: $8
Location: Epica Studios - 840 Mitchell Road, Newbury Park, 91320

And don't tell us you can't come because it's the opening of "Sex and the City"... this hafla happens only 6 times a year so join us and watch the movie another day! :)

XOXO
Weathervane Arts
http://tribes.tribe.net/weathervanearts

posted in Byzantium Near East Music & Dance - 2 replies

Photos from Ojai Ren fair and Tribal Caravan Posted!!!

Natasya — Wed, 14 May 2008 23:41:09 GMT

OK,
for those of you who have been waiting ... and bugging me ... here are some photos. Posted with extreme love & gratitude to all my troupe sisters who rehearsed so hard to make these shows happen. Special shout out to Carrie who had her first gig at Tribal Caravan };>
I LOVE YOU GUYS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Tons of Fun

Josh — Sun, 11 May 2008 01:26:58 GMT

I had so much fun playing with you guys on Saturday. I'm looking forward to the Ojai Festival!

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To Anyone Interested in Studying Music in Turkey... We've finally got a Guest House designed for musicians!

Nick — Sun, 04 May 2008 16:43:09 GMT

...Hey guys, I'm very excited to finally be spreading the word about this. For those of you who know me or have followed my blog postings in the past, you probably already know that I've been involved in a long term project in Istanbul. I'm proud to say that Sound Fabrika Studios has finally finished preparations and we're open for business!

What we're doing here is trying to help foreigners who come to Turkey connect with some of the great musicians in the city here for lessons and music research. Right now we're running this place as a sort of guest house, but a guest house with a sound-insulated practice space, and some of the best of the youngest generation of musicians teaching and helping people like us network and get involved in the diverse and wonderful music scene here.

For a price comparable to most pensions in the area we are offering a warm bed, bathroom w/ shower, turkish breakfast and free reign to use the practice rooms here from 8am-midnight whenever classes or private lessons aren't going on. (and finding somewhere to play a davul at 11pm at night is no easy task here!). We've also spent a lot of time working out agreements with some really phenomenal musicians, and we can arrange lessons with all forms of percussion (darbuka, bendir, kudum, asmi davul, udu drums etc.) as well as oud, baglama saz, kanun, clarinet, roman violin and many more....

I'd be happy to send you more information about specific teachers and more details about our lesson programs if any of you guys are interested in what we're doing here. I'm also happy to provide some references from some of the americans that I have met coming through who have studied with some of these teachers as well, so feel free to ask. We also have connections with some prominent oriental dance teachers in the city and are happy to help dance students connect with them as well.

I got involved in this project originally because of my own experiences living in the city here my first year and trying really hard to find good teachers.... it's no easy task. I've recently been making an effort to get more video online of what some of these guys can do. You can check out Hakan, our resident percussion teacher on some of the clips I've uploaded the other day:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vh93KRxAp7w

I love being able to find these great musicians work as much as I love being able to help students find really good teachers, and I think the sentiment is shared by everyone working on this with me. I hope some of you guys get a chance to take advantage of this stuff!

Feel free to drop me an email at raghebn@gmail.com with any questions, or you can try me on tribe (though I check my account here less often lately)

Kolay gelsin!

posted in Byzantium Near East Music & Dance - 1 reply

If good fences make good neighbors ...

Natasya — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 17:48:21 GMT

This is a quote from my favorite drummer and a very cool guy ... Rod Martinez:

If good fences make good neighbors ... do good computers make good bandmates?

OK ... and now for a cheezy musician joke from Natasya (via Michael Beech) ...

Q: How do you know when a singer is knocking at your door?
A: Because they can't find the key and they don't know when to come in.

posted in Byzantium Near East Music & Dance - 10 replies

Kara Nomadica CD update!!!

Nomadican — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 16:17:39 GMT

Good morning everyone!
We are pleased to announce that we are going through the final bits of recording and editing before we send our tracks off to be mastered and mass-produced! Hopefully we will have the LP ready to sell sometime in April.

We are very grateful to those of you who have prepaid the LP for being so patient with us. We really tried to get this thing finished this winter, and we apologize that this didn't happen--we want to provide you with the best possible recordings, so instead of rushing the album out we decided to postpone it.
That being said, we are VERY pleased with the results so far and will be delivering to you a professional product.

Once we release the album we will be putting together a CD release party and will be available for touring around later this year.
If you are putting together a bellydance workshop weekend somewhere and want a great live band drop us a line!!!

Another bulletin will be sent out the day we send the tracks out with a more precice release date!
Thank you for all of your amazing support and wonderful compliments.
We couldn't do this without such amazing fans and audience!

Salaam,
Lawrence and Kara Nomadica

www.karanomadica.com
www.myspace.com/karanomadica

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Welcome tribe friends old & new ...

Natasya — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 03:29:52 GMT

Hello,

for those of you who remember Byzantium and Fusion Studio back in the day ... Daniel & Natasya are back and living in Ojai. We look forward to seeing all our old friends and making new ones!

Byzantium Dance Troupe is accepting new members by audition. Please visit www.neareastdance.com for info.

Musicians: Byzantium invites musicians to contact us for possible collaboration. Especially CLARINET (Balkan & Near Eastern styles), or others with experience in Balkan, Greek, Turkish, Armenian, or Arabic music.

thank you for reading ... please drop us a line!

--Natasya Katsikaris & Daniel Eshoo
www.neareastdance.com

posted by:

posted in Byzantium Near East Music & Dance - 13 replies

Yup yup...the schedule is up...

SamiraLV — Sun, 30 Dec 2007 08:01:32 GMT

The Las Vegas Bellydance Intensive is pleased to be featuring Kami Liddle of the Bellydance Superstars as one of our headliners this year (along with Ava Fleming and Karim Nagi) !! There are 34 total instructors teaching a wide variety of topics (including Natasya, who moderates this tribe!!). And yes, the schedule is done...

Can you believe it? December 29th and the schedule is done!!!

http://www.bellydanceintensive.com/pag_cms_id_13_p_schedule.html

Now I know a few of you are going to be irritated because there will be classes you want to take the conflict with each other. I am offering my apologies in advance. *sigh*...if only I had 2 full weeks of classes to fill...then we might have no conflicts. heehee.

Additionally, just because the schedule is done does not mean that I have all the bios/photos/& class descriptions from everyone. Nor is the shopping cart finished. So, for the moment, just the schedule is all I can offer. I know it's a teaser, but it will have to suffice for the moment.

Those of you who have already registered, as soon as I have the shopping cart finished, you will get to actually pick your classes. You will have first dibs!!

I previously stated that once the schedule was done that the price was going up to $295 for the weekend. Well... I also said it wouldn't be done until Jan. 1st. So this is your big chance to sneak in under the radar and register for the Super Early-Bird special. Payment plans are still available and you'll get first shot at the popular classes. Don't miss out...register today!!

http://www.bellydanceintensive.com/pag_cms_id_31_p_registration-options.html

Much love to everyone!! Have a safe and wonderful NEW YEAR!!!

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Post your Links!

Natasya — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 16:35:04 GMT

Dear Friends of Byzantium,
we like to hear & see what you are doing musically ... if you have a link to one of your performances ... please feel free to post it on the Byzantium Topics. Please keep links in the realm of traditional Near Eastern Music or folkdance / bellydance either traditional or historically-inspired with traditional instrumentation.

cheers,
Natasya & Byzantium

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Byzantium covers Black Sabbath

Natasya — Sun, 25 Nov 2007 22:20:14 GMT

OK ... just a little joking around ... Dan & Rod
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qd_Gsc21cEI

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Hear Byzantium Songs!

Natasya — Sun, 25 Nov 2007 20:46:03 GMT

Hello Dear Tribe Friends,

we now have the MySpace page up & running ... so you can hear Byzantium tunes at
http://www.myspace.com/byzantiumca

Enjoy! and thank you,
Natasya & Daniel

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