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Hello ladies! The thing i love about ATS is the egalitarian open nature of the format - once you have learnt the moves you can dance with anyone - no matter what age, background and spoken language!
I was practicing at home with my invisible dance partner and thinking it would be great to just have a dance with all the dancers who don't attend my class who i have met along the way. ATS brings together people of all ages and backgrounds cutting across social spheres and moves them in unison, and that in an age when we a removing further away from each other that this is a valuble aspect of the dance. I now have friends from 6 different decades - something i could not have said a year ago. I believe building a supportive community is just as important as the technique of dancing together.
SO i have started a venture in the UK called East Meets Everyone
East meets Everyone is a community of Fat Chance Belly Dance format American Tribal Style Dancers, based in East Anglia. Our aim is to create a fun, supportive event founded on friendship and respect where ATS dancers get together and let their hair down!
We create opportunities to meet other ATS dancers, improve and challenge your improv skills and enjoy the magic of dancing together.
We meet every 2 months on a Saturday afternoon in Colchester Essex.
East meets Everyone events are NOT workshops. There is no structured teaching or drilling, with no directing plan for the session other than dancing together. As a result we ask that participants understand formations (even if they haven't had a chance to use them) and know the moves from Vol 1 and Vol 4 - we do not expect everyone to be perfect - but we expect you to be up for throwing yourself in and having ago!
We create a relaxed space for you to experiment with combos and dance with people you don't normally dance with to a variety of songs - without the pressure of a performance. Where it doesn't matter if you get into lead and the entire format falls out the back of your head, you muddle your cues, or have a bellydance crash - as long as you pick yourself up and keep going!
True improv!
You get to bring your own music on ipod or cd and the tunes are rotated randomly, and we all bring snacks to share among us. It's like a big ATS party!
The only rules we have are to bring an open mind, to be respectful of the other dancers no matter what level, and if there are any disagreements or confusions over moves or combos to find a compromise for the day, and after to come on here and ask the experts, and let us all know the answer!
East Meets Everyone are a non profit organisation and all those who are involved donate their time and efforts for free! All money made goes to a different charity each time. Even hall we hire, asks for a donation to their own charity for housing young homeless people. Bob Geldof would be proud!
So if you are an ATS dancer stuck in the middle of no where with no one to practice, or you are a hobbyist, a pro, a teacher, a performer, or anyone who justs wants to dance ATS with a friendly bunch come along!
I have formed our very own fledgling tribe which i have just put up so please come and visit us.
Please check out our webpage for more details
www.myspace.com/eastmeetseveryone
Here is to happy dancing and i hope the idea spreads!!
Big Tribally hugs
Katie
I was practicing at home with my invisible dance partner and thinking it would be great to just have a dance with all the dancers who don't attend my class who i have met along the way. ATS brings together people of all ages and backgrounds cutting across social spheres and moves them in unison, and that in an age when we a removing further away from each other that this is a valuble aspect of the dance. I now have friends from 6 different decades - something i could not have said a year ago. I believe building a supportive community is just as important as the technique of dancing together.
SO i have started a venture in the UK called East Meets Everyone
East meets Everyone is a community of Fat Chance Belly Dance format American Tribal Style Dancers, based in East Anglia. Our aim is to create a fun, supportive event founded on friendship and respect where ATS dancers get together and let their hair down!
We create opportunities to meet other ATS dancers, improve and challenge your improv skills and enjoy the magic of dancing together.
We meet every 2 months on a Saturday afternoon in Colchester Essex.
East meets Everyone events are NOT workshops. There is no structured teaching or drilling, with no directing plan for the session other than dancing together. As a result we ask that participants understand formations (even if they haven't had a chance to use them) and know the moves from Vol 1 and Vol 4 - we do not expect everyone to be perfect - but we expect you to be up for throwing yourself in and having ago!
We create a relaxed space for you to experiment with combos and dance with people you don't normally dance with to a variety of songs - without the pressure of a performance. Where it doesn't matter if you get into lead and the entire format falls out the back of your head, you muddle your cues, or have a bellydance crash - as long as you pick yourself up and keep going!
True improv!
You get to bring your own music on ipod or cd and the tunes are rotated randomly, and we all bring snacks to share among us. It's like a big ATS party!
The only rules we have are to bring an open mind, to be respectful of the other dancers no matter what level, and if there are any disagreements or confusions over moves or combos to find a compromise for the day, and after to come on here and ask the experts, and let us all know the answer!
East Meets Everyone are a non profit organisation and all those who are involved donate their time and efforts for free! All money made goes to a different charity each time. Even hall we hire, asks for a donation to their own charity for housing young homeless people. Bob Geldof would be proud!
So if you are an ATS dancer stuck in the middle of no where with no one to practice, or you are a hobbyist, a pro, a teacher, a performer, or anyone who justs wants to dance ATS with a friendly bunch come along!
I have formed our very own fledgling tribe which i have just put up so please come and visit us.
Please check out our webpage for more details
www.myspace.com/eastmeetseveryone
Here is to happy dancing and i hope the idea spreads!!
Big Tribally hugs
Katie
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Re: ATS Community Building and social events (with dancing and munchies!)
Thu, May 28, 2009 - 4:34 PMCongratulations on such an amazing venture!!!! Another way to connect with your dance sistahs is thru Skype! I've seen people taking music lessons with the teacher in America and the student in Israel! Video chatting but I guess in this case, video dancing with eachother! -
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Re: ATS Community Building and social events (with dancing and munchies!)
Sat, May 30, 2009 - 5:43 PMThis is a seriously good idea!!! Anyone want to have a transatlantic dance????
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Re: ATS Community Building and social events (with dancing and munchies!)
Sun, May 31, 2009 - 4:04 PMWonderful idea.
My teacher just put on an event for the Los Angeles area, an ATS dance jam, yesterday in a big warehouse-type space, and I think about 60 dancers showed up to dance for two hours to live drumming and some recorded music, and it was the most fun I've had dancing possibly ever. I would love to be able to get together with other dancers like this a few times a year. It was so great to dance with people you didn't know and be able to be almost completely in synch with so many people (um, except for the woman who would only lead Cabaret moves and evidently didn't get the memo!); it created an amazing energy.
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Re: ATS Community Building and social events (with dancing and munchies!)
Mon, June 1, 2009 - 2:27 AMKatie, this sounds really good. I hope to get along to one!
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Re: ATS Community Building and social events (with dancing and munchies!)
Tue, June 2, 2009 - 10:44 AMOooh will definitely have to check it out. I'm still really a beginner so it might be a few more months of practising at home before I feel brave enough to jump in the deep end lol. I've bookmarked your page so I'll pop in occasionally :)
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Re: ATS Community Building and social events (with dancing and munchies!)
Thu, June 4, 2009 - 8:53 PM"East Meets Everyone" ... that is just beautiful, Katie. I love it. And I think you're the bees knees for coming up with it :)
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Re: ATS Community Building and social events (with dancing and munchies!)
Sun, June 7, 2009 - 2:20 PMHey Katie, we've had a similar idea here down in the south west, our is called Oasis (because we live in a bit of an ATS desert - something we're hoping to change), we get together monthly with who ever wants to turn up and just dance for hours!
We've been running Oasis since christmas now and its proving really popular, we leave it completely to attendees as to what they want to achieve and do a mix of drilling and dancing (punctuated with tea and biscuits of course).
I wish you every success with your venture and hope you find it as enjoyable and useful as we do! it would be lovely if we could keep in touch and see what we could learn from one another about hosting such events! We have a website ( www.kalash-ats.com) with a forum if you fancy it (always useful when tribe is malfunctioning)
Happy dancing
Amy
