Last week was awesome! Twelve (is that right?) of us attended the first ever Choreography Collective at Suhaila's new studio (love the new/old space!) We got Suhaila drills in the morning and choreographies from the guest instructors in the afternoon. Rachel George started us off with a killer drum solo to "Sahra Saidi" on Monday. Tuesday brought us Vashti's saucy Spanish Gypsy Fusion to "Leila". Wednesday we go to get down to the bottom of the bottle with Amy Sigil and "The Queen n I". Thursday Rachid got old school with "Ya Ourda," a sublime Tunisian song from 1927. On Friday we got a doubleheader with Michelle Joyce teaching us how to "Move" in the morning and Paulette Rees-Denis teaching a tribal style choreography to Gypsy Caravan's "Algerian Drum Song" in the afternoon, which was a really great way to end the workshop, with everyone linking arms and smiling and dancing together.

Of course by the third choreography we were already full, but we just had to keep shoehorning it in! It was really cool to learn such different choreographies and be able to apply Suhaila's format to them (which some of the instructors did explicitly.) What I really enjoyed was seeing everyone's different approach to interpreting the music, and it really drove home for me the importance of studying different styles, regardless of what style you choose to perform.

Anyway, it was a great workshop and I can't wait until next year's!