Spring Caravan Dance Festival!

Spring Caravan Middle Eastern Dance Festival will be coming to Somerset, NJ this weekend!

Special thanks to the beautiful Shushanna for writing this great description of the festival. She will be performing just a couple time slots before me on Sunday. Be sure to come out and cheer her on!

This is the fourth annual Spring Caravan Middle Eastern Dance Festival. Performers from all over the world of all ages and levels of experience will perform throughout the festival, and dozens of vendors will bring costumes straight from Egypt, music for every taste, and everything else a belly dance enthusiast could desire. The well loved bands Djinn, Pangia, and Beat Box Guitar will perform live! There will be food available for purchase, and the chocolate cake is to die for. This is a family oriented event and children (and inner children) are encouraged to get up and dance on the stage at Open Floor times. And the fabulous live music dance parties are held after the festival on Friday and Saturday nights at the Crowne Plaza hotel across the street.

Amalia will be performing at 1:42pm on Sunday

Spring Caravan
Ukrainian Cultural Center
135 Davidson Avenue
Somerset, NJ 08873-1358
(732) 469-1018
www.rakkasah.com/spring

Festival dates, times and ticket costs:
Friday April 30st, 7pm - 11pm, $15
Saturday May 1st, noon - 10pm, $18
Sunday May 2nd, noon - 8pm, $18

From Amalia: A bit about the history of Spring Caravan. As it says above, this is only the fourth annual Spring Caravan show, but I danced at Spring Caravan for the first time about sixteen years ago! At that time it was a small outdoor festival held at a park in Northern California. It was hosted by Shukriya, Director of the Rakkasah dance festivals and one of my first teachers. Four years ago it was re-invented as a fusion belly dance festival based in New Jersey and is run by Shukriya's daughter, Michelle De Vine.

Karsilama Resources

In our intermediate classes we have been working a fair amount on a rhythm used in Turkish and Greek music, the Karsilama, aka Kasilimikia, aka Karshlima, aka Kashlima. Almost every resource I find spells the name of this rhythm differently!

The rhythm is typically played very fast, but this is the slow version I use in class for drills:

Song: Kashlima 9-8
Artist: Solace
Album: Rhythm Of The Dance

Here is a list of other songs I have used in class with this rhythm:

Song:Karsilamikia
Artist: Animus
Album: The Movements

Song: Rampi Rampi
Artist: Turku
Album: Alleys of Istanbul

Song: Rumeli Karsilamasi
Artist: Djin
Album: The Middle East Side World

Song: Rompi, Rompi
Artist: The Lafayette Band
Album: Live At Lafayette: New York Greek & Middle Eastern Dance Music

For those students wanting to learn a little more about this rhythm, here are some additional resource:

http://www.shira.net/zills-98.htm

Mirage Song Available On-line

I met Khatchig back in my hometown of San Francisco last Spring - he was playing doumbek at a show where I was performing. I bought all of the cds he was selling to bring back home to Pennsylvania with me. There is one song off the Mirage album that I will often play in class for warm ups and slow work. My students love it but the song was not readily available to purchase here on the east coast. One of my persistent students got in touch with Khatchig and has encouraged him to make the song available on-line. Special thanks to Lynne, you can find the song "Makhmour Aghchig" on-line here:

http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/Mirage3