An Open Letter to a New Dance Student

Dear New Student,

Congratulations to you. I know how hard it is to decide to take a dance class, to put yourself out there in a way that you haven’t done before, and to try something new. You’re doing a great job. I mean that. I know that the movements may be uncomfortable or awkward, and that you’re looking around the room surreptitiously eyeing everyone else, thinking that maybe you don’t belong here because your moves aren’t as fluid or as sharp as the dancer next to you. That’s OK. It’s alright to be uncomfortable. That’s why you’re here, to learn something new, and the first time we do something new, it’s rarely easy and almost always awkward. Everyone learns at their own pace and you will learn how to do this if you stick with it and practice. I know. I’ve been there.

I’m your teacher. I’m not here to teach you how to dance like me or to get you to perform. I’m here to provide you with the tools to dance like you. If performance is your goal, then I will support you and help you along the way. I will guide you, and I will correct you, but ultimately, whether or not you learn this dance is up to you. What you get out of this dance is up to you. This dance is my joy and I hope you find joy in it as well, but all of that – it’s up to you.

There may come a time when you choose not to dance with me anymore, or just not to dance. I respect that, and I understand that life gets in the way, that sometimes I’m not the right teacher for someone, and that sometimes you will need to spread your wings and do your own thing. I’m OK with that. I want to be here to support your dance. Remember that I’m a dance student too. I’ve been there. If you have questions, you can ask me, and if you have problems, you can talk to me; just not while we’re in class. Class time is for dancing.

At the end of the day, I’m glad you’re here. I’m proud of you for choosing to try something different and something new, and I’m proud of you for working hard in class and doing your best. I’m humbled that you chose me to be your instructor, and I promise to do my best to honor and respect the trust that you’ve placed in me by continuing my own education, working hard to plan my classes, and creating a safe and supportive atmosphere for you to learn in. 

Thank you for dancing with me. Love and shimmies,

Jaidra

Discordia Arts at the Faire

Discordia Arts had a wonderful weekend at the Enchanted Chalice Renaissance Faire in Greenville, SC, this past weekend. This was our 3rd year performing at the Faire, and it is truly getting better every year.

On Friday night we performed as the headliners along with Wasted Wine, and brought a mix of fire and shadow that the crowd really seemed to enjoy.

Saturday, we danced a pure belly dance set, our first in a long time, featuring a few of our students. We spent the rest of the day meeting amazing people and enjoying the atmosphere of family filled revelry that this small but unique event brings to the upstate.

Can't wait for next year!

Brandy with Fire Fans: Photo by SeaJae Photographer

Jaidra with Fire Staff: Photo by SeaJae Photographer

Discordia Arts Shadow Screen to Never Look Back

Discordia Arts and Students at the Faire

I am a bellydancer

I dance because I have found myself in the movement.
I dance to express joy and share passion or sorrow.
I dance to push myself beyond the boundaries of what I ever thought I could do.
I dance empowered as a woman, to love who I am.
I dance with sisters, and with friends.
I dance because to dance is to become one with the universe.
To dance is to be whole.

Brandy and Jaidra of Discordia Arts with Fire Fans

To dance is to dream.

Bring A Friend, Free Bellydance Class Day!

Jaidra and Brandy of Discordia Arts: Sword Duet at Ren Faire

I'm having a special promo class the first week in February. Bring a friend, and BOTH of your classes are free. Check out more information here, and like the Discordia Arts Facebook page while you're there to keep up with our performance and class schedule.

Now, your first class with me is always free, so this promo is mostly for my current students, but if you're reading this early, you can get 2 free classes by coming in for your first class ahead of time and then bringing a friend on Bring A Friend Day. Bellydance has changed my life, and I love to teach it...come give it a try and maybe you'll love it to!

Jaidra with some of  her students at the 2013 Discordia Arts Spring Student Showcase

Discordia Arts Fire Dance Promo Video

Lots of Dancing!!

The last two weekends have been my favorite kind: chock full of Bellydance! And, it doesn't show signs of stopping.

First, on Friday evening, Feb 22, Discordia Arts and our dear friend Teejei, joined Wasted Wine on stage at the Handlebar in Greenville, SC. We had a fantastic evening full of beautiful, unique music, and we debuted a brand new theatrical fusion bellydance piece as living music boxes! I didn't get any pictures of the event, since I was a bit busy, but the photograph below was posted on Facebook by Fete Greenville

 

Jaidra Performs to Fall Upon Me with Wasted Wine at the Handlebar

Saturday night brought even more beautiful dancing, as I took to the stage along with a variety of Greenville's finest bellydancers and students at an informal hafla hosted by Nadira. Community events are always a ton of fun. It is exciting to get to see the range of styles and talents that Greenville boasts.

Following last weekend, we had a week full of practices, dress rehearsal, and planning to get ready for last night's show. Discordia Arts presented our Spring Student Showcase and Hafla. My students, Brandy's students, and many of our friends showed up and danced their hearts out. We were blessed to be joined by talented musicians from as far away as Columbia, Atlanta, and Asheville in addition to local drummer, Marcus, and the incomparable Robert Gowan.
Hopefully, I will have photos to share soon. Last night was amazing. The last few weeks of dancing, music, fellowship, hard training, and community has really reminded me why I dance. Love and Shimmies!

My Students Rock So Very Much

Bellydance Fitness and Fun Class Performance

Equilibrium Zen Gym Bellydance Class

Last night, Equilibrium Zen Gym, the home of my "Bellydance Fitness and Fun" class had their annual Christmas party. A few weeks ago, the owner, George, asked me if I would perform as part of the class demonstrations for the party.

Jaidra

I had been teaching my students some simple combos in a circle format, and I made the executive decision that I was going to choreograph a simple dance and have my students dance with me for the party. With less than a month to go, I let them know that they could perform with me. I made it clear that they didn't have to, but to my surprise, all 6 members of the class decided that they wanted to!

Jaidra Dancing with Bellydance Fitness and Fun Students

These women all started dancing four months ago, and have progressed at varying speeds, but are all amazingly beautiful, talented, kind and hard working. I have been so impressed by the work that they were willing to put in in order to join me for the Christmas party. They even surprised me by purchasing matching skirts for the performance!

In the end, I had a phenomenal time, and my students did a wonderful job. I am very proud of them, and hopeful that they have inspired others to come and join us. Bellydance is not just a beautiful art form and great exercise, but can be a truly communal experience that brings joy to the dancers and the audience, and my students prove it!

Good news, bad news, and bellydance photos

The great news is that I have a full time job. My art is my passion, but I also love science and am excited to be able to use my degree that I worked so hard for so many years to get.

The not so great news is that for the first little bit, I am cancelling Thursday night classes. I have a lot of work going on, and it's going to take some time to get used to my new schedule. I hope to be able to reintroduce advanced and intermediate level classes again in the future, but for the time being, Bellydance Fitness and Fun at Equilibrium Zen Gym happens every Wednesday night at 7:30!


Now for some fun stuff. I've had a lot of performances lately, a show in Knoxville, TN hosted by Ananda with The Lifesize Mousetrap, Jodi Waseca, and Rose Harden the last weekend in September. The first weekend in October I danced in Wasted Wine's Perpetual Spirals of Power and Pleasure CD release and dance collaboration at the Warehouse Theater in Greenville, SC. Today, I danced with two amazing ladies, Brandy and Evelyn to live drumming at Fall for Greenville. It's been a busy couple of weeks, and I'm loving it! I have tons of pics, but here are a few of my favorites.

From Knoxville Show:

Jodi Waseca, Rose Harden, and Jaidra DuRant

Jaidra with Sword

Jodi Waseca with Uniq by Jaidra hand painted veil

Rose Harden

Jaia and Amanda of Ananda

Maria and Sipi - Amazing Acrobalance Team

Claire - Poi Goddess

Teejei

From Fall For Greenville: It was a Windy Day!

Jaidra, Brandy, and Evelyn pre preformance

ATS at Fall for Greenville

Jaidra Skirt Dance at Fall for Greenville

Jaidra and Brandy Duet

Brandy Solo

I will never forgive you Practice Video

Recently, I have had the opportunity to work with an extremely talented group of musicians in Greenville, SC by the name of "Wasted Wine." In addition to jamming and improv work, I've gotten to go on the road with this group and am really looking forward to where this new avenue of artistry may go in the future. Above is a video from practice before our Knoxville, TN show with me performing a sword dance to "I will never forgive you"

Hopefully I will have more pictures and videos to share soon - because this is just TOO MUCH FUN!

Introducing Bellydance Fitness and Fun at Equilibrium Zen Gym

I am very excited to announce that my new class, Bellydance Fitness and Fun, is starting TONIGHT at Equilibrium Zen Gym. If you've never been there before, it is a beautiful space in Greenville on the corner of Augusta Rd and Faris Rd behind Alpine Ski and Firehouse subs - look for the red door.
This class will run from 7:30 until 8:30 every Wednesday. In celebration, I am continuing my BUY one, GET one deal for your first class until the end of July, so if you know anyone who may be interested, get them hooked with this deal :)

Bellydance Fitness and Fun Class Description:

Come try bellydance in this fantastic, upbeat, low pressure environment.  Jaidra will introduce simple bellydance isolations and traveling moves and then combine them into easy to follow combinations so that you’ll be dancing by the end of class!

Each class will open with a brief warm up and strengthening workout followed by instruction in basic bellydance technique and moves. Then, once you’ve learned how, we’ll shimmy and hip bump all our blues away!

This class is perfect for the beginner dancer and anyone who has ever searched for a workout that they actually enjoy!

Classes cost 15$ per class OR 10 per class with the purchase of a 6/8/or12 class card. Class cards are good for any of my classes.

Bellydance Basics continues on Thursday at Taal School of Dance on Butler Rd followed by Advanced Topics : Sword Dance.

Drop in students are welcome in Bellydance Basics and Bellydance Fitness and Fun. Advanced Topics require instructor permission.

Sword Dance Workshop Follow Up

Balance Practice: Shifting your weight with Swords

Sunday's sword workshop in Williamston, SC was a ton of fun!

I spent hours working on my handout for the workshop, and what was supposed to be 3 pages ended up as 5, but no one seemed to mind. Luckily, I planned a day of placing the sword on the head, taking it off, and then putting it back. 3 hours is a bit long to keep a sword on your head (ouch!).

Sword dance: Angling the body

I began the workshop with a brief discussion on what to look for when choosing a sword for sword dance, sword dance history, sword care, and sword dance safety. We moved from there onto balanced body posture, exercises for balancing, and balancing the sword on your head. With the sword on our heads, we practiced shifting our weight from one foot to the other, onto the balls of our feet, and from there to walking.

Flat rotations with the sword balanced on the palm

New sword dancers are often surprised by the weight of the sword on their head, so we took the swords off our heads and spent some time discussion body angles, framing the body with the sword, and dancing with the sword before we place it on our heads.

The sword is an extremely dynamic prop  for dancing so we spent an hour swinging the sword around, dancing to and away from the sword, isolating parts of our body while we used the sword to frame our moves, and putting all of these concepts into dance combinations. I taught some of my favorite sword dance combos with coloful names such as "shave the gypsy" and "I'm gonna wash that sword right out of my hair."

Sword Dance

Personally, I am a huge fan of spinning and turning with my sword, so I spent a good amount of time teaching spins and turns as well as some combinations of rotations with the sword balanced on the palm of the hand mixed with turns, swings, and catches to round out this section of the class. After turning with the sword in our hands, we put the sword back on our heads and did some more spinning.

I love swords for a lot of reasons. I also love dance...and I love science. In spinning with a sword on your head, I got the opportunity to have all of my loves collide and give a brief physics lecture (really brief, I know not everyone is as big a nerd as I am).  So, we spent some time learning to start spinning, and a whole lot more time learning ways to stop spinning.

So many options on where to balance a sword!

 When I first planned the workshop, I also planned a time table for everything, and amazingly enough, I stuck to it, so we had time for 30 minutes of floorwork. I started out by teaching a variety of exercises that will help strengthen and tone the muscles that are required for safe floorwork, and then we spent a little time practicing hip circles and round the worlds with the swords on our heads.

I finished off the day with a short demonstration of some of the other places where you can balance your sword (and my caveat that utilizing too many of these in one routine gets a bit kitchy) and some strong poses.

Sword Dance Poses

We stretched, happy to have the swords off of our heads. I was extremely proud of everyone who came out and worked so hard to learn the basics of sword dance - everyone did great!

Thank you to everyone in Pelzer/Williamston, for being so welcoming. Thanks to everyone else, for driving out and spending your Sunday with me. Big super duper thanks to Kim Alexander for having me. Hopefully everyone now has the tools to embrace sword dance safely and with joy!


If you want to learn sword dance, my intermediate/advanced level topics class will be starting soon in Greenville, and the first topic I will cover is sword dance!