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Episode #35 Dance and Art: Lighting the Creative Process with Dr. Lori Hops and Myra Krien

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iym2NzdHYPM

Spotify: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/lori-hops/episodes/Dance-and-Art-Lighting-the-Creative-Process-with-Dr--Lori-Hops-and-Myra-Krien-e2n5ett

iHeart Radio: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/269-healing-tips-from-the-hear-198343596/

Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/720d0e8e-8f0f-4b8d-95b9-cd77e073a57d/healing-tips-from-the-heart-with-dr-lori-hops-intuition-with-helpers-healers-and-guides

"Meet amazing Myra —dancer, performer, body poet, choreographer, set and fashion designer,  and granddaughter of the great Zen philosopher Alan Watts. Mira discusses her lifelong passion for dance, particularly Middle Eastern and belly dance forms, and how she has incorporated these into her work as a performer, teacher, artistic director of her own dance company and founder of a youth mentorship program.  Mira emphasizes the transformative power of dance, its ability to build community, and the need to approach it with respect, curiosity, and a willingness to transcend age and body type barriers."

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"Myra Krien, Founder of Pomegranate SEEDS, on the purpose and programs included in this after-school non-profit youth mentorship program."

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"When its artistic dance, modern Arabian music, striking visual effects and intricate costumes harmoniously interacted, The Radiant Tarot was a visceral experience which transported one from the everyday mundane into its fanciful world.”

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Pages 16-19. Click here for virtual magazine.

Fair Features Belly Dancers By Emily Van Cleve In Journal North September, 2013

It takes Pomegranate Studios owner and director Myra Krien three months to sew the costumes and prepare choreography for her company’s appearance at the Santa Fe Renaissance Fair. Between 15 and 30 student and professional dancers offer two main stage shows and several shorter shows throughout the two-day fair.

This year’s event will take place on Sept. 21 and 22 at El Rancho de las Golondrinas, which is located in the village of La Cienega, 12 miles south of Santa Fe.

Pomegranate Studios, which provides programs focusing on the artistic heritage of the Middle East as expressed through music, dance, poetry and visual arts, will present fully-staged 45-minute shows on the fair’s main stage. Company members also will entertain visitors in the fair’s tavern and near the museum’s main entrance.

“My family helped found the original Renaissance fairs in California,” said Krien. “I grew up in them. Being part of the Santa Fe Renaissance Fair is a labor of love.”

Now in its sixth year, the Santa Fe Renaissance Fair drew 4,000 visitors to its first event. Last year, more than 8,000 guests roamed the living history museum’s spacious grounds to watch sword fighting, Celtic games, juggling, jousting and combat demonstrations.

“One-third of our guests come dressed up in costumes,” said Amanda Crocker, the museum’s director of programs and marketing. “Sometimes it’s hard to tell who works at the museum during the weekend and who are the guests because so many people are dressed in Renaissance outfits.”

Costume contests take place on both days, with prizes going to the winners. First-place winners receive free museum membership for one year.

Children who want to dress up like a fairy when they visit the fairy village can purchase appropriate garb from one of the vendors. Staff at the fairy village put on skits and sponsor arts and crafts activities for children. The mascot of the fairy village is a real white horse dressed as a unicorn.

The Renaissance Fair also features flamenco and Celtic dancers, singers and strolling instrumentalists. A brochure handed to each visitor at the entrance lists the weekend’s entertainment schedule.

Carving A Path Together

By Myra Krien In Shimmy Issue 20

"There is almost a sensual longing for communication with others who have a large vision. The immense fulfillment of the friendship between those engaged in furthering the evolution of consciousness has a quality impossible to describe."

Collaboration: literally to co-labor, or the act of creating with someone else to achieve a higher vision.

Often collaboration can be tricky. On its worst day we argue and are unable to put our egos aside. At its best it is transcendent, the best of both combined to create an even greater end. For some time now, I had been feeling a longing to share a deeper communion and to connect more deeply with others in my field who saw bellydance from a similar perspective. My mission statement for many years now has been, “To uplift and promote the art of bellydance as a healing art for social change.”

In 2012 Tamalyn Dallal brought Kaeshi Chai to my annual National SEEDs Teacher Training. SEEDs® standing for Self-Esteem, Empowerment and Education through Dance, is a youth mentorship program created in 2000 by myself to present to youth the finest instruction in Middle Eastern Arts, along with programming that promotes self-discovery and self-actualization, provides mentorship at a very high level and prepares young women for independence. PURE (Public Urban Ritual Experiment), created by Kaeshi is defined as, “An international community of artists who utilize dance and music for healing, personal growth and positive change.” Tamalyn had brought Kaeshi because, knowing both of us, it was clear to her that our work was closely aligned. Kaeshi and I recognized each other. It was clear that while our work was taking different forms, we were deeply engaged in the same vision. I was exhilarated by the thought of working together.

Not long after, Kaeshi called me and asked me to be an instructor, performer, panelist, and presenter for a new kind of bellydance experience called the PURE Conference. As she described it, the conference would involve and engage the participants in bellydance on many different levels. Arriving at this conference I was immediately amazed by the company I was keeping. My fellow presenters were so exceptional. Kaeshi had brought the most amazing group together, Antonina Canal Davila, Hanan A Rama, Jorja Rivero, Dalia Carella, just to name a few, all engaged in using bellydance as a healing art for social change. It was so powerful for me and for all who attended to be in a group this aligned in both passion and purpose. The whole experience took everyone to new heights. This has since grown into an annual event.The following year I found myself heading to Mexico City to perform and participate in the weeklong residency that leads to the performance of Keashi’s full stage production that explores the topics of body image and addiction, PURE Reflections: Beauty Re-Imagined. This was an exceptional experience and one that led me to want to share its entirety with both my local community and my greater SEEDs community.

This October, Kaeshi Chai will come to Santa Fe, New Mexico with her team to lead 50 participants from all over the country in a week long residency to mount PURE Reflections: Beauty Re-Imagined. Also invited to this incredible event are New York native bands BeatboxGuitar and Djinn. The weekend will involve 4 performances, 5 live-music workshops, and a Halfa. The whole event will revolve around the evolution and revolution of the incredible, beloved and life-changing art form of belly dance.

We are actively building a community through these shared experiences, aligned to this deeper purpose, a super highway of connectivity. Get involved, evolve and revolve! If you are interested in participating in this event or others like it contact us, let’s be the change!

Interview with Myra Krien By Lindsay Ahl In Zaghareet! June, 2010

Lindsay: You just outdid yourself again at your yearly show, Invaders of the Heart: Anima & Animas. Could you talk a little about your creative process, how long it takes to choreograph each piece, how you put together all the parts, and a little bit about you theme for this year’s show, and how this theme fits into your own life?

Myra: These large stage shows take about fourteen months to build. While I’m finishing one I begin the next. This year we had 27 dancers on stage in 94 costumes, most of which we made ourselves, and all new choreographies. It’s a huge undertaking, but so rewarding. I strive each year to make them better and I feel that I have been able to achieve this goal each year. I usually choose a theme, something reflected in my life, the influences that surround me. Whether this theme is apparent or meaningful to the audience is immaterial to me. I use it as an internal “springboard” and I hang the show around it. Animus Anima are Jungian terms that describe the masculine and feminine counterparts in each of us that can be mirrored either internally or externally.

This year I want to involve ore men, to bring balance to the work. I met Arish Lam last May when performing and teaching at Spirit of the Tribes. I was so impressed with his overall artistry; he is a masculine and powerful performer and fabulous instructor. I wanted people here to see a male dancer of such quality and technique It’s funny, as soon as I made that choice then other men began to weave into the show. We ended up with three gorgeous male dancers from different dance backgrounds in different pieces. In the myth of Isis and Osiris, Giacamo Zafarano, a classically trained dancer, took on the role of Osiris and Alaric Balibrera dance tango in out Belly Baile suite. They brought so much of themselves to the work and added so much to the show. In America people think of belly dance as belonging to the “feminine”, but I think after seeing the masculine artistry of each of these dancers, it has opened their minds. I like that the show can delight, entertain, and challenge the audience.

We challenge ourselves each year to raise the bar technically in our work, but also to surprise the audience with its diversity. This year began with a devotional piece to music my husband composed and played, referencing the dance’s Indian roots. Next I used both Oriental and Tribal together onstage to the music of Light Rain. I had grown up dancing to Light Rain in the early days. I love the music so much and I want ed to create work that showed belly dance of that era. The following piece was my solo, a VERY modern fusion piece, filled with pops, locks, funk, jazz and hip hop. The following suite feature the Tribal Company doing fusion pieces to Beats Antique, a kind of turn of the century, western meets New Orleans jazz street scene. It sounds crazy, but it was just great and FUN! After Intermission we started back up with the Oriental company telling the story of Osiris and Isis, the original creation and re-incarnation myth. Many people thought this was the most dramatic and powerful piece in the show. Like a ballet, it is story telling and dance. I think the mythic and iconic symbols made it a powerful experience for the audience. They, my personal favorite, the Belly Baile suite to the music of violinist Claude Chlalhoub, incorporated influences of modern dance and Tango with belly dance. Arish then performed an unbelievable solo of his own work. We finished the show with an ensemble piece to a compilation of belly dance music, hip hop and Michael Jackson (had to tip the hat). I was surpised by how many people came up to me and commented on my solo and Arish’s, saying they were the most powerful and profound examples they had seen of the masculine and feminine. I thought how amazing art is that it can convey so much.

Lindsay: Do you have any advice for fellow choreographers who would like to put on a big show but haven’t done that yet?

Myra: “Love is in the details,” I don’t know who said it, but it will become your mantra. Producing these shows takes a tremendous amount of time, many volunteers, and money upfront. Make a detailed budget and a detailed list of EVERYTHING you can think of that will need to be done. There will always be more things you haven’t though of especially the first time. Delegate to competent people. Check your list. Stay calm, breathe, be gracious, have faith and make it FUN!

Lindsay: Play tell us about the Adult SEEDs® program [Self-Esteem, Empowerment & Education through Dance] that will soon be in place. What is that about and when can people register?

Myra: Register NOW! We are currently planning for July 2011. So many women have commented that they wish they could have had a program like SEEDs when they were growing up and then asked me for a SEEDs program for them. I think it’s a great idea!

Santa Fe is so beautiful and there are some amazing places to hold a retreat. I’m envisioning a beautiful environment with excellent food, a places where the rooms are lovely, but plenty of outdoor spaces for walks and are lovely, but plenty of outdoor spaces for walks and contemplation. In the morning we start with an opening question and meditation, time for journaling then a moving mediation that evolves into dancing. We close with a talking circle and then break for lunch. After lunch is different each day – either a writing exercise, guest presenter, or a FUN interactive exercise or art project. Then more belly dancing, another topic, talking circle and journaling and dinner. One evening we perform for each other, another we go out on the town for dinner and a show.

The program is a life-changing experience, a platform for self exploration, discovery, healing and reinvention of self. It’s a pit stop, an opportunity to get off the track of our lives, rest, play, reflect, rejuvenate and motivate. The topics include self-esteem and body image, as well as defining financial, career, creative and personal goals. These topics are explored through FUN and creative activities to inspire us to move forward to achieve our greatest desires. Guest Speakers include a financial specialist, and a life coach. We ask that each participant make a request of particular areas of interest. This way can tailor make the experience by inviting a few guest speakers that reflect the groups’ current needs and interests.

Lindsay: Philip Glass talks about how music is always there, it’s his job to just listen and write it down. How do you feel about choreography? Do you see the dances? Do you feel them in your body? Does music inspire the movements or do you know the moves and have to search out some music to complement how you want to move? Talk about dance as a language we all know but are unable to tap into until the dancer shows us how.

Myra: First, I should say that in Arabic arts, differing from contemporary forms, the music always comes first. They dancer is the light expression of the sound; the imperative is to be the music. Of course many things can be going on in the music and it is the dancer/choreographer’s artistic license to decide what to follow or emphasize. If movements are our paints then we decide how to best express what we hear using our palette, what colors, where to blend. In order to begin this process you must know that music intimately.

In this way, yes, the music tells me what it wants to be. Sometimes, like Michelangelo saying that he would see the stone, I see the dance already there. Other times it is more organic, like following an invisible thread, each step reveals the next. When I have a clear and defined vision of what I want to create, I search for the music to express that vision. Then I start the choreographic process. Like all artists, I am deeply affected by everything in my environment. Personal inner experience, emotional landscape, physical landscape, music, images in my environment, books, conversations and much more all influence and inspire my work.

Dance is a language. It expresses the inner landscape of human experience. As Martha Graham says, “movement never lies, it is the barometer of the soul for all those who can read it.” But we all must cultivate the eyes with which to see, the ears to hear.

Lindsay: In terms of training, what advice would you give to a dancer? I’m thinking not just in terms of dancing, per se, but what else? Breath, focus, discipline – talk about what it takes to be a great dancer and how the best ways to take yourself there are.

Myra: A serious dancer must train everyday. Love and courage are the most important, then discipline, focus, commitment and the ability to submit. Strength, endurance, flexibility, grace, movement technique must all be trained. But that is just the beginning. You are creating an instrument and then it must have something to say. Cultivating this takes a tremendous amount of time and care. Listening to an studying music, reading, watching, taking workshops, studying art and culture, language and studying process. It’s a deep inquiry. A dancer, in particular, must remember that she/he is an instrument, a vessel. They must learn to submit and surrender to that which is being asked of them, asked of them by the music, by the culture, by the choreographer.

Dance program aims to prepare young women for the future

By Kelly S. Hopkins In Vision Magazine, May, 2010

For the Sundarii SEEDs® girls, studying American tribal-style® dance is only part of the lesson.

For the past nine months, two Roswell teens have learned Self-esteem, Empowerment and Education through Dance, thanks to the careful instruction of Stacey Ennis.

Deborah Brumlow, 16, and Evalyn Thaler, 15, have the distinction of being Roswell’s first two SEEDs girls, and will be demonstrating their newly honed dancing skills during a final graduation performance at 7 p.m., Saturday, May 15 at Pueblo Auditorium.

However, the other skills Brumlow and Thaler picked up in the SEEDs program will manifest themselves in a much different way.

“The emphasis is on not only teaching them the art of American tribal-style dance…it’s about encouraging these young ladies to start making informed choices, informed decisions and to start preparing them for their independence,” Ennis said.

The after-school program – for young ladies 14 to 18 years old – was started by Myra Krien in Santa Fe in 2001. In order to bring the program to southeast New Mexico, Ennis – a tribal-style belly dancer – became a certified SEEDs instructor last year. The program’s main goal is teaching young girls independence.

“I felt that Roswell really needed a program like that here,” Ennis said. “It’s really for the young ladies who have no other activities or interests outside of school. That’s who this program appeals to the most.”

Three days a week, for one and a half to two hours per session, SEEDs girls also receive instruction in women’s health, social issues and fiscal responsibility. And because American tribal-style dance is unchoreographed, Ennis said it also compels participants to rely on each other, with cues given by the leader during performances.

“You have to learn how to trust the other person,” Ennis explained. “It’s a totally different way of interacting with other women. There’s no competition. The possibilities are limitless with the dance itself.”

Ennis is hoping the SEEDs program will gain momentum as word spreads about its many benefits. Her goal is to teach 10 to 15 girls per school year. The next class will start about two weeks after the upcoming school year begins. Tuition is required for the course.

Money raised during the May 15 performance – titled “Origins: Evolution” – will be set aside for next year’s program. The recital will also feature dancing by Mosaic Dance Company, DiDi Ethnic Dance, Anala, Georgine and the Silver Dunes Troupe, Marisa of Farashi, Kuumba, Maria Alicia and Las Rosas, and Hannah.

For more information about SEEDs, call Ennis at 420-7330, email sundariidance@yahoo.com, or go online to www.sundariidance.com.

The Pomegranate SEEDs® Program

By Lindsay Ah In Shimmy, December, 2009

The Pomegranate SEEDs® Program is a four-and-a-half hour per week program devoted to teaching teenage girls ATS® dance, self-empowerment, and self-esteem among other things. It is a program that Myra Krien created and now teaches to other women to help them set up this program in other cities. There are currently several other SEEDs Programs, for example, “Red Clover SEEDs” in Vermont, created by Christine Demarais, and “Sundarii SEEDs” in Roswell, New Mexico, created by Stacey Ennis. Sofia Onstead has a SEEDs Program through Euphoria Studios in Portland, Oregon, and Bonnie Cowley has Wildflower SEEDs in Texas. And there are several others: in Alaska, Colorado, California, Hawaii, Arizona, Nevada, and Mexico. The program is designed to help teenage girls through the difficult period of adolescence by giving them a community, and the tools and self-knowledge that will help them to become successful and happy adults.

The next training session for potential teachers of the SEEDs program is in June of 2010. It is a six day intensive training that feels like a mini SEEDs for teachers. Much time is spent dancing, but much time is also spent talking and journaling, just as the teenagers do in their program. There is practical information: discussion of daily lesson plans, the ins and outs of developing your own SEEDs program in terms of marketing, contracts, enrollment, non-profit vs. profit, fees and scholarships, and the impact of SEEDs on a dance studio. There is also more psychological and philosophical discussion: What is a good teacher? How do we develop self-esteem and body image? What facilitates reaching one’s goals? How do we find our own true voice? How do we create for ourselves financial independence, personal power and options, and contribute to our community?

In order to apply, you need to have at least three years of training in your particular dance form, and some of that should be knowledge of ATS. (Tribal Style lends itself well to the program goals, with the emphasis on both group interaction and communication and the ability within that to improvise in a common language.) Each teacher-in-training is deeply committed to bringing this program to her community and to becoming the best mentor and teacher she can to the community of teenage girls in her area.

This particular calling – combining dance instruction with administering to the personal growth and transition into womanhood of several teenage girls, requires grace and strength, determination and hard work, efficiency and compassion. And, of course, a deep love of dance.

It is through the dance that the girls will come to love and accept their bodies, and learn to communicate silently with the other girls. It is through the community that dance provides, and the talking circles and journaling and questions and discussions, that the girls come to know themselves, and begin to create the future for themselves that they desire. Each girl picks a goal at the beginning of the year that she wants to achieve by the end of the year. The program and teacher help to hone that goal so that it can be achieved.

There are many amazing women who have graduated from the SEEDs Teacher Training and have begun their own SEEDs programs, sometimes with great struggle, but great rewards as well.

Amarillo, Texas

Here is a section from Bonnie Cowley’s story, about setting up a SEEDs Program in Texas:

I returned home to Amarillo convinced everyone would be as excited as I was to bring such a wonderful program to our community. My expectations were that everyone would “get it” as I had – that doors would open gratefully to welcome in SEEDs. I knew if I created beautiful brochures, spoke to all of the club meetings, made the phone calls, contacted schools, and churches, etc. that young women would flock to attend. I was in for a rude awakening. I knew going in that Amarillo was a conservative community, and did not have the comfort level with diversity and culture that are more prevalent in other cities. It was then I knew I needed to take a step back, and educate the community first. That just because I understood the mission, and felt the passion, most people I spoke to had no idea what I was talking about. I found that I could not advertise in the public high schools unless I was a 501C3 (non-profit), and only those non-profits whose mission is in line with public school systems are allowed in. I was told by one High School Migrant Director, that as long as the participants did not show their mid-section, they would bring the request to their board members. Needless to say, this has been a great learning experience and I continue to be steadfast in my mission to bring SEEDs to our community.

I am happy to announce that because of the generous giving of time from 4 women, I will be conducting my first SEEDs program, starting on September 27th for 3-5 young ladies from Pampa, Texas. They will be driving an hour each way to attend. It may only be 3 girls, however, I know with perseverance and dedication to this work, SEEDs will continue to grow here.

Starting a program, such as SEEDs, in the Texas panhandle, has been a challenging one.

Portland, Oregon

Here is an excerpt from Sofia Onstead, who through Euphoria Studio in Portland, Oregon, began her SEEDs Program:

Now that my program is up and running I wanted to share my experience as well as some tips for starting your own SEEDs program so that you may learn from my trials and errors.

First, start early! Finding girls for the program was my greatest challenge. The brochure took much longer than expected, and it’s hard to advertise without material to distribute. If possible, start before school ends, because locating teen girls in the summer can be challenging. My plan of action was to go to festivals, recreation centers, malls and other places I thought teens might hang out, and try to talk to as many girls as possible. Never underestimate the power of being real and personal. Actually connecting and telling one girl about the program was much more effective than passing out 100 brochures. Do as many performances as possible! I was able to do a few performances in schools, which proved to be extremely helpful. There are so many misconceptions about what belly dance is, that girls really need to see it to understand and fall in love with it! Once those girls see the movements, fringe, coins and glitter and hear the exotic music, they are hooked! Leaving stacks of materials in schools didn’t bring me any girls, so I wouldn’t bother wasting your materials in this way. If you do use schools to distribute, it is best to find someone that can act as a spokesperson for you. Find the right person that is excited about the program and they will be a great help. Gym teachers and counselors are good places to start. You never know when you will run into a group of girls, so always be prepared and have materials on you.

And here is Holly Luky, creator of Sedona SEEDs talking about the program itself:

The teacher-training program wasn’t all work though, we had a lot of fun together aside from learning. Myra and her lovely Mosaic Dance Company performed one evening at a local restaurant and we enjoyed a fabulous meal as we watched, which was the perfect way to start the program. On the fourth night we met for a BBQ at Myra’s home and continued our in-depth discussions over homemade food, a beautiful sunset and great company. We also took time each day to simply dance…where our minds could take a little break and our bodies could just move. We danced through ATS beginning and intermediate formats with a touch of improvisation together at the end. As we danced throughout the week we got more familiar with both ourselves and with each other, and as we danced into our final improvisational formation I saw each of us come together in perfect time with the music and smiles on our faces. I imagine that is what happens to the girls that attend the SEEDs program…They arrive uncertain about what they will be experiencing, have an amazing time learning about themselves, and at the end they have the tools to improvise their own dance – the dance of life.

I think this is what happens to the girls in the SEEDs program. The girls have many more tools than they would have had to “improvise their own dance.” So also, the graduates of the SEEDs Teacher Training. These women, a little more experienced, are already dancing their own dance, but after the Program, they have the tools to take their dance out into the community and share it on a very deep level, with the community at large, and with teenagers who come to their program, seeking a mentor. It is a difficult but rewarding and generous act – to share your art. This teaching requires that you give much of yourself, but also enables you to find yourself, and grow deeply as a dancer, a teacher, and a woman.

An Interview with Myra Krien

By Lindsay Ahl In The Chronicles, October, 2009

Myra Krien is an international performer, choreographer and teacher. She is a highly sought after workshop instructor; known for her stylistic versatility and elegant and graceful presence. She is the creator of SEEDs®, a program for young women that teaches Self-Esteem and Empowerment through Dance.

You began belly dancing as a child in San Francisco. Many changes in the belly dance community have taken place in just the last 15 or 20 years. Belly dancers discuss these changes, and strive to preserve the tradition from which various styles have emerged – but can you specifically address the values and philosophies that have changed recently, and what we might remember from those early years of Belly Dance?

This is an important question that needs to be addressed for so many reasons. Actually, Princess Farhana just wrote an excellent article in a recent issue of the Chronicles discussing this very issue. I will do my best to add to that dialogue.

Every artist must study “the language” of their form and its previous dialogue in order to speak it fluently and then be able to add anything new that can be of interest or value to the dialogue. Picasso, for instance, was a brilliant artist, and devoted his life to his form. His early drawings are beautifully rendered classic pieces, then he birthed his new vision. To create something totally new in art, an entirely new technique must be created. If it is a fusion of elements of other forms that is to be created, then those forms and elements must be studied.

I think that the early 1960’s and 70’s belly dance artists, in California especially, were coming up at a very special time. This time was a cultural Renaissance in California, many artists in many genres were crystal breakers, our culture was changing on every level. Art was explosive, revolutionary and spiritual. All these influences had a profound effect on the way these artists interpreted the dance. I remember these artists being obsessed. Belly dance was their passion, and as such, it took over their lives; it changed them. They devoted their lives to its pursuit and study on every level, from the cultures it came from, their customs and dress, to its music, food, language, etc.

I believe that the freedom of expression of that time is what has led to so much of the innovation we are experiencing today. That, and the fact that America is a culture of innovators. But when we do what every artist must and make this dance our own, we must know where it came from. Today, I see interpretations or fusions that are successful, but sometimes, not so much. At what point do we say this doesn’t look or feel like belly dance anymore, we’ve strayed too far? I can’t speak for anyone, I’m not even sure how to “answer” this question, but I feel it is one we all must ask.

Perhaps, it is just a matter of respect for the dance – the dance does not come out of nowhere, there was a history, and a culture, that created it. Perhaps, it is an impossible question, but I’m curious about, for you personally, what aspects of Belly Dance are essential to its essence? What makes Belly Dance radically different from other forms of dance, historically, and today?

Whew! I have often tried to articulate this and find it difficult. There is a certain posture and root movement vocabulary that differentiates each dance form. Belly dance centers itself on the movements of the torso primarily, the region of the body associated with emotion. In belly dance, I would say that figure eights, shimmies, hip accents, hip circles, undulations (another figure eight) and articulate isolation and its layering are distinctive. It is folkloric in origin. It is a very old dance form that has grown through many cultures. It can be performed on a postage stamp or on the big stage. It is joyful, funny, sensuous, expressively poignant.

My experience of the dance is that when I do the movements “perfectly”, drawing them in their geometric forms, uniting them perfectly to the music, a kind of frequency can be created that resonates. This resonance creates a profound experience that is almost transcendent. I remember Shareen el Safy shared an experience with me once about a famous Egyptian dancer she had gone to see perform. This dancer did an extended shimmy taksim on a very large stage for almost four minutes in a single spotlight. Shareen was very moved by this and when she asked the dancer after the show about this section of her performance, she replied, “That was between me and my God.” Perhaps it is like the pyramids and cathedrals being built using sacred geometry to create an effect, there are certain geometric proportions and means in the body, and when we unite those with vibration and geometric shapes of a particular nature, something special occurs that transcends our ordinary state, a kind of conduit between the ordinary and the divine. I remember reading a physics book on String Theory and coming to a description of these strings as tiny vibrating figure eights. I thought, “WOW!”.

That is an awesome answer. So, what about discipline, practice, art…what advice would you give to someone truly passionate about Belly Dancing?

I love that belly dancing can be taken on so many different levels. If we are passionate about it then we must devote ourselves with utter focus and discipline, we must surrender ourselves, we must be hungry for knowledge on every level. We must know the music, the culture, the past. We must let it take us over and remake us. And we must never let go of the joy.

I also think on a practical level that to set a routine is important. I am sure to teach or take a beginning class every week to keep up my foundational technique. I dance every day and I workout every day to support my dancing. I am always trying to read, watch or listen to something related. I take workshops whenever I can. I perform regularly and in many different venues. I sew and design many of my costumes and I feel that sewing is a must in our style of dance. I am always looking at DVDs or YouTube, but not just of belly dance, but anything that I like. It’s important to stay inspired.

You do some very important work with your SEEDs® Program. Instead of talking about SEEDs itself, can you tell us what inspired you to start SEEDs and how it has changed your life and mission in relation to dance?

Many things in my life contributed to birthing SEEDs (SEEDs – Self-Esteem, Empowerment and Education through Dance – is a youth mentorship program for teen girls). I had a difficult time growing up and even more difficulty during my teens. I made a promise to myself then to try to make a difference.

I come from a family of mavericks, intellectual artists, writers, and musicians, and they believe in and practice social change and the raising of spiritual consciousness. These imperatives were “bred in the bone”. Later, I attended a great books college, St. John’s College, here in Santa Fe. The curriculum and the methods of instruction changed the way I thought and how I wanted to be in the world. Many of the ways I have structured SEEDs came out of the Seminar and dialectic platforms employed as teaching tools there.

SEEDs has changed my life, the lives of these young women, the Santa Fe community and the face of belly dance itself in ways that are profound and far reaching. Now that it is on a national level I hope that it will do the same for the communities all over the United States, potentially even further! Personally, I could fill the pages of a book. It has been my Odyssey, sometimes joyful, successful, brilliant, sometimes painful, tragic, wrong. Always GREAT, it has been my greatest teacher. Oh! It’s almost too big a question to answer here!

Your show this year, Invaders of the Heart: One Love, was really spectacular. Can you talk a little about your process of choreography, how you incorporate non-professional dancers into your shows, what inspires you, and how your choreography changed once you went to a much larger stage (and much larger audience) four years ago?

Thank you! It is a challenge each year to make the show better and to still engage my local audience after so many years. Actually Invaders ’08 was my 11th “big show” (as we fondly refer to it). Since we perform in so many different venues all year round, Invaders is our one big presentation every year of new work. Yes, four years ago we graduated to a large stage and an audience of approximately 900 people. It was a challenge at first, but I think it has done a great deal to move me forward as a choreographer. It takes about 14 months now to build the show, so I usually begin it while I am finishing the one from the year before. Last year we had 24 dancers on stage in 63 costumes and there were maybe 19 pieces of original choreography – it’s crazy! But I love it! I call it climbing Everest. I never know when I begin where we will end up. I usually start with large sketches of ideas, pick the music carefully, start on the solos first, then the larger works. Then I design the costumes and even make many of them myself, and oversee the stage design and props. One of the best things ever to happen to me was meeting and collaborating with my lighting designer; he is amazing! This last year I really wanted to show the versatility of the dance and our studio by showcasing all the different styles. I took a lot of risks, but I think they turned out. We did classical Indian, Asian fusion, modern Egyptian, Tribal fusion, a belly dance ballet, a huge fan piece, Flamenco fusion and a finale to an American pop icon. Excerpts are up on YouTube and you can get DVDs from our site. It’s so hard to put visual language to the page. Working with my dancers is a wonderful challenge because of the huge diversity in age, ability and experience. I can have a fourteen year old next to a fifty year old, a dancer of one year next to a dancer of five. It’s unbelievable to me how there is ALWAYS a solution, a way to make it work. It’s beautiful, really – magnificent!

Lindsay Ahl writes fiction, non-fiction and poetry. Her novel, Desire, was said by Booklist to be “nothing less than a tour de force.” Her work can be found in BOMB Magazine, Fiction Magazine, The Brooklyn Rail, and others, and online at Fishouse Poetry.com and Drunken Boat.com

Myra Krien and her Pomegranate SEEDs® Program

By Lindsay Ahl In Shimmy August, 2009

Myra Krien has a quality when she teaches and when she performs that is magnetic, as though possessed by some powerful but benevolent spirit. She is someone who can command a classroom or a stage by her mere presence, before she speaks, before she dances. But it is filled with joy and beauty, this presence. This is not ego, on her part, not selfishness – making everyone else look like ordinary mortals – this is just her BEING when she is teaching or performing. You read sometimes of famous people like this: while performing they are the most magnificent creature you have ever seen. You cannot look away. And then, when they come to dinner, they may or may not shine, but it is a disappointment no matter what, because you come face-to-face with their humanness. They are not human while performing – they are electric.

Truly magnificent and inspiring teachers are rare. In order to be a great teacher, you need to excel in your chosen field, master your medium, take your medium further, and communicate clearly, and with patience and joy, everything you know about your art.

You cannot hold back from your students, because to hold back is to cheat the art. But more importantly, you need to embody what your art stands for. You need to live it. You need to BE it. Only in this way can a student really, somatically, take in the teaching. The teaching, in the end, is not through words and examples and corrections – though all of that is important and necessary. The teaching is, in its essence, through the body. This is especially true in dance, but it’s true in all the arts. The brush stroke of a painting, the breath of a spoken poem, the motion of hands on drums – in order to accomplish these things on a high level, you must be relaxed, you must know yourself, know who you are, and have the ability to share it. This is what Myra Krien embodies. And this is also what Myra teaches in her Pomegranate SEEDs® program.

This self-awareness and self-acceptance is important for any woman, but especially teenagers, which is what the SEEDs program was created for. Myra teaches them American Tribal Style® belly-dance, and in the same program, she teaches them personal and social skills that will empower them to be confident, independent and successful women. She uses dance as the medium that allows everyone to come together, to work and perform together. The dancing promotes trust and self-knowledge. It is never about competition, as other dance forms, and so much of our society is. Instead, through ATS®, Myra builds a community of fellow dancers, and teaches them to trust and support themselves and their fellow dancers. Through journaling, writing exercises, and talking circles, the SEEDs program teaches the girls how to listen to their own voice, respect everyone else’s voice, and figure out and accomplish their goals. She helps them to access their innermost potential.

This innermost potential is what we all want to access within ourselves. I think of this as a small seed of daring within us. If allowed to grow, that tender small shoot will transform into a blossoming tree, full of life. If not allowed to grow – a woman could lose access to her innermost self for many years. I think of the SEEDs program as the place where a young woman will find that seed, and nourish it within herself, preparing and strengthening herself for when she is that tall, blossoming, full-of-life tree. In very practical ways, the SEEDs Program teaches the young women to figure out who they really are. Myra invites prominent guests in to speak about their careers and how they accomplish their goals; she discusses finances and teaches the students how to manage money, find work, and work hard. She discusses such topics as discipline, work ethics, creativity, and competition. In the talkin g circles, the students learn how to really listen to one another, and learn that essentially, we all have similar fears and concerns, desires and needs, and yet also, we are each unique, and have some importance here on earth. SEEDs is a celebration of this, a way to celebrate others and themselves.

Myra Krien, in the end, is merely human. But through tremendous hard work and dedication, through endless hours of committing herself to creating this extensive program, she has put in a super-human effort. She has spent years creating various fundraising avenues so that girls who can’t afford to attend SEEDs attend anyway. There are endless accounts from the girls, mostly of this nature: “I have never felt this secure and happy with myself and it’s all due to SEEDs.” Or, “SEEDs has the power to change lives, because it gives its participants the power to change themselves; and it is a rare gift to find oneself in such a beautiful place, surrounded by such beautiful people, and to know that you are beautiful too.”

I think the real gift that Myra gives these girls, and the SEEDs program is designed to give, is exactly that: the power and knowledge to fully accept themselves, and also the power to change themselves into who they want to become. Part of the way we perceive reality is related to how we perceive our bodies, thus, if we change our perception of our bodies, we can change our perception of reality. It is a gift that cannot be given unless you are grounded and spiritual enough to provide not just the context, but the example of how to embody who you are with grace and love, thus allowing everyone to embody their unique selves with confidence. The SEEDs program achieves just this.

In the next part of this article, I will be discussing Myra’s Teacher Training for SEEDs, a program that is expanding SEEDs to all parts of the country, and her newly evolved SEEDs program for Adults. Until then, as Auden says, “Dance till the stars come down from the rafters! Dance, dance, dance till you drop!”

Steps of Confidence

SEEDs® Program Teaches Girls More than Dance

By Kaeleigh StengleIn Generation Next, The New Mexican, July, 2009

Body Image and personal self-worth are perhaps two of the biggest issues concerning young women. There are so many idealized images of what girls should be, and for those who do not “fit in” there can be serious repercussions. In recent years Myra Krien has been teaching young girls to be confident and love their bodies through her SEEDs® program.

Krien created the Pomegranate SEEDs program, which stands for Self-esteem, Empowerment and Education through Dance, in 2001. Each year, 25 girls are accepted into the program that runs for a full academic year. The classes take place three times a week for 90 minutes. Not only is this program meant to teach girls to be more confident, but it also teaches them the ancient art of belly dancing. At the end of the course, some of the girls may be invited to join Mosaic Dance Company, the professional company behind Pomegranate Studios.

Through the course of the program the participants learn to dance, have group discussions and welcome guest speakers.

Ariana Hatcher, 15, said her favorite aspects are “the connection between everyone and the talking circles and the dancing too.”

At the same time, Katie Trusty, 18, said her favorite thing was, “just learning new things every day and the fact that there is no competition.”

Krien said several things led to the creation of SEEDs. “I had a very difficult time as a teen,” she said. “When I started my studio a lot of young girls were coming and spending time talking to me about issues. I looked at the stats for teen girls in New Mexico and it made me feel like we needed to do more for the youth in this town.”

The program has had a lasting effect on many. “It has made me a lot more confident, definitely, when you have to get up on stage and dance, and I met a lot of new people,” said Rachel Marx, 15.

Krien said SEEDs, through its lessons and motivational speakers, helps girls overcome the many obstacles they face, especially when it comes to body image and finances.

“I learned a lot about finance through guest speakers,” Trusty added.

This is an important program that is beneficial to all who participate, Krien said.

“I just think it’s incredibly fun,” she said. “They will learn so much about dance and life and will make incredible friendships.”

The SEEDs program is accepting applications. Those who would like to register can visit the web site at www.mosaicdance.net or stop by Pomegranate Studios, 535 Cerrillos Road, above Sage Bakehouse.

Opening Doors with Dance

By Cindy Bellinger In The New Mexican, July, 2007

Fifteen years ago, Myra Krien was living in her car. Today, she is the founder and director of Pomegranate Studios.

“When I finally made the decision to devote my life to dance, I went through some rough times,” Krien, whose Middle Eastern dance performances have drawn local crowds for years. Now she’s attracting dance instructors from around the country for specialized training at her studio.

Most people would call her style belly dancing. But Krien, pointing to influences from India, Egypt and many other countries around the Mediterranean, prefers the term “tribal.”

“The movements of this type of dance are sensual and fluid. My students are women of all ages, and tribal dance is very empowering for them,” said Krien 45. Her own story is heartening to many of the young women she teaches.

Krien comes from a family of pioneers that helped forge many of American’s cultural changes. Her great-grandmother was Ruth Fuller Sasaki, who helped bring Zen Buddhism to the United States and who eventually mentored poet Gary Snyder in the early 1950s. Her maternal grandfather was Alan Watts, the Beat philosopher and interpreter of Zen Buddhism. Her paternal grandparents bought a large tract of land in Santa Barbara and started a Bohemian community, the first in California, she said.

“I grew up in a wild and free atmosphere,” Krien said. “My grandparents started the Renaissance Fairs in California, and that’s where I first saw belly dancing. My mother started belly dancing and started teaching me when I was three. My father was a harpist with various symphonies.”

After her parents moved to North Carolina, they divorced; Krien was 6 and belly dancing even then began sustaining her. She first performed at age 11 and began teaching at 14. Her family suggested she take up singing, another of her talents. Krien said: “They said I’d never be a dancer because I was overweight. But I loved dance and every door I pushed toward singing never opened. The doors opened for dance.”

Now, Krien opens the door of dance for others. Oakley Blasdel, a student of four years, is now a member of the apprentice company. “I also take lessons four days a week,” she said. “Myra is a wonderful teacher and an incredible person. I can’t get enough.”

Betty Jean Shinas, 60, began belly dancing at Pomegranate Studios a year ago.

“I’d studied and taught belly dancing in the 1970s, then stopped. I started again because I felt the need, and it’s a wonderful way for older women to stay in shape. Myra is a marvelous teacher. She’s always taking dance to a new level.”

Pomegranate Studios started small and moved to the current 2,000-square-foot space five years ago. As word gets around – locally and internationally – Krien says the time will come for a bigger space.

After completing a degree at St. John’s College, Krien said, she decided to focus on dance as her profession. She waitressed, worked in retail stores and lived in her car trying to make that dream come true. Today, she teaches six classes a day, six days a week at Pomegranate Studios and is in the process of making Santa Fe the destination point for international belly dance students and instructors.

“I believe in the Power of One. Take that first step, then every day add another brick toward your goal and eventually it’ll happen,” she said.

Because her own teenage years were tumultuous – she was living on her own by age 15 – Krien began a program in 2001 for girls ages 15 through 18. Called SEEDS® (Self-Esteem, Empowerment and Education through Dance), the program is intended to inspire confidence in young women. It’s also intended to help them learn about being independent, handling finances, generating goals and achieving them. Some of the girls go on to become apprentices in Krien’s performing dance company.

Starting a business wasn’t easy for Krien, but she now sees that being a businesswoman is a way to reflect her values and ethics.

“Small business is the way of the future in America. It brings diversity into the marketplace,” said Krien, who recently won Santa Fe’s Business of Excellence award in contest sponsored by Century Bank and the Santa Fe Chamber of Commerce.

Like many entrepreneurs, she doesn’t like the paperwork, but says, “owning a business is infinitely creative. I’ve made mistakes and learned from them and feel that this business is also a kind of spiritual practice.”

Excerpt from “Four local businesses honored for excellence”

By Bob Quick In Santa Fe New Mexican, June, 2007

“We were totally shocked and so grateful” to receive the award, said Myra Krien, the owner of Pomegranate Studios. “We were nominated by quite a few people apparently. It was an overwhelming vote of confidence from our clients.”

Pomegranate Studios is a dance studio that teaches “several different forms of what most Americans call belly dance,” Krien said. “We prefer to consider it as one of the Middle Eastern arts.”

The studio also offers a nine-month mentorship program for young girls every year.

Turning Bellyache into Belly Dance

Girls find their center at Pomegranate SEEDs®

By Lindsay Ahl In Tumbleweeds, March, 2007

At some point, we’ve all gone out looking for something that will help us answer certain feelings: How do I stop yearning for some beloved who is not there in the way I want? How do I face what might be a meaningless life? How do I accept myself for who I am and work with that, rather than fighting it? And underneath those questions, a few more practical ones: What do I want to do with my life? How can I best manifest my talents and interests so that I can make a living?

These are the kinds of questions that, if no answer is found, can bring on various forms of identity crisis. And these are the kinds of questions that teenagers are asking – probably not exactly in those words. Their actions are asking these questions, though, and they find their temporary answers everywhere; in the media, with their peers and from testing out as many possibilities as they can. Sometimes this alone can work, but often they live through a lot of self-destruction and wasted time.

Here in Santa Fe at Pomegranate Studios’ SEEDs® program for teenage girls, many of those questions may be answered, or at least explored in a caring environment. SEEDs stands for Self-Esteem, Empowerment, and Education through Dance. Created by Myra Krien and run by Krien and master teacher Lita Ovalle, the program is designed to empower young girls through the vehicle of dance to surmount the difficulties of the teenage years.

Specifically, the mission of SEEDs is to mentor young women to become healthy, strong individuals who are socially and fiscally responsible to themselves and their community. In addition to teaching the girls Tribal Style Belly Dance, the program incorporates talking circles, journaling and presentations by diverse professionals who discuss their work and how they become what they are. The girls are asked to think and talk about their fears and commitments, and taught how to set and accomplish their goals. They are taught about finances; how to save, invest money and figure out how much money they need to accomplish their goals.

The dancing itself is invaluable. The girls learn that committing themselves to an athletic art teaches them discipline, which itself is a great lesson for life. But it also entails learning about the body and how it functions, which helps the dancer know herself better an in turn to respect and understand herself more deeply. Krien takes this program further than many disciplines do. She doesn’t just teach the girls about how their bodies work, she teaches them to appreciate the beauty and wonder of the human body. As one of her graduates says, “how to make art out of your body.”

Girls who have graduated from SEEDs have said that the program gave them “confidence and motivation,” and a way to channel their energies positively. They also describe learning the dance as “a spiritual thing.’

The SEEDs program can’t help but be a mini-course in enlightenment. It involves discipline and requires a commitment. It asks girls to know themselves and to have compassion with others. It teaches them that to compete with one another serves no higher purpose, but instead to value who they are in their uniqueness and value the same in others. There is “no right body type.” The girls make lasting friendships, and receive the benefit of the mentorship of Krien and Ovalle. It’s truly a program any female would enjoy and benefit from, regardless of age.

In addition to SEEDs, Pomegranate Studios teaches tribal dancing to children ages 6-9, early teens (10 to 14) and adults. For the young ones, the classes are about falling in love, the sheer joy of expression through movement and the love of the music. The dance and the music are a rich cultural experience. The posture and simple coordination are great, and of course nothing beats “free dance” time in a huge studio with mirrors, running across the floor with a three-yard veil of silk!

The Beauty of Belly Dance: A personal journey

By Myra Krien In Tumbleweeds March, 2007

My mother says I came out dancing. All I can remember is that I loved to dance. My mother also loved to dance. It was the early 1960’s in San Francisco, and belly dance was big. From the time I was three years old I accompanied my mother to her belly dance classes. When we came home we would practice together. These are some of my fondest childhood memories.

I will never forget my earliest impressions of the dancers my mother would take me to see. They were so magical, beautiful beyond compare, and so self-possessed. I was in awe. I never thought of them as provocative. All I saw was the beauty of their movement. Somehow I already knew that it was the dance itself that created the beauty. It was language that spoke to the deepest parts of myself even then.

I grew up belly dancing. I began performing at age 11 and taught my first class at age 14. Dance was my sanctuary throughout high school. When life was almost too much to bear, dance gave life back to me. Always overweight and self-conscious, I found in belly dance a place to feel safe. I could move my body without ridicule. It allowed me to express the graceful soul that was inside, an experience both ecstatic and sublime. When I was dancing I felt beautiful; I knew I was beautiful. It was the only time I felt this way. Dance was my joy, my ritual, my meditation. Dance became my spiritual center.

In my twenties, I used to perform (I still do) for many of the local schools. One day I went to perform for a Montessori school. The children oohed and aahed as I danced for them, their eyes wide with delight and their smiles as broad as their faces. When I had finished they all wanted to touch me, stroke my hands and arms, touch my costume. We danced together for a while. Afterwards the teacher asked if I would go outside with the children for recess and enjoy the sun. As I sat conversing, a young boy emerged from the classroom pulling his mother by the arm behind him. He was exclaiming excitedly, “See mother there she is! There’s the ANGEL!” as he said the word ‘angel’ it took his breath away. The way he looked at me that day is something I will never forget. It is one of my most precious memories.

I find that children experience belly dance for what it truly is, a pure expression of beauty. There is a deep satisfaction in mastering the movements of this form. Regardless of the perception of others, enacting the movements of belly dance offers the performer an experience that is empowering, uplifting and joyful.

Santa Fean Salutes

Myra Krien: Rethinking Strategies for Girl Power

By Marin Sardy In The Santa Fean March, 2007

We’ve all heard it before: love our bodies. Yet it’s still depressingly rare to find people who actually do. That’s probably why, for belly dancer, instructor, and entrepreneur Myra Krien, this conviction has become her most powerful asset. It gives the classes, workshops, and performances of her company, Pomegranate Studios – with one professional and two apprentice troupes – the power to reach beyond the medium and facilitate real growth. It’s also the radical concept behind Pomegranate SEEDs® (Self-Esteem, Empowerment, and Education through Dance), her groundbreaking dance and development program for teenage girls.

San Francisco- born Krien, 43, has been belly dancing since age 3. She founded her first company, Azadeh, at age 15, and performed and choreographed there until moving to Santa Fe to attend St. John’s College. She opened Pomegranate Studios in 1996 with a desire to cultivate the talent of serious young belly dancers – and through this work as a teacher, developed the concept for Pomegranate SEEDs. Realizing many of the teenaged girls in her classes needed guidance and emotional support beyond what she could offer as a dance instructor, she launched the new after-school program in 2001.

Based on the study of American Tribal Style® belly dancing, SEEDs combines practical dance instruction with intensive talking circles, presentation by local experts and successful women, and journaling. Girls aged 15-18 discuss topics from balancing a budget to birth control and what it means to be a woman. Those who can’t pay are eligible for scholarships. And with its small size (about 25 girls), three classes per week, and four performances per school-year-length course, the SEEDs format helps the girls form strong personal bonds. Krien matches their commitment. “We’ve had some heavy stuff go down in here,” she says. “We do whatever it takes to find help for them.”

Yet at its core, SEEDs relies on the power of movement to promote a sense of beauty and self-respect. “The dance is not about your physical form,” Krien says. “It is about the line you make, the movement, and the expression of what’ s unique about you.” Her point seems well taken: In 2006, SEEDs gathered enough funding to become an independent nonprofit. Now, Krien says, “I envision SEEDs all over the world.” With plans for a summer session, and ideas on the table for a SEEDs teacher training institute as well as similar programs for boys and adult women, Myra Krien – and her groundbreaking moves – are worth applauding.

SEEDing Self Esteem

Teenage Girls Study Belly Dance in Santa Fe

By Shayna Samuels In Dance Magazine June, 2006

When best friends Heather McDonald and Marissa Mathy-Zvaifler were 16, they signed up for a belly dancing workshop. It was an introduction to SEEDs®-Self-Esteem, Expression, Empowerment, and Education through Dance-for teenage girls at Myra Krien’s Pomegranate Studios in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The girls would try the two-week workshop, and afterward decide if they wanted to enter the full year-long SEEDs program.

Heather and Marissa fell in love with the sensual signature movements of belly dancing. They learned to shimmy their hips and shoulders, roll their bellies, and swirl with their arms high in the air. But before they could enroll for the year-long program, Marissa was tragically raped and murdered. Heather and the other girls were shcocked and scared, but they decided to rally and continue with SEEDs in honor of Marissa, dedicating their dancing to their friend.

“The SEEDs program saved my life,” says Heather, who is now a freshman at Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado. “After Marissa dies I felt like my light had been extinguished. This class helped me face a lot of my fears, and the studio became my sanctuary.” Throughout the school year the girls attended 90-minute sessions, three times a week. They looked up to Krien as a role model, and soaked up her vivacious and supportive personality.

SEEDs is designed to be more than a dance class. The goal is to help young women blossom through their confusing adolescent years when self-esteem, body image, and health are susceptible to negative societal influences. It’s a time when they’re at risk for pregnancy, drug and alcohol abuse, and for dropping out of school. Krien, who is also director of the Middle Eastern Mosaic Dance Company, founded SEEDs as a positive alternative. The year that Marissa died, it was needed more than ever.

“The studio gave them community and a safe place to be,” says Krien. “Belly dancing helped them because it is physical, with bare feet. It’s very grounding.”

Now in its sixth year, SEEDs inspires young women ages 15 to 18 to feel good about their bodies, develop discipline and strength, and support rather than compete with each other. There are currently 23 girls enrolled. Krien, who has been dancing and teaching for more than 25 years, says that American Tribal Style® belly dance – a fusion of movements from India, the Middle East, North Africa, and Spain – is the prefect vehicle to teach these important lessons. She points out that it honors femininity in all its shapes and sizes. “No one is too thin, too heavy, too short, or too tall for this dance form,” says Krien. “Right there the whole self-esteem issue becomes much easier.”

Tribal belly dance also nurtures positive group dynamics. The movement is largely improvisational, and the dancers shift seamlessly between leading the group and being followers. This requires attentiveness, cooperation and respect. “This dance form makes you aware of how you affect other people and how they affect you,” says Heather. “When we’re dancing we become almost like one organism.”

The girls also learn hand drumming, zill (finger cymbals), and moving meditation, and are introduced to the concepts of talking circles and journal writing. Guest speakers give lessons on how to set and reach goals, financial planning, and sex education.

Eighteen-year-old Leah Woods graduated from SEEDs two years ago. She is now enrolled in New College of California and dancing with the well-known Middle Eastern dancer Suhaila Salimpour. “I would never have been able to move to San Francisco, where I didn’t know a single human being, and be able to pay my rent, be in school and keep dancing, without the support that SEEDs gave me,” she says.

SEEDs is purely educational, providing information and developing skills. Krien believes that art form is an effective healer, but she herself does not try to be a therapist. She offers a sympathetic ear, but if any of the girls need serious psychological advice she refers them to a professional. “Dance is such a powerful medium,” she says. “It centers the girls, clears their minds, and gives them a sense of control over their lives.”

Krien says the flirty, sensual nature of belly dancing and the provocative costumes allow the adolescents to explore their changing bodies in a positive way. “Young women are budding sexually and they need a healthy environement in which to channel that energy,” she says. “They become more confident in their bodies and I believe this will help them make safer choices.”

SEEDs is intentionally inexpensive, and full scholarships are available. The girls have four performance opportunities during the year, and many of the graduates have gone on to perform in schools and for Santa Fe community events with Krien’s apprentice company, Ahatti (little sister).

In addition to being a selfless teacher, Krien is a mesmerizing dancer. Her voluptuous frame embodies the depth and soul of this ancient dance form. “When she dances she transcends her physical self,” says Heather. “She is no longer Myra. She is everything and everything is her. It’s like her soul is dancing.” www.mosaicdance.net.

Shayna Samuels is a writer and yoga teacher living in New Mexico.

Myra Krien’s Pomegranate SEEDs® Dance Program

About the Seeds Program - A Personal Take

By Lindsay Ahl December, 2005

Right about the ages of 14 through 17, I believe I formed the identity and self-knowledge that became and informed who I thought I was for many years. I was hungry, open to anything I liked, and imprinted on whatever was delivered to me in the right packages- for me, it was a poetry teacher in a black leather jacket who smoked unfiltered Camels and read Pound, Eliot and Wallace Stevens. He became an image of the world I wanted to enter. It was not until I was in my late 20’s and early 30’s that I could fully step back and redefine who I thought I was or who I thought I wanted to be. I say this because I really believe that young girls aged 14 to 17 or so, are forming their identity in such a way that it will shape the rest of their lives. I wish that in addition to my wonderful male-mode poetry teacher, I had met Myra Krien. Myra is running a dance program called Seeeds, a program for young girls. It’s not at all only about dance, but about life, and how to live it. Within a few minutes of meeting Myra, you know you are in the presence of a different kind of poet, a body poet, a woman who teaches you how to enter the world in every way, using your mind, certainly, but also your heart, your soul, your rhythm. Myra and her assistant, Lita Ovalle, have been teaching girls not just how to dance as dance, but how to dance in life-how to balance a checkbook, how to handle money, earn money, take care of themselves, value themselves and others, how to not compete with other women but nurture and support them, as friends, as our immediate community. She meets with the girls three times a week, for an hour and a half each time. Her Seeds® program is a sanctuary, a community, a school, and a very necessary part of these girls’ lives. Seeeds is a 501c. If you would like to find out more about the program, please call 505.986.6164.

A talk with Myra Krien

Lindsay: Why did you start the Seeds Program?

Myra: I had a hard time as a teenager. My background was very confused. I came from a famous intellectual family surrounded by wealth, and yet my immediate family lived in poverty. My parents divorced when I was six, I started working when I was nine, living on my own at fifteen. I was overweight and constantly told I would never be a dancer, but dance was my love, my sanctuary, and oddly enough, is now my profession. By sharing my experience with these girls, being able to listen with compassion, offering them a place to be, offering them an appropriate container for their blossoming womanhood and giving them tools, I hope that they will have a better future, better self-esteem, economic stability, and a feeling of personal success. This program and these girls are my “stone in the pond.” I may not be destined to affect politics or the state of the world today, but I can have an effect on the people who come through my door. I have devoted myself completely and utterly to this one aim.

Over the past five years we have had many young women come through the studio. It is my profound hope that they have left with a better sense of themselves, their own beauty, self-worth, that they are honest and authentic with themselves and therefore more at peace with the world, that they can care for themselves and each other, equipped with problem solving skills, economic literacy, and a greater ability to articulate their own mind and heart and that they can feel a sense of success in their own unique way. They also receive a powerful experience of community. The bonds these girls make with each other run deep. It is a rich experience of friendship and intimacy, diversity and tolerance.

What are your thoughts on Tribal Dance? What is it about, how does it communicate?

When I first saw Tribal I was mesmerized by its power, strength, fluidity and elegance, its depth and subtlety. I feel that its unison, when performed at its best, serves to expose the unique beauty of each dancer. There is something so profound in that visual statement, it all at once holds the duality that is our human state. It is an illustration that we are all connected, the human race and yet each uniquely ourselves, perfect in our flaws and ultimately beautiful. When I saw the film, Migration, the feeling it gave me was similar to the feeling I have enacting Tribal. There is an exhilaration when we dance together that then can melt into a deep state of meditation, the sensation of doing this together is incredible. The form is improvisational and completely non-competitive, each member takes a turn leading and following. I have personally experiences some of the most ecstatic and spiritually profound moments of my life during the performance of this particular form.

Empowering Dance

Woman starts classes that teach different movements, self-esteem

By Emily Crawford In Santa Fe North, October, 2004

Myra Krien knows that teenagers have big questions and sometimes, big problems. She also knows from her own experience as an adolescent that dance as an art form can have a profound impact on a young life.

Four years ago, Krien decided to throw a lifeline to girls who needed one. She started a dance program called SEEDs® that in one part dance instruction and one part life lessons. (SEEDs stand for Self-Esteem, Expression, Empowerment and Education through Dance.)

A longtime professional dancer and instructor, Krien began SEEDs “as a hook” to bring teenage girls into a dance program that would help them address, if not answer, some of their problems and questions.

“Every year, each one of them has something really intense going on,” Krien said. Last year, she spent a lot of time “Holding those girls together,” after the death of one of their friends.

Heather McDonald, 17, was one of the participants. She said the dance studio became a lifeboat after the sudden death of her best friend.

“Dance has kept me sane and given me something every day to look forward to. It really gives my life meaning right now,” McDonald said in a phone interview.

Dancing has had such an impact on McDonald’s life that sometimes spends more than 10 hours a week at Krien’s Pomegranate Studios, where she takes classes.

“I probably spend more time at the studio than I do at home,” she said.

McDonald does work-study and an internship to help ay for some of her classes. Since completing the SEEDs program, the young dancer has become part of Krien’s apprentice company, Ahatti.

The SEEDs program meets three days a week for an hour and a half each session. The first hour, the girls lean American Tribal Style (ATS®) dance, a fusion style that incorporates Indian, Arab, Spanish and North African movements.

ATS can also be called belly dancing, Krien said, adding that she is constantly having to battle the stereotypes people have about the dance – many associate the art form with sex, she said.

Belly dancing has a “folkloric base,” Krien said, that “envelopes all aspects of life…there are a lot of difference aspects of life you can present (with the dance).”

After an hour of practicing the basics, the girls sit in a “Talking Circle” with their instructor, Lita Ovalle. Ovalle will pose a question to the girls that leads to a floor discussion of topics like financial independence, leadership and what it mean to be a woman.

The circle is loosely based on a format often used at St. John’s College, said Krien, a graduate of the school.

Current SEEDs student Kate Cooper, 17, said she joined SEEDs to work on her body image. Before joining the class, she felt “out of touch” with her body, she said. But now the teen feels more confident and in control.

“I’m using parts of my body that I have never used before,” she said. The dancing “grounds you in your body and makes you feel more secure in yourself. It just brought a new level of conciousness.”

Krien can empathize with her students’ body image issue. As a teen, she was told that she would never be a dancer, in part, because she was too heavy, she said.

But she never gave up dance. “I had a very rocky teen time and dance has always seen me through, ‘ she said.

Krien feels so strongly about providing the program that, when unable to fund the program through grants, she has paid for it out of her own pocket. The program costs approximately $1,000 per girl for the 10 months that SEEDs runs.

Krien is inspired by the change that she sees in the girls and by the powerful friendships that they build.

“They are learning how to be social and to be intimate with each other,” she said. “They are more aware of their own roles in taking care of themselves.”

For McDonald, the community at the studio has made all the difference in her path to adulthood and provided a safe and healthy place to put her energy.

“I was sort of a crazy younger teenager, I never had a place to focus all of my energy and emotions ad turn it into positive things,” she said. “I really think belly dancing came into my life exactly when I needed it and helped me through the hardest time in my life.”

Loving Movement

“Intimate Distance” is an exploration of sensuous poetry, dance, and music.

In Tempo Magazine/The Taos News April, 2004

A Santa Fe dancer and a Santa Fe poet who share a similar vision and orientation in the exploration of how artistic creation is related to spiritual longing will be performing sensuous poetry, dance and music in “Intimate Distance; Courting the Beloved through Poetry, Dance, and Music” on Friday (April 9) 7p.m. at the Taos Community Auditorium (TGA), 133 Paseo del Pueblo Norte.

“Intimate Distance” is the creative effort of Myra Krien, choreographer and Director of Mosaic Dance Company of Santa Fe and Jennifer Ferraro, poet and author of “Divine Nostalgia – Poems” (2002) and poetry teacher at the University of New Mexico.

Just over a year ago, Ferraro returned from Turkey with her first published book of poems, “Divine Nostalgia,” in hand and began taking classes with Krien at Pomegranate Studios in Santa Fe. She had seen Krien dance years before and had recognized in her an artist with the “unique gift of uniting the sensual and spiritual qualities of the dance, the earthly and the cosmic.” Ferraro presented Krien with a copy of “Divine Nostalgia” to which she responded “enthusiastically.” The seeds for this collaboration were thus sown.

The performance centers around the act of art-making with spoken “modern, mystically oriented” word interwoven with oriental, devotional and Middle Eastern dance and live music in a “riveting tapestry.” “Intimate Distance” corresponds with National Poetry Month and will feature Mosaic Dance Company, Darbuka Musical Ensemble and guest artists.

“The act of art-making is always about intimacy in one way or another,” explained Ferraro. “I feel that the creative impulse often comes from the desire to bridge the distance between self and Other, self and world, love and Beloved. The artist plays with the material of existence in a conscious way. Art is one way in which human beings create intimacy, touch the world tenderly and allow themselves to become impregnated by its beauty, its suffering, its mystery. Ultimately, art maps that intimate distance which is always with us as we stand simultaneously inside and outside the circle of fulfillment – needing to sing of both.”

The show contains a Sufi them. According to Hazrat Inayat Khan of Sufi Order International, the word “Sufi” comes from a Persian word meaning wisdom.

“Wisdom is the ultimate power. In wisdom is rooted religion, which connotes law and inspiration. But the point of view of the wise differs from that of the simple followers of a religion. The wise, whatever their faith, have always been able to meet each other beyond those boundaries of external forms and conventions, which are natural and necessary to human life, but which none the less separate humanity,” Krien states. “Sufism itself is the essence of all the religions as well as the spirit of Islam.”

In the case of the performance, devotional dance refers to Sufi “turning” which is based on the spinning of the “whirling dervishes” – a devotional movement ritual still practiced by particular Sufi orders and somewhat popularized in the West. Ferraro will be performing a Persian style dance which is devotional in nature, using primarily arms and hands.

The performance moves through three acts. Act 1 explores how everyday life gives birth to art. Act 2 explores how art relates to descent, encountering the shadow. Art becomes a voice for the sense of separation one experiences, for the difficult states of being that must be articulated and understood. Act 3 explores art as spiritual transformation. When art springs from the experience of union with one’s Beloved, from ecstatic realization.

Expect the “very spiritual and feminine” costumes to be somewhat Indian folkloric in the first act, very colorful and sensuous; more modern and dark-colored for the second act; and timeless white dresses and multicolored veils in the third act.

Ferraro will be the primary poetry reciter, although at certain times in the performance they will do poetry “duets” and sometimes the poem is sung. It has been said the Krien has an “amazing” voice.

“We wanted to really play with the collaborative element, having dancers sing at times and poets dance, etc., to create a dynamic on stage,” Ferraro stated. “The poetry is a living ‘off the stage’ presence in the performance, lending structure and theme to the dancing, creating a narrative container of sorts, a unifying vision. The poems are all adapted from my book ‘Divine Nostalgia.’”

Tickets to “Intimate Distance” are $15, $8 for children and students with valid ID. They can be purchased at the door or by calling the TCA box office at 505.758.2052.

Myra Morris: Taking Dance to New Levels

By Rachel Price In DA Word (Vol. 7 Issue 3) November, 2002

“Life is sexy. Thank of the produce section of the supermarket. Think of a ripe red bell pepper. That is sexy,” Myra Morris said during a Wednesday night dance class. Myra has come across many people that are concerned that her form of dance is too sexy. She believes that belly dancing is indeed that, but many things are. As she said, “Fruit is sexy.” At 40 years of age, Myra is raising her two-year-old son and still manages to be sexy. When she dances, one can’t help but notice her large, gazing blue eyes. Depending on the dance and the music, she may have a huge smile, or a deep, captivating gaze. She can gyrate her hips to any beat, making her body look as if it was under water and you can see the waves rippling above her. It seems as though most of her dancing is as if she is under water, and she tells many of her students to envision they are moving through water so that the dance looks very smooth and has a perfect flow.

When a person is interested in hiring her dance company for an event, she assure them that her form of dance is ‘PG-13’ and suitable for children. She has seen that many people believe that belly dance is “the next best thing to stripping.” This is not true because belly dance is a very cultural experience that is derived from the Roma Gypsies, a nomadic tribe that migrated all through Europe and the Middle East.

Myra was born in San Francisco, California and spend her childhood in Santa Barbara. She lived in a community of people with bohemian lifestyles. They were philosophic and into alternative living. Myra’s grandfather was a famous philosopher who studied Zen Buddhism. Her younger brother, Michael, who has also grown up to be a perfomer. Song and dance were always a part of their family gatherings.

Myra said that everyone in her family wanted her to sing or do something other than dance. “I was always overweight,” implying that she didn’t have the figure of a dancer. She was encouraged to do something that would bring in more money. Her family was worried that the younger generations would not make enough money because the elders had lived off of their inheritances.

Myra has had many different jobs in her life, but has always come back to dance. She has been a receptionist for a law firm, a butcher, a seamstress and many other things. When she was 14, she became a dance aerobics instructor. During this time, she was also still performing a lot as a belly dancer. She danced in nightclubs for a long time and at 16 or 17, she joined her first dance company. They were aired on Japanese Television!

Myra decided to attend St. John’s College in Santa Fe after visiting a friend who attended. She had just been offered an audition at a ritzy restaurant with a singing staff when she received her acceptance letter. She decided to go to St. John’s. Myra decided that she was going to go on a more serious curriculum and sold her belly dancing garb and cut off her hair.

Myra fell in love with Santa Fe. She made costumes for the Santa Fe Opera and worked at La Casa Sena as a singing waitress. She taught aerobics at Santa Fe Spa, started a catering company and started a seamstress company. She continued her singing career as well as her dancing. One day, Myra received a call from Ottmar Liebert, a famous flamenco guitarist. He had heard of her and wanted to know if she would perform at a birthday party for his drummer. She agreed and danced at the party. After an incredible and magical jam session, Liebert invited Myra to go on tour with him as his opening act. She went on a tour for three months, performing a 20 minute solo for audiences of 24-40,000 people.

Myra had made a decision that, no matter what, she needed to dance. She had been living in her car just so that she could go on dancing. “It was more important to me than anything else,” she said. The tour with Liebert had made her feel recommitted. She started a dance company that performed many different forms of dance including Oriental belly dance, flamenco, and Zambra. After a disagreement, the group went separate ways.

A woman named Carolena Nericcio visited Santa Fe from San Francisco and inspired Myra to do Tribal style belly dance, which is performed in groups and is improvisational, structured by cues. Myra started the Mosaic Dance Company and rented a small space for a studio. After staying there for three years, Myra has moved into a much bigger space above Sage Bakehouse. She had a dream of the studio she wanted and after looking at 25 different spaces, finally found the one in her dream.

Today, Myra owns her own dance studio which supports many classes other than her own. Myra teaches about 12 classes a week. Her Oriental classes are belly dance that is mostly choreographed and usually performed solo. SEEDs® (Self-Esteem, Expression, Empowerment, and Education through Dance) is a program she recently created for teen girls to study with Myra for one year, free of charge. The class is held three days a week and is not only a Tribal dance class, but it also teaches drumming and life skills, such as balancing a checkbook and good body image. On top of everything else Myra also teaches a dance aerobic class five times a week.

Myra has two dance companies, Mosaic and Ahatti. These companies perform once a month at Cleopatra’s Café to live music by Darabukah, a Middle Eastern Band.

If you are interested in taking one of Myra’s classes, you can stop by the studio on the corner of Paseo de Peralta and Cerrillos upstairs from Sagehouse Bakery. Being Tribal Style classes are on Wednesday nights from 7-8.

Learning to Dance

Myra Morris teaches girls to love their bodies through belly dancing

By Candelora VersaceIn The New MexicanDecember, 2001

Myra Morris a professional dancer for 25 years, knows all too well the challenges that face young women today when it comes to body image and self-esteem.

“I was both a singer and a dancer when I was growing up,|” Morris said. “And people kept saying, you’ll never make it as a dancer, you should focus on your singing, because I was heavy and I was short. People were outrageously unsupportive. Eventually, thought, the doors that opened for me were for my dancing, not my singing.”

Morris, the daughter of a nonprofessional Middle Eastern dancer, specializes in what is now called American Tribal Style® dance; in lay-person’s terms, we recognize it as belly-dancing.

In the mid-90s, her dancing caught the eye of noted fusion flamenco guitarist Ottmar Liebert, and she joined him on tour, opening his shows with a 20-minute solo; she subsequently appeared on a BS program that still airs periodically on KNME.

At a recent Tribal Dance festival in California, some 80 companies from across the country participated, making the dance style itself – a fusion of forms that follow the roma Gypsies through India, the Arab countries, North Africa and Spain – a bonafide American movement, Morris said.

“Any woman any size, any height and age can do this,” she pointed out. “|t is perfectly accessible, and it builds self-confidence because you learn to know you are beautiful from the inside. It’s a beauty that has nothing to do with media images. Most importantly, it lends itself to these young girls for obvious reasons.”

American Tribal invades the heart of Santa Fe

Arizona troupe teams with local Mosaic

By Antonio Lopez In Pasatiempo May, 1999

The only time I wish I weren’t a dancer is when a man from another tribe falls in love with me or one of my sisters. His family would fight a war to stop him marrying a ghaziya. How can you marry a daughter of a Maazin? A dancer and singer who performs in front of others? They call us by the name ghaziya. To them, it’s an insult. But to us, it means we invade their hearts with our dancing.

– an unnamed member of the Egyptian Maazin dancing family, quoted from

The Serpent of the Nile by Wendy Buanaventura

At some point during the Romany (Gypsy) migration from India across North Africa, the travelers influenced the regional dance Egypt. Because they were not Islamic, foreign women could assume the role of professional dancers, taking on the name ghaziya, which translates as “outsider” or “invader” alluding to the dancers’ Romany origins.

Dancer Carolena Nericcio has no problem with such a moniker. In fact, she has ghawazee in Arabic script tattooed across her back.

The Bay Area performer who founded the FatChanceBellyDance® troupe savors the image of ghawazee dancers who entertained Napoleon’s occupational army by balancing on their heads the soldiers’ swords then stealing the weapons when the soldiers got drunk , or the Gypsy performers who mesmerize the audience while picking pockets.

When Nericcio performs this weekend with Santa Fe’s Mosaic Dance Company and Arizona’s Blue Dragon dance troupe, you won’t lose personal belongings but you may lose your heart. There performers are practitioners of American tribal style, a modern-dance form based on Middle Eastern dance but developed in the United States.

Invaders of the Heart: An Evening of American Tribal Style® Middle Eastern Dance takes place at 8 p.m. Saturday May 15, n the Benitez Cabaret at the Radisson Santa Fe hotel. The event will feature choreographed pieces, a solo by Nericcio and East Indian dance pieces, candle trays, swords and veil dances.

“I can see taking over a place by working on the emotions instead of physical fighting,” Nericcio said from her San Francisco studio and home of the FatChanceBellyDance troupe. “When we are onstage, we definitely are trying to capture the audience through the emotional rather than with the physical.”

American tribal style was developed in the 70s by Jamila Salimpour who taught Nericcio’s teacher Masha Archer. Nericcio is known for influencing the style with her creation of a system of improvisation cues. Through her mail-order business in the Bay Area, Nericcio has spread American tribal style throughout the country via instructional videos.

“This is the first tribal concert in New Mexico,” Mosaic Dance Company founder and artistic director Myra Morris said. “It’s historical because we are taking Carolena’s premise of improvisation with cues and transitions built in and bringing people together … We’re testing the underlying philosophy, which is that anyone who can learn this language can do this dance.”

Nericcio explained the subtle differences between North African dance forms and American complements.

“Oriental and cabaret are very similar, if not the same thing, with one dancer dancing to live music in a sequined or beaded two – piece costume.” Nericcio said. “That’s authentic belly dance coming our of Egypt.”

“If you dance ghawaze, it’s folkloric. It’s from the countryside and movements are not so intricate. Tribal is an American adaptation. It looks very authentic and grounded but it’s a blend of North African, Egyptian, a little Andalusian, and East Indian.”

Such a mix of cultural styles comes from the Roma influence on Middle Eastern dance.

“If you look at the Romany trail as they left India, what started as the earliest form of belly dance and the earliest forms of flamenco are very similar.” Nericcio said.

“You can tell it was the same thing but got separated – the stomping of the feet, the shaking of the hips, isolatioins, and the use of castanets for flamenco and zils for belly dance.”

In American tribal-style® dance, pinned-up elbows and flores (hand movements) have a flamenco flavor; shimmies and figure eights are Arabic; head slides, arm movements and some turns are East Indian.

The costuming reflects the dance form’s cultural diversity. Dancers wear fringed skirts resembling a flamenco or Gypsy’s dancer’s dress; East Indian mirrored belts; Arabic pantaloons, coin bras and wound-scarf headdresses; Tunisian tassels, cowrie shell adornments representing fertility, and facial makeup resembling tribal tattoos.

Bellies remain uncovered which is frowned upon in Egypt but since the dancers are American, “we can get away with it,” Nericcio said.

The costumes are designed for “the accentuation of and the beautifying of the female body,” she said. “The belly is an important place; it’s where birth lives for nine months.”

Nericcio believes American tribal style is a bit of a misnomer. What makes the form tribal is not its origins but the way dancers interact.

“When you think of tribal, you think of a tribe because (the dance form) is from North Africa,” Nericcio said. “It’s not; it’s just an American concept.

“The concept of tribal is like having an intentional community. There are laws that everyone must abide by onstage.

“In tribal community, like a democracy, you vote laws into existence until you vote them out. You can change a rule before you go onstage but once you are on the stage, you can’t.”

Nericcio believes “American tribal style” is an inelegant term.

“I’d prefer to call it modern tribal, which I think more accurately describes it,” she said. “When I think American, it changes it in my mind. From a point of cultural freedom, it is American.”

Closing the Circle

By Antonio Lopez April, 1999

With a dim scarlet light casting a broad circle on a Marley dance floor, a group of four women entered Sweeney Center’s interior, which had been darkened for a recent Chi dance party.

Video projections framed a DJ as he mixed jungle – a hybrid combining dub bass with hyperkinetic rhythm spinning at 125 beats per minute. A smoke machine blasted from above, catching multicolored laser patterns in the air.

Middle Eastern dancers moved into the circle of light, an area designated for break dancing during the all-night party.

Myra Morris and three dancers from her Mosaic dance company performed for 30 minutes, in elaborate flowing costumes of silk and handmade jewelry. Their bodies shimmied and twirled to the jungle beats. Morris spun with her veil for 10 solid minutes, dazzling the stunned young ravers who had gathered around the dancers.

Later that night, in the chill-out lounge, flamenco guitarist Chuscales was mesmerized by electronic beat mixer Amani. A didgeridoo player joined in, as did kathak dancer Yamuna Wali scatting Indian drum patterns into a mike.

That kind of convergence of break dancing, electronic dance music, flamenco and Middle Eastern dance, divergent cultural expressions from divergent parts of the globe, may be the stuff of science fiction but its happening here in Santa Fe.

Dance is the common denominator and within dance is the potent form of the circle.

Such is the premise of Ring of Power, an upcoming educational event that Harambe Community Cultural Development Center is producing at Plan B Evolving Arts.

The “circle of power” denotes the nonverbal relationship of dance forms. In an effort to draw a connection among diverse dance forms, Harambe executive director Kevin Bellinger and local dancers will demonstrate flamenco, Middle Eastern, break dance, rave dance and capoiera.

Proceeds from the Saturday March 27, performance will benefit the nonprofit Harambe center.

“The root forms of these dances come from the past few thousand years,” Bellinger said. “Some people say it’s a stretch that (Harambe’s) parties and methods connect to a family of festivals in Europe, Spain, or Africa, so I say you need to come don and experience it yourself.”

Bellinger hopes the family event at Plan B will give people a taste of what has been happening at Harambe’s late-night dance parties. In his programming at the cultural arts center, Bellinger originally intended to use hip hop as a springboard for working with youth but dance parties took on a life of their own, becoming multicultural, multigenerational events.

“We are trying to change the paradigm of the meaning of ‘rave,’” Bellinger said. “There has been a negative history with raves in a certain part of the country.

“No one is denying it. In some areas, they are out of control. They have no design; they are done for money and to get as many people as possible.

“We are trying to redefine it. It’s a healthy event. It’s an event done with a purpose, creating an atmosphere for a cultural ring.”

“Hip hop is not separate from the rave culture in Santa Fe. Break dancers love to dance to break beat, jungle. You have a big cross section whereas in San Francisco or L.A., you don’t see break dancing at raves.

“There is a real wonderful mixture of people involved (here).”

Indeed it has been for Morris and other Mosaic dancers, sharing their dance form and receiving positive feedback from a largely teenage audience. Morris, who has collaborated with Harambe since its inception, sees dance as having a powerful ability to transcend cultural boundaries.

“Dance is unlike any other form of language I’ve used,” she said. “It’s the fastest way to cut through boundaries. There is such honesty because, to quote Martha Graham, ‘Movement never lies. It’s the barometer of the soul for all those who can read it.’”

That many cultural expressions are finding a voice through Harambe’s educational programming is an indication of a larger gathering, according to Morris.

“The present forms of break dancing, hip hop, funk, have their roots in ethnic dance forms, like Middle Eastern dance, flamenco, African dance, any kind of folk dancing. These things have a similar underlying philosophy as well as the movements involved and you can see that many of the movements relate.”

So what is it about the circle that ties dance forms together?

“In Ring of Power, we show how they relate,” Morris says. “We point out the similarities so that we can get the kids not only to appreciate their present art form, like hip hop, but the ancient form that these things come from.”

For break dancer Sean Trujillo, who goes by the handle Pax T, when it comes to break dancing, the circle is key to the expression of hip-hop culture.

“You know how they had dance lines on (the TV shows) Solid Gold or Soul Train?” Trujillo asked. “They closed the end. The circle is a sign for people to go in there and express themselves.

“Whether it’s break dance or rave dance, it’s a place for expression. It’s a place where you can be you.”

Break dancers freeform within a circle of spectators, often spinning and gyrating in circular form. The circle is where hip-hop crews nonviolently challenge each other.

“In some instances, when it’s a battle, a circle becomes sacred,” Trujillo said. “You have two opposing sides. Whether it’s the neighborhood, city or the music they are interpreting, that’s how you battle.

“The circle is a celebration in its most raw form,” Trujillo said. “The dance is an expression and one element of that is hip-hop culture. For me, it’s a lifestyle; it’s not something you see on TV and do.

“To be in the circle and do the break dance, it takes time; it takes a knowledge of the art form, music, the people around you. It’s not something you just do at a nightclub.”

Because break dancing primarily originated in New York during the 70s, it’s remarkable to see it practiced alongside capoeira, a form of body movement from Brazil that combines martial arts and dance. Both dance forms have a grace and forcefulness along with a playful and competitive aspect, and both originate from the African diaspora.

Pete Jackson, who teaches capoeira, at Harambe, sees a very real connection between the urban form of break dancing and capoeira, the latter of which West African slaves brought to America.

“There is a direct lineage between the break dancing of hip hop and capoeira,” he said.

Some of Jackson’s capoeira students at Harambe also are break dancers, closing a circle spanning history.

“I think that the circle is a very universal concept, a very simplistic concept of containing or cycling energy,” Jackson said “In capoeira and many other dance forms, when you form a circle, you contain the energy of what’s happening in that circle.”

Like Middle Eastern dance and flamenco, achieving a trancelike state in capoeira is the trance,” Jackson said. “Supposedly within the circle, the person goes into a trance, which allows him to go into the best movements that he can.

“In capoeira, the goal is to outperform or outtrick your opponent without making contact. Ideally it should be done in some kind of altered state. I link this to what the call the ‘zone’ in basketball; it’s the same thing.”

Getting into the zone through circular motion is best exemplified by the Sufi dances of the whirling dervishes but also comes through in Middle Eastern dance and, at times, flamenco. The flamenco dancer draws circles with arms and defines space by connecting with the earth through footwork.

According to flamenco dancers, when the performer gets to a point of transcendence, he or she becomes possessed by duende, literally a “spirit,” but on a metaphorical level, it’s an altered state.

That dance can bring a person into a new state of consciousness also is a reflection of divinity, some dancers believe.

“In Middle Eastern dance, all the movements are based on sacred geometry and the movements of nature as well as basic human activity like carrying baskets on your head,” Morris said. “Spirals, figure eights, circles, squares and triangles all have to do with sacred geometry.

“Shimmies, the vibration when the dancers makes the hips or chest move really fast, are vibration movements, like watching the wind move the aspen leaves. Belly movements have to do with cycles of birth.

“This gives you a general idea of how these movements pertain to nature.

“Dance is an expression of the art of living,” Morris said. “The inner landscape of man is expressed through dance in this vehicle that we live our lives through, this physical body. Ring of Power is a way of personal and cultural exchange.”

Back at Chi, all the talk about sacred geometry, trances, circles and energy would have been academic. Amid the electronic beats was something that does seem cosmic and futuristic yet very old; the ancient future.

An altar built in front of the DJ platform expressed it very well, the symbols of ancient cultures among burning candles and incense reminders that through dance, one enters a temple and within that temple, the many expressions of culture can find common ground.

More Than Belly Moving

This belly-dance class teaches life lessons to the strains of Middle Eastern Music

By Abigail Ramirez In Generation Next

As the lights slowly turn on, the sounds of Middle Eastern music fill the room at The Railyard Performance Center. The sound of sils, finger cymbals, catches your attention and a spotlight focuses on 15 barefoot young women with colorfulhip wraps sparkling as they move their entire bodies in a belly dance. These young women are members of the Self-esteem, Expression, Empowerment and Education through Dance program.

The Seeds® program is a one-year full scholarship offered to young womrn interested in dance. The participants put on at least four performances, mostly at the Railyard Performance Center. But dance isn’t the only thing these young women are mastering.

“We are an empowering program with a beautiful environment where girls can come to express themselves through dance and gain skills for life,” said Leah Woods, 17, a member of the Seeds Program.

Lucy Gent, 16, another Seeds member, added, “We are a group of young women who come together to learn a dance form and to learn how to become motivated, independent women in the world. We learn techniques as practical as balancing checking accounts and budgeting an income.

Myra Krien, creator of the Seeeds program and director of The Pomegranate Studios, said she had a lot of teenage girls who were trying to get into her classes, but had no money. “I decided to make an official program that would make them feel better about themselves, be well-rounded people and be a part of their community,” she said.

The Seeds program teaches belly dance in the American tribal-style® dance, but also includes a “talking circle.” In the talking circle the instructor brings up a topic or a question that the girls are asked to discuss. The topics include goals, investing money, learning how to support themselves financially, what it means to be a woman, what the meaning of community is, etc. Guest speakers are brought in to share information about different banks, finances, balancing checkbooks, the stock market and clearing up bad credit. The girls are also encouraged to keep journals, where they record their financial spending and earnings, progress on reaching their goals and thoughts or feelings on certain issues.

“(The talking circle) has helped me figure out what I want in my future and start the process of achieving my goals. It also lets me sort out what I think,” said Seeeds member Dara Minkin, 16.

SEEDs of Power

Belly dancing program helps girls build self-esteem and learn life skills.

By Casey Casias, In Generation Next

Belly dancing is the victim of a lot of stereotypes. It is often wrongly thought of as sexually driven. However, to the participants in Pomegranate Dance Studio’s SEEDs® program, the dance form is a creative means of expression.

SEEDs (which stands for Self-Esteem, Empowerment, and Education through Dance) is a program put on for girls between the ages of 14-20 that both teaches them belly dancing and helps to build self-esteem. It is a yearlong program in which a group of 15-20 girls learn tribal-dance movements.

But that is only a part of the course. Each class includes a talking circle in which students discuss issues that face women. Guest speakers are invited to speak with the group, particularly to help with money issues. They advise the girls on things ranging from understanding the stock market to saving for retirement.

In addition, Myra Krien, who is one of the owners of the dance studio, helps each girl achieve one personal goal that she sets for herself at the beginning of the program. There is no limitation on what this goal can be; the goals range from getting into college to finishing a novel. Krien helps the girls make a plan to achieve their goal, whatever it may be. Lita Ovalle, who teaches the class, also helps the girls strive toward accomplishing their goal. She oversees the talking circles as well.

Girls in the SEED program learn the smooth and controlled movements of tribal dance. Tribal is composed of many dance forms put together, ranging from flamenco to ballet, but is mainly derived from the dances of the indigenous tribes of Northern Africa, which is where it gets its name. Many of the tribal movements are elaborations on things the people perform every day, such as picking fruit or balancing a basket on one’s head. There are even movements that are based on walking.

Both the physical and emotional aspects of the program have had a positive influence on many girls who participate in it.

“Everybody gets along with each other; there is no drama. I also find it to be very relaxing after a day of stress at school. I come in feeling completely exhausted, and then I leave feeling really energetic,” said Costanza Fusco, a junior at Capital High School.

Fusco says the program has influenced her greatly, “but on such a level that it is difficult to put into words.”

Serrana Gai, a sophomore at Monte del Sol Charter School, said now that she’s in the program, she dances nonstop. “I feel much healthier and stronger and more comfortable with my body.”

For Heather Marts, a junior at Santa Fe Preparatory School, who said she feel secure and graceful with her dance classes, the talking circles have also been an unexpected benefit. “I didn’t really expect to get so much into the talking part of it. It is actually really great to talk about things that affect us – things that I don’t usually talk about with a group of teenage girls.”

Kyrie Von Erffa, who is a senior at Santa Fe Academy, was unsure about the influence the program would have on her life. “When people told me how amazing it was, I thought, ‘Yeah uh huh, it’s dance.’ I wasn’t that thrilled about it. I didn’t really understand the community part of the program. Besides learning a lot about yourself and the other girls, and you are prompted to think about things that you don’t usually think about.”

SEEDs is not the only program that Pomegranate Studios supports. After completing the yearlong course, graduates can become a part of the apprentice dance company called Ahatti, which offers the dancers an opportunity to focus on performance rather than learning. Other classes are offered on a come-when-you-can basis, costing $5 a session and focusing on basic movement instruction.

Belly-dancing history is rich and complex, and so is the SEEDs program. It is an extraordinary experience and opens many doors for its participants. It destroys all of the typecasts of belly dancing and shows it for what it is; a beautiful and difficult art form.

Review of ‘Breathtaking Veil’ DVD

By Ruby Wallace

Greetings Myra,

I have viewed your “Breathtaking Veil” video. As a video student, I have had the opportunity to view probably more than three hundred instructional videos, and I would like to share what I saw in yours with you.

Yours is the first that I have seen to discuss what fabric and yardage the veil is, and how the choice of fabric affects how the dancer will partner with the veil, choices of what will work and what will not, and what presentation is best suited to this particular three and a half yard silk veil, which places “veilwork” in a context of dancing with a veil, of movement, music, and transitions. Or should I have just said, “you had me at ‘hello’?”

Gregory’s continued presence, he is never off camera nor completely out of sight, allows hearing and seeing the structure of the music as well as seeing and hearing the structure of the dancer’s movements and interaction with the veil. Your counting with the drumming and the movement gave me such a blessed set of bearings. I have learned that I can count to eight, but that alone does not open me to dancing.

You teach back to camera, facing a mirror, which puts me at ease to follow along, rather than trying to reverse everything in my head before even connecting with my body. This is especially appreciated when learning to dance with a veil. You teach a sequence of veil art, not quite a choreography, as you put it, but not the “laundry list” approach either. You give options/variations of how to accomplish a movement, which is always encouraging, and you state when you have chosen to modify a movement for the purpose of this instruction session. The latter really has a grounding effect of “this is what I have chosen to teach you, and I respect that by focusing and modifying where needed to do so.”

Your demonstrating the movements without the veil opened my eyes. I wondered why it was that you out of all instructors of veil that I have seen did not seem rushed at all with your veil. I realized that unless I am shown otherwise, I focus on the outer edge of the veil, which whooshes along. Your demonstration allowed me to see the dancer at the center of the veil, where the dance partners meet. How else to express the poignance of this but “Veil Valhalla!”

You have put forth the first veil instructional video of this caliber that I am aware of.

Thank you so much,

Ruby Wallace-Ruby Morales