Video by Mike Strong - Uploaded Feb 23, 2010 - 8 min 35 sec
First of four belly dance coalition events by Nikoria dancers (Nicole English) and Cafe Cedar in Parkville, MO (Jehad Saleh) Sunday afternoon 24 January 2010 (just north of Kansas City). This event, a meeting/exhibition featured bellydancers from the greater Kansas City area and even Topeka, KS and Wichita, KS. This is a family friendly event, note the kids with their folks and the casual restaurant environment. This is a short version, excerpts, from the hour and four minute original edit of the full show. Some of the dancers were also vendors selling jewelry and costuming. I used the render from the original edit (1 hr 4 min) and trimmed it down to the 8 min 34 sec piece here. These are both seasoned pros and enthusiastic new amateurs with various levels of experience from professional ballet to ballroom and stage to cafe and event performance. Some of the pros have been training the newbies for years (longer). Siham is one of the principal trainers over the last few decades and has a regular series of area workshops and showcases for middle eastern dancers. Note: you will hear gypsy music as well, which is also popular in belly dance circles. At this writing (feb 2010) three more of these are planned for Cafe Cedar. This was shot on a combination of Sony FX1000 and Panasonic HMC150. I meant to use the Sony's but failed to bring enough tape (arggh). So I shot with the CompactFlash recording unit on the Sony (at 1440x1080) and the SDHC card in the Panasonic (at 1920x1080) editing in Sony Vegas Pro 9.0. I could have used a wider-yet lens but I am glad I am no longer shooting with the XL1 or GL2 I used to shoot with, I could never have gotten that much in the frame at such close quarters otherwise. Links: For more information try either http://www.cafecedar.com - or - http://www.nikoria.com/nikoria/Raqsi - or - http://www.kcdance.com/Dancing/BellyDC_24jan2010CafeCedar.asp |