Open Tribe/Drop-ins / Tribe agreement / Workshops / History

The Oyna Tribe is dedicated to celebrating, teaching, inspiring and advancing the practice of Bellydance as a process for spiritual evolution, both within and beyond Middle Eastern traditions.

Bellydance in the Oyna Tribe is a process - a luscious, ongoing evolution of skill and personal unfolding. Building trust among Tribe members allows deeper learning and more expansive expression. Interactive dance helps intercept the tendency for self-criticism, so members enjoy themselves more and become more confident at their own skill level. Those with experience in other forms of dance and other styles of bellydance can experience a shift that will deepen and enhance their expression within their chosen form.

Sessions include:

Raks Sharqi technique:  Foundations of the classic solo improvisational style of Oriental dance, or raks sharqi - dance of the East. Basic movements, variations, layering and transitions. Beginners can do amazing things, given the chance, and others can keep going deeper.

Silk Wind veilwork:  Fundamentals of partnering with 3-1/2 yards of silk; holding the veil, giving air to the veil; basic movements and wraps; catching and retrieving; using different veils; veil meditations. A flowing practice that fosters physical, emotional, mental and spiritual fluidity.

Improvisation:  Playful group and partnered improvs; deep listening for more internal solo explorations.  Your skills grow easily because you go beyond practicing them and use them to express who you are. The most natural way of learning any language is full immersion.

Rhythm & percussion:  Beginning dumbek, all levels zillwork, Middle Eastern rhythms, ensemble, call and response, and meditations. Learning to play rhythm helps our dancing, and moving helps grow our sense of rhythm.

Spiritual practice:  Internal practices based in Sufi tradition. Improves concentration, raises your energy, relaxes you, shifts your mood if you're having an off-day, and helps you expand your presence, come into your power, and tap into your innate creativity.

Interaction:  Different kinds of creative, playful interaction give meaning to everything we do. It helps make you less self-conscious, and calms that nervousness about how good you think you should be. You can learn faster, become more creative and more confident, and learn to improvise more easily.

Performance:  Energetics of performance, authentic expression, witnessing, and the art of giving positive feedback. In-class performing does occur. When you are relaxed enough, and when you least expect it, it can happen. I announce performing opportunities, and may encourage individuals to participate. I do not choreograph, though I may impose a structure for improv.

Fluid biomechanics:  To make everything easier to do and to free up energy for personal expression, I integrate fluid biomechanics into everything I teach, giving everyone personal attention and Aston Fitness exercises as needed. This aspect also supports emotional fluidity and confidence. Individual physical challenges, limitations, or pain may improve as a side effect.

We begin each session on time, even when only one member has arrived. Format flows unpredictably, to develop the mental focus and flexibility needed for improvisation. I design each class with attention to technical needs, personal interests, mental, physical, and emotional states, and energy levels of members. I encourage creative initiative and, of course, oyna - playfulness.

Tribe agreement

When you join the Oyna Tribe:

1) You take responsibility for timely payment of fees and recording your attendance.

2) Because your regular presence builds trust that helps everyone progress, we ask that you make every effort to come to class consistently.

3)  Communication builds trust, which is the sacred hallmark of a safe zone. To preserve it, we ask you to please communicate with one of us when you must be absent. We all exchange contact information so that everyone can do this.

Whether you are ill, traveling, have sick children, exams to study for, overslept, family emergency, got lost in a time warp or anything else, it's okay, we've heard it all. There is no judgment, only communication. Life happens.

4) If you don't show up and you haven't called or sent an email, someone will contact you after class to check in. You may occasionally be asked to call someone else who was absent without notice.

Open Tribe/Drop-ins

DROP-INS ARE WELCOME to come to any OPEN TRIBE. Open Tribes are our "open house". $15.

DROP-INS ARE NOT PERMITTED in any other Oyna Tribe sessions; preserving the safe zone is paramount.

See Calendar for current Open Tribe schedule and locations.

Oyna Tribe Workshops

To sponsor a workshop, please This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

History

For years, I divided my time between teaching regular bellydance classes, seeing bodywork clients, teaching private lessons and workshops, and leading Sufi sessions in the manner of my teacher. In the spring of 2002, frustrated from dividing my abilities into different parts of my life, I decided I wanted to teach dance in a way that integrated all of my training and experience - as Aston-Patterner, dancer, drummer, cymbalist, dervish and performer. I wanted to teach a committed group.

Within two days of my decision, five students approached me independently, asking to study with me. We got together over tea and I explained what I wanted to do. They consented to be part of the experiment; we arranged a time and place, and the first Oyna Tribe began. We met for two hours, one morning a week, from March 2002 through March 2006, with a few breaks.

All applicants to the Tribe came via word-of-mouth. Some members committed for a while and then moved on, and a couple were constant the whole time. In January 2006, a second Tribe formed, meeting for an hour and a half one evening a week. In March 2006, three members of the first Tribe moved on, and remaining members joined the second Tribe. In the fall of 2007, I discontinued the application process and opened the Oyna Tribe classes to others, still preserving the safe zone while inviting a wider circle. In 2008, I began Open Tribes.

A new Tribe experiment began at the 2008 International Fringe Festival in Boulder. I was invited to participate in several performances of a variety show at a casual venue in downtown Bouder. The show was full of stand-up comics and improv theater, and in that spirit, I performed with one student, exploring the idea of dancing to a theme suggested by the audience.

Our dance theme was "getting a speeding ticket". What I discovered in the process was something I already knew - this dance is not linear, nor is it well-suited to the conventions of Western story-telling dance. This dance expresses inner landscapes, of emotion and spirit and soul. I am inspired by performances of Playback Theater and Contact Improvisation, and want to experiment with performance formats that could grow out of the the Oyna Tribe context.

In February 2011, the Tribe did a performance, a "dance blessing", for a women's Red Tent event. We went into it with little more than coordinated costumes and a prerecorded cd, a drum, veils, and zills. I gave a short introduction, telling them what we MIGHT do, since it was all improv, and gave them permission to interact with us or move or dance as they liked. Then we began with a zill meditation like we sometimes do in class, taking us all into focus. Then we picked up our veils, using them to move energy and speak in waves to the audience. Something happened then - the veils caught their imagination, and they began to play with us, from their seats. I turned my veil over to them and picked up my zills again. We rode the energy: now, being gently playful with a shy preteen; now, being firm with a small boy; now, being utterly silly in a circle of laughter; now, spinning and jamming with another Tribe member because that's what the music calls for; now drumming as women and children get up to dance; now, just fading out as the energy of the room bursts open and we are approached by bright-eyed, happy women.

I consider the Tribe experiment to be a beautiful success, and I measure success in terms of Tribe members' evolution. When I see them growing and healing, when I can see how absorbed they are becoming in their dance expressions, interactions, and performances; when I can watch them play, using their technical skills like a language that they speak more and more fluently, glowing with the pleasure of being whole, and relaxing into an easy self-confidence, then I know the Oyna Tribe is working.

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