Y'all should come study with Anasma, and here's why.

I'm hosting the spectacular Anasma on the 13-14th October (one month away!) for a weekend of workshops and a spectacular show in Cambridge, and I am so excited about bringing Anasma back to the UK! She is one of my favourite teachers and performers, and I just wanted to share with you what makes her so special and why you should leap at the chance to study with Anasma. 

She's a super experienced and world famous performer, choreographer and teacher of bellydance fusion - seen performing and teaching on almost every continent on earth, winning all sorts of prizes for her fusion style (including the 2011 Unique Arts Award for “Most creative solo performance"), judging in international dance competitions (including this year's Tokyo International Bellydance Competition) and producing a number of high quality influential instructional DVD's that get almost exclusively 5 star reviews on Amazon and are very well regarded within the bellydance community. She's co-director of the bi-annual Theatrical Bellydance Conference in New York, ex-principal dancer of the prestigious New York 

belly dance company Bellyqueen, and creator of the interactive dance show "On Your Marks, Get Set, Go!" which has so far been presented in 3 countries. Phew! She's a busy lady. 

(I remember working with her Bellydance Hip Hop Fusion DVD every night for about three months - and I remember seeing ticking, popping, waving and specific Anasma combos from that DVD at every Hafla I went to for a while after the DVD came out!)

So now we've established that she's very cool and well travelled, lets talk about her teaching style. Anyone who has seen one of her story telling performances can see that this is a lady who does not shy away from a good time. Her workshops are such fun, and that comes from her personality - Anasma is so warm and open, and ready to have a great time at every opportunity. She takes the time to do personal corrections in workshops if they are needed, and makes you want to try your hardest to be able to dance as cool as she does. She will always challenge you, give you new ideas to experiment with and stuff to take home and master.  
And now her content.

Anasma takes fusion to a new level: she fuses many different art forms with skill and integrity, always creating something beautiful, awesome and seamless, where you can clearly see all the art forms used - no mean feat! It's so flippin' difficult to do that! Her skill as a creator of innovative and creative bellydance fusion is incredible, I believe in part because of her commitment to fully studying each style she is interested in before fusing it with bellydance, and partly because she is not clinging on to the label of bellydance so strongly it strangles her innovation - she frequently refers to herself as a World Fusion Dance artist rather than just a bellydancer.  
She doesn't create bellydance with a touch of hip hop, or with a touch of salsa - she creates a proper 50/50 blend, and she shows you how you can create that strong seamless blend in your bellydance too. 

(At the Intensive Weekend she will be teaching workshops in her signature style of Hip-Hop Bellydance Liquid Fusion (which rocks) and her Wushu/Bellydance fusion workshop, which is a martial arts/bellydance fusion workshop not to be missed!)

And I always without fail leave an Anasma workshop feeling inspired, wanting to create, become more bendy ('cos she is like a plasticine woman) and be a Dancer.  

When I first started studying with Anasma I completely fell in love with her hip hop fusion dance style - somehow it was ladylike and elegant but very hip-hop at the same time. Her work in turn made me feel free to turn my dance into what I really wanted my dance to be - to not worry about labels, to experiment  to blend influences, and to explore hip hop more fully and bring it into my dance practice. Seeing what Anasma was doing made me feel like I had permission to look outside the bellydance box for inspiration, get excited about it and bring it back and play with it.  

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And I still always, without fail, leave an Anasma workshop feeling inspired, wanting to create, become more bendy (cos she is like plasticine woman) and be a Dancer. 

She is completely, utterly different to any other bellydancer out there.

But in the best way ever. 

(Anasma is teaching workshops in Wushu-Bellydance Fusion, Hip-Hop Bellydance Liquid Fusion, and Choreography and Improvisation Techniques, and she is performing in a spectacular showcase as well. For more info on workshop clicky here, for booking, clicky here, and for more show info, clicky here.)

Have any awesome Anasma experiences you would like to share? Share 'em with the world in the comments!