Friday, August 28, 2009

A Thousand and One Nights

Sabaya


Sabaya, Austin's bellydance troupe composed of (from left) Lily, Yasmin, Maribel, Rania, and Stacey, will be performing tonight at Red Fez's An Arabian Night. Having had a lot of influence from well-recognized bellydancers, like Aziza and Suhaila Salimpour, Sabaya has achieved several noteworthy and international achievements.

I was first introduced to Yasmin, in a class under the instruction of Z Helene (little did I know then that Yasmin had been studying and performing for a long time herself). Not too long after studying under Z, I got a job at The Arabic Bazaar, a Middle Eastern import store owned by a Syrian woman, Zein. Naturally, I took classes under Zein. However, it was during my free time that I would watch a variety of bellydance performances, from the beginner student on VHS to professionals on DVDs. It is in that store where I saw all but one (Stacey) of Sabaya's dancers begin to evolve. The women of Sabaya, if I may speak so boldly, have come a long way.

Stacey, in my opinion, as bellydance student and performer myself, is definitely noteworthy. Check out Sabaya's Bellydance Collective Blog to see what she has achieved. It's definitely worth a look.

If you want to check out the troupe's performance tonight, here are the details:

Friday, August 28th, 8:00 pm - 10:30 pm

Red Fez
209 B W. 5th Street,
Austin, TX 78701

1 comment:

  1. Thanks for your sweet words. Sabaya as a group and each member, has definitely come a long way for sure. No doubt each of us have put in time for extensive dance training to erase the memory of our newbie dance beginnings. Looking forward to see more of your posts and in the audience.
    Maribel

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