I first heard about MAC Pigments from a belly dancer friend of mine that also happened to be a MAC makeup artists. For my birthday she gave me 5 jars of what looked like colored dust. Originally, I was rather intimidated by them and I wasn’t sure what to do with them, they are a loose dusty powder, unlike the pressed powder eye shadows that I was used to. My friend offered me some suggestions on how to use them and after some personal experimenting, I found them to be the greatest eye shadows ever. They come in bold colors that are fun, playful and great for performers, but the number one reason why I love them: they DO NOT CREASE!!! I’m serious. They hold up all night to sweat and belly dancing, gig after gig. I have never seen anything like it! Since they can be a little tricky to use, I wanted to let you in on my technique for using the MAC Pigments to achieve a smoldering smokey eye look that’s great for belly dance performance.

Tools
The makeup I use for this look is:
-pigment color of your choice, I usually use a purple, magenta or silver. 2 conventional eyeshadows
-one in black or dark gray and one highlight color either a shimmery white or cream.

Prep
Generally, you want to apply your foundation and concealers before working on your eyes. Another trick I use is putting an excessive amount of any cheap loose foundation powder under the eyes before doing eye shadow. Lay it on really, really heavy with a small fluffy brush. The idea is that when the inevitable eye shadow dusts settle below your eyes, you can gently brush them away no muss no fuss just by brushing off the powder.

Apply Pigment
I sprinkle a little of the pigment on the plate, you don’t need much, a little bit of this stuff goes a long way. I the smaller, flat eye shadow brush for applying the first layer of pigment. I dip the brush in the cup of water, gently drip off the excess and then dip it into the pigment. Make sure the brush is not dripping wet, but I find a very dry brush is harder to work with. When your first using pigment, I would suggest you start off with the brush on the drier side but experiment with what works best for you.

I apply the pigment from lash line to crease, it goes on thick and evenly like paint. Don’t go quite all the way to the inner corners of you eyes since you will want to use a highlight here later. When applying the pigment, use a light dabbing motion until you get the hang of how it feels. Unlike most shadows, the wet pigment goes on evenly without any blending.

Apply Shadows
Next, I use the round crease brush to apply a dark shadow (usually black) to the outer corners of my lids. I blend it across and above the crease line a little bit, again avoiding putting the dark shadow in the inner corners. If your using a bigger brush like mine make sure you are very easy on the pressure so you don’t go flinging shadow across your face.

Next, I use the second flat eyeshadow brush to add the highlights to the inner corners of the eyelids and on the outsides of my eyes just bellow my brows.

Finish
One thing I do differently than most people is that I actually do my mascara before my eye liner. The mascara stiffens the lash line a bit and I find it easier to draw along. I prefer to do a very thin line across the outer 3/4 of my top lash line. When I do my lower lash line, I typically only do the outer 1/3. I also line the inner rim of my lower lashing. Brush away any loose powder left under your eyes, darken your eyebrows and your done! I usually like to wear a frosty light pink or champagne color lip with this look, so the main focus is my eyes.

Kebob Ingredients
2 pound beef tenderloin or sirloin trimmed and cubed into 16 pieces
2 bell peppers in your favorite colors
8-12 white mushrooms, wiped clean and stems trimmed
1 large onion, I’ve used red and yellow, both are tasty, diced in large chuncks
2 tablespoons chopped Italian parsley leaves
1 tablespoon chopped or pressed garlic
2 teaspoons dried oregano
2 teaspoons onion powder
1 teaspoon curry powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 tablespoon kosher salt
2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper
1 cup olive oil
8 (10-inch) wooden skewers, soaked in water for 30 minutes

Kebob Directions
Skewer your meat, pepper, mushroom and onion ingredients in the fashion you see fit. I generally alternate between veggie and meat components.

Place the remaining ingredients in a medium sized bowl and whisk until well incorporated. Pour the mixture over the kabobs and refrigerate 1 hour.

Preheat an outdoor charcoal or gas grill to high heat. Place the kabobs on the grill and cook 3 minutes per side.

Cucumber-Yogurt Sauce Ingredients
1 cup plain yogurt
1/2 cucumber, seeded and diced
1 tablespoon diced onion
1 lemon’s worth of zest
Pinch dried mint, I’ve also used fresh mint leaves before.
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

Cucumber-Yogurt Sauce Directions
Combine all ingredients. You may want to use a food processor, but if you do, only pulse a couple times to make a chunky sauce. Garnish with a sprig of fresh mint.

Enjoy!!! Please feel free to suggest other recipes for me to publish in the blog!

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I am working to add more fun information to my website that will be interesting to aspiring dancers and audiences alike. This has lead me to launch a new section on my site devoted to music. Starting with the basics, I want to let you know of a few of the unique instruments that are an elemental part of Middle Eastern music. Many of them are some of the oldest instruments in the world.

The Oud
The Oud is a stringed instrument commonly played in North African and Middle Eastern music. Similar to a guitar, its has a shorter neck and lacks the frets common to most stringed instruments.

The Doumbek
The doumbek is also considered to be an ancient instrument. Traditionally made from clay, wood or metal, the doumbek has a very thin drum head that gives it a very crisp sound.

The Ney or Nay
The nay is an end blown flute, historically made from reed or cane. Modern neys may be made of plastic or metal. The ney has 6 holes in the front and one in the back. Neys have been depicted in artwork for thousands of years and the oldest excavated neys are from 4500-5000 years ago.

Thanks for reading! There are many more instruments I could list here, this is just the tip of the iceberg, keep checking my site for updates!

You can find me every Thursday at 10pm at:

Havana Hookah
5050 N Cumberland Ave
Norridge Il, 60706

Also every Friday and Saturday at 11pm, with live music and dancing at:

Ultimate Cigar and Hookah
137 E North Ave
Villa Park Il, 60181

Mystic Fountain
8056 Lincoln Ave
Skokie, IL 60077

The class is only $5!!! Additionally, its for a good cause! These classes are organized by Mission Green Light who’s vision is to provide free breast cancer and heart screenings to uninsured and underprivileged women of Illinois. So come learn to belly dance for a good cause! For more info, please check out the meetup group.

Also see the classes section of my website for more info on taking belly dance classes.

I know it’s been a while since I have taught a class or a workshop, and this is such short notice, but I just wanted to let you know I will be teaching a one day workshop this weekend, on Sunday January 9th at 1:30pm.

The workshop will be held at:

Solao Fitness
1616 N Western Ave
Chicago, Il 60647

The workshop is an hour and a half long and will cover basic technique and a choreography. This will be an excellent first experience for those of you who have never danced before, but will also be a fun class for experienced dancers since we will be doing choreography. For more info on taking a belly dance class, please visit the classes section of my website.

Direct link for registration.

Solao Fitness’s Website

I will now be performing weekly on Saturdays at

Cafe Arabia
1046 N. Milwaukee
Chicago IL 60622

The show starts at around 11:30, so come by a little sooner, grab a table order a hookah, and get ready to dance with me!

Can’t wait to see everyone!

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Middle Eastern
Typically in Middle-Eastern nightclubs and restaurants in Chicago, you will find Belly Dancers wearing brightly colored, sequined and sparkly costumes doing an elegant and glamorous belly dance with lots of hip accents and fluid body and arm movements. This style encompasses a broad range of belly dance styles known by many names such as Oriental Dance, Raks Sharki, Cabaret. We use both traditional and contemporary music from Egypt, Turkey, Syria, Lebanon and other Middle-Eastern countries. These types of performances often include props such as veils, canes, swords and zils (finger cymbals).

I have a great deal of pride in my Belly Dance geneology. I received majority of my belly dance education from a wonderful Chicago dancer named Angelina, who is the daughter of an American belly dance legend Dahlena. Dahelna began her belly dance education in the nightclubs of Boston, which were dominated by belly dancers of Syria.

The wonderful style of belly dance which they gifted me with is often considered in the belly dance community to be a more “old fashioned” or “traditional” belly dance style. Dahlena emphasizes many techniques that she learned from women who would dance “homestyle” which I would describe ask quite simply, the way middle eastern people dance when they are home! Its the type of subtle hand, head, shoulder, and hip movements you will see the guests at middle-eastern parities and weddings doing. These movements are very traditional and fully middle-eastern flavored!

So if our style is “old-school” you might be wondering what the “new-school” style is. This destinction is highly debated and sometimes even controversial, but by my definition, the main differences I see in this “old-fashioned” verses more moderns styles are:

1. The Shimmy. If you look at my tutorial on The Shimmy Techniques you can see that there are two kinds of hip shimmies that are commonly used today. I associate The Leg Shimmy to be more of the modern way, and the The Glute Shimmy as more of the old fashioned way. Many dancers, myself included, have learned to incorporate both in their dance.
2. The Influence. Modern styles are much more heavily influenced by Jazz, Ballet and Modern dance. I think this is a wonderful thing to let a dance form grow and change within the context of the culture it is in. There is only one loss I think the modern style has had because of this influence and that is the internalization of many of the movements. Traditionally, belly dance has been a very “turned-in” style, in almost the opposite way that ballet is “turned-out”. Many “old-school” belly dance steps are even done pidgeon toed. This “turned-inness” translated to a beautiful internalization of the movements such as core contraction during undulations, and hip accents that are pulled up or in to the body. I feel like many modern dancers have neglected these subtleties that were very unique to belly dance.

In Chicago we are blessed with many talented dancers of both styles often in some combination. My Favorites are Angelina, Alexandria, Sabah (who is a traveling Belly Dance Super Star) and Vanessa (the current house dancer at Julianna’s Restaurant)

American Tribal
American Tribal Style is almost the rebellious second generation of belly dance. It originated in the west coast, specifically in San Francisco but a woman named Jamila Salimpour and her dance troupe Bal Anat.

Tribal dance is much more free form then other dance styles and dancers are very liberal with their techniques and costuming. They have broken all the rules of dance that have been adopted for hundreds of years (such as keeping shoulders down and back) in a way similar to hip-hop and pop dancing.

Tribal costuming is much more earth toned and dark often using tassels, coins, natural beads and darker fabrics.

Tribal dancers are very experimental and use alot of undulations, body contortions, back bends, pop and locks, and arm movements.

Some Chicago Tribal Dance groups are Blue Lotus Tribe, Read My Hips, and Hipnotic.

I know my knowledge about Tribal Belly dance is not very extensive, if you would like to contribute some information I would really appreciate it.

The show is about an hour an a half long and will have a variety of acts so please come check it out and enjoy! Tickets are $12 and really help support the local performing arts scene! Buy Tickets Now!

When?
This years week long workshop will be from July 31st to August 4th. Each day is from 11:30am to 4:30pm with a lunch break. Please Click Here for registration and payment options.

Instruction Style
Dahlenas workshops are geared more towards experienced dancers, although even newer students should not shy away from trying a day or two. She teaches advanced techniques, choreography and props. Her classes are fun and she often teaches in a “follow the leader” style which is a great way to play with the techniques she goes over. Dahlena uses a wide range of musical style from very classical to very contemporary. Her knowledge of Middle Eastern culture and belly dance history is unmatched by any instructor I have ever met. Her workshops are a unique pleasure.

Not To Be Missed
In addition to excellent instruction, Dahlena also brings with her a fabulous merchandise table. She sells costumes, warm up clothes, hip scarfs, veils, DVDs, CDs, and all kinds of other fun belly dancer-y stuff! It’s worth stopping by just to check that out!!