Weekly Bellydance classes in Edinburgh

 Coming home..

Well… it’s been so long since I wrote in my blog that I’ve almost forgotten how.. and 6 years since I left Egypt... I need to update the header for the blog too!!

Hello again!

Guess what? I’ve been back in Edinburgh after my 10 years in Cairo for quite some years now.. but it’s only now that I feel I’ve truly come home. The reason? 

I’m setting up new weekly classes!  

For the past 16 years I’ve been an international performer and have been teaching workshops around the world as well as teaching some online private classes. Before all that I used to teach 25 classes per week, and I did it for years. I had over 400 students every week around Scotland! 

Heres a couple of photos of me, taken by a local newspaper, on Portobello beach, just before I headed off 16 years ago to live in Cairo!

How young and slim I was back then with my hair dyed black to 'look more Egyptian'!

I loved those pyramids made from sandbags on the beach, such a great idea. 

Although I don’t intent to work those crazy hours again (and of course I will continue to travel to perform and teach workshops) I have decided that what I am REALLY missing are those regular human connections that I made during all those classes with my students. 

So, new weekly classes in Portobello, Edinburgh, Scotland, start next week.. 27th October 2022

Rather than teach in a swanky mirrored dance studio, for these classes, I’ve decided to keep it local and am using an amazing building close to my home. It’s a beautiful old church, Bellfield, which was set to be redeveloped into houses, but the people of Portobello objected and won their case, and it has became a community hub, run by and for our local community! I decided that ‘it’s the people that count’ is the premise for how I want my classes to run! 

Yes, I’ll miss having mirrors it’s true, but I’ve always found deep friendships and connections blossom every more in classes where we are not all staring at ourselves in the mirror! I’m looking forward to not only teaching people to dance, but to facilitating the forming of new friendships and allowing freedom of self expression through dance. I know the vast majority of my friends have been made through bellydance, so I’m pretty evangelist about this!!! 

As well as introducing new beginners to this wonderful world of bellydance, I also want to gather in a lot of the dancers who have gotten lost along the way, who haven’t been to classes for years, who have lost their dance mojo, for various reasons, and feel shy about coming back. Let’s rebuild this wonderful supportive dance community! 

Please do come along if you can, and even if you can’t, feel free to spread the word for me! 

Thursday night weekly classes commence 27th Oct 2022 at Bellfield, 16b Bellfield street, Portobello, Edinburgh, EH15 2BP

Beginners Bellydance 

Thurs 18.15-19.15 

Small hall 

A fun, low impact, stress relieving way to exercise at the same time as meeting new friends and learning about a different dance form , music and culture. Great for all ages and levels of fitness and ability. NOT required to bare your belly, but of course you can if you want to! We dance barefoot, but you can wear soft shoes or grippy socks if you prefer. Wear loose comfortable clothing and bring water and a scarf you can tie round your hips. Prepare to have fun! Beginners only! 

Next Level Bellydance

19.30-20.30 

Big hall

A class for anyone who has bellydanced before, either recently or some time ago, to whatever level. Not suitable for complete beginners. We will refresh basics of course but this class hopes to develop dance skills and the large hall allows for us working on props and travelling moves too! A suitable class for Bellydance improvers, intermediate and advanced alike. 

Payment can be made on a drop in basis (I’m aware no everyone’s lives allow them to be in the same place every week!) which is £10 per class or the 8 week term can be block booked which makes it more affordable at £68 for the term. 

Payments can be made in cash, BACS or PayPal (contact me directly for details for those) 

I am so looking forward to this ‘coming home’ to being a regular teacher again. I’ve missed you all!! 

For those who live a bit further away and can’t attend a weekly class, I’m also going to be teaching a 2hr monthly workshop, here in Edinburgh at a different community centre in Portobello, The Washhouse, 3 Adelphi Place, Portobello, Edinburgh, EH15 1AP

These workshops will run in symbiotic style alongside the amazing monthly Rose halfa that my good friend and fellow dancer, Natalie Borg organises. Each month the halfa has a theme… and the next one, on 12th Nov will be “All that Jazz” so I have decided to create a workshop topic to fit with her theme! 

Jazz Hands!

4-6pm Sat 12th Nov. 

Washhouse community centre, Portobello. 

Two hours focusing on something most of us find most challenging within bellydance, arms! We will work out some fun a new ways to use our upperbody, hands and arms and hopefully take away those droopy arms and unnecessarily twirly hands!! Elegance, power and connection are the keys! Mixed level workshop. Must have basic bellydance technique. 

for the workshop, Payment of £20 can be made to me by cash, BACS or PayPal. Please whichever method you choose, contact me in advance to reserve your spot! 

So… it’s all going on! If you are only following this blog and haven’t yet followed me on social media, please do so since I post much more frequently there!

Instagram- LornaofCairo

Facebook- Lorna of Cairo (aka Bellylorna!)

Facebook group- Bellfield Bellydance classes

If you aren’t on the socials, you can email me directly at bellylorna@hotmail.com

If you’d like to know more about the monthly haflas (arabic for for a party!), to book a slot to perform or a ticket to attend, please check out Natalie’s website… 

www.rosesunderthemoon.com/haflas

See you on the dancefloor! 

(if you are interested in classes but live further afield, I am still teaching online one to one coaching sessions... feel free to contact me about those!)

We all shimmy together

I'm still alive! I think, to do my best blogging, I need to ban myself from both twitter and Facebook! Those I seem to manage to comment in ever day... And my poor blog gets left behind!

Here on my blog, you get a more in-depth Lorna, but if you want a little bit of Lorna daily then I recommend you follow me there, if you are not already!

Home for a few days now, full of a stinking cold. The problem with the pollution in Cairo, is that once you get sick, it always seems to take so much longer to get well again without the oxygen to help you! But hey ho, I will live. As my mum always says, 'oh Lorna, buck up, it's JUST a cold'! But a cold can really bring you down can't it?!

So I am staying home, trying to catch up on all the preparation I want to do before I head to china in two weeks time. For those of you who know me well, you will know that the word preparation and Lorna don't really fit together. I am a 'fly by the seat of my pants' kinda girl. I like the excitement and the freedom and the creativity that is involved in improvising. Whether that is improvising a performance or a workshop. I love living in the moment, connecting to what my audience and/or students are feeling and responding to and taking it form there. It's the interaction that I love more than anything. So the idea of having to come up with a month of lesson plans gives me a mental block, but I am trying. Wish me luck.

A couple of weeks ago I was in UK teaching and performing in Newcastle, UK.

It was my first time teaching in Newcastle, and I loved meeting the dancers there. I was honoured to be asked to teach the JTA, which is a group of bellydance teachers who wanted to meet together at regular intervals to share information and support each other. Such a noble and worthy cause! So I was asked along to teach the teachers, and what a lovely group they were too.

Often once dancers start teaching they become isolated. Despite standing in front of up to hundreds of women every week in class, I remember when I was teaching full time, how lonely I felt and that I had no one I could turn to for advice about problems with students, advertising, how to teach mixed level classes etc etc the list is endless. I struggled alone, and didn't see any other option at the time. These women are doing it right. Seeing each other not as competition but as colleagues, supporting each other and therefore the UK dance scene as a whole. If you haven't heard of it, and want to get and give support as a UK teacher I recommend you contact them about how to join!

Www.theJTA.org  is their website, which is still under reconstruction, however you can get info via a link on there. You need to have done a JWAAD safety course to join, but you do not have to be a JWAAD qualified teacher (which is the bit most dancers don't realize!). I recommend it, to all Bellydance teachers. Whatever 'style' you teach or 'school' you are from. Let's unite and help each other to build Bellydance in the UK rather than all feeling we have to do it alone!

Now, what I would like is an organization to link all the professional bellydancers in Cairo together, to share and help each other. To stand together against unfair treatment and pay. That's what we need now. A Cairo bellydancers union. A pipe dream, unfortunately. It would take a stronger woman than me to set it up, that's for sure!

Here's a pic of me performing in Newcastle. A relaxed fun very enjoyable evening. I look forward to returning to Newcastle as soon as I can!