Picture of the bellydance museum in Christies catalog

Was so proud when the new spring catalogue of the Christie's auction house dropped in my mailbox. It had one of the pictures of the Bellydance Museum inside (a Ouled Nail dancer)

Hatshepsut video posted

Hatshepsut part 1 was inpired by one of the most remarkable women in history, the queen Pharao Hatshepsut also known as Maatkare. Or rather the Queen who was the King of Egypt during the 18th Dynasty.
Her famous expedition to Punt (Hatshepsut part 2 on the Tribal bellydance CD)

Now on I-tunes

Bellydance revolutions now available on I-Tunes

phobos.apple.com/WebObject.../viewAlbum
Spice up your i-pod

Feeling released!

Bellydance revolutions available on CDbaby:

cdbaby.com/cd/abdel3

Took more time than expected but wanted to have everything right. By submitting your work to the general public you can only hope that they like it. Now everything is out of control. It's always a risk to let your creativity go without being limited by producers, musicians, record companies, managers and so on...
Being in charge of everything is not easy and it's good to have some feedback on what you do. Fortunately I was able to work with really fine musicians from Iraq, Lebanon and Belgium.

NEW track "Tribalistic" now online

Another extract of the forthcoming Abdel Hazim album "Bellydance revolutions" has been put online on the myspace page, featuring some nice kaval interventions of A. Braulio.
check it out here:
www.myspace.com/tribalistic

Besides, the picture is of Beba, a famous egyptian dancer of the first part of the 20 th century.

Out now CD "BELLYDANCE REVOLUTIONS"

Mr Abdulrasol of Iraq (picture) played qanoun on 5 tracks of the album.

Zarmina, Harmattan, Bellydance Revolutions, Beledia and Takkasim qanoun

Enneagram

Dance and surrender

My experience of taking dance classes is rather limited to a few years. One of the most important things I learned

was that I could only follow the complex movements by not using my mind but simply surrender myself to the music an

get in sync with the group. And isn't syncronicity a essential part of doing in ATS or Tribal style?
Surrender is also essential in the dance of the whirling derwish were the sheik stands for the sun and the dancers

arround him for the planets, taken to a higher plane it extend to the galaxies and beyond.
Why I tell you this? Well one of the titles of the new Abdel Hazim CD "Bellydance revolutions" is called 'Enneagram'. So just in case somebody wonders about the title, this is a part of the explanation.

Funkabelly music to listen to

soon out now: the third Abdel Hazim album featuring funkabelly, fusion, tribal and bellywood

Listen free to some tracks here on preview:

www.bellydance.be/tribalistic.php

Bellydance in Songlines and the Gaza

today I received the UK magazine songlines with Björk on the cover. (Issue 44). And the same day I found out that the magazine is now also available in Belgium in the oxfam shops (At least in Antwerp)

One of the main articles was on bellydance and it gave good and accurate information.
What I found very intriguing and worring in the article, is that they wrote that the Palestinian authority planned to ban bellydance in the Gaza.
I had a book with a picture (an engraving) of belly dance in the Gaza and the same antique book had an entire section describing this dance in the Gaza in 1876!

Bellydance in Japan

Yesterday i received a nice magazine on bellydance in Japan. Since I cannot read japanes, I only could admire the pics. The name of the magazine is "Bellydance" and it offered also a section on the history of bellydance. On which the historical pictures where my contribution; as the are a part of the bellydance museum (www.belly-dance.org)

And... btw i posted some new tracks on myspace: www.myspace.com/tribalistic

The CD will be released soon and these are some rough tracks; I'm waiting for reactions as to what i should change or whatever critics there might be.

Of course if you like the music you may say so too!