Fire Belly Dancing

There is nothing like dancing with fire…

When you hold something dangerous in your hands and your wow and amaze audience members with the skill and ability of moving and twirling with live fire…

The fire trails, the heat, the tricks are all what make fire performing unique

Article on Fire Poi performing: www.bellydancedivas.co.za/FirePoi.html

I must admit the very first time I picked up a pair of fire sticks and lit it for the first time, I was as scared as anything and went numerous times to the tap to extinguish the flame under the water.

I will never forget how my teacher once told me how she wanted to learn how to do fire breathing. She added in the same sentence: 'The guy who is going to teach it has a scar down his entire face though' which proved to me that even though you are in 'control' of the fire you are dancing with you can never 'tame it' and accidents do ultimately happen.

I have had many accidents with fire in the past. I was busy doing my tray routine at one of our Hafla's and while bouncing my candles on my stomach (I got a bit overconfident having done it many times before) and not paying much attention, it fell over, the wick fell out right next to me.

Well even though someone was on their way to help me, out of fear of burning myself I picked up the lit wick and whilst lit shoved it back into my candle holder and continued my routine completing the song.

Well needless to say I burnt my fingers pretty bad that night. Nothing to rush to the emergency room though but got burn cream put on and wrapped in a bandage (and yes all four fingers still work today).

The whole point of my example above is that however much amazing fire is and how much of an incredible display it shows, accidents happen, and you should always respect fire because as I said, you can be in control of it the way you dance with it but you can never tame it.

I love to perform with the following fire props:

Fire Sticks

Fire POI

Fire Shamadan

Fire Tray

Candles

I will be introducing Fire Sword and Fire Rope next into the curriculum.

         

Just check how awesome this must be to dance with, include some chinese sword dancing into the routine for the first picture and you will sure have a winner. As for the 2nd picture, well I think it speaks for itself.

Some of the fire performing photos of myself and my students over the years.

                            

    

 

Belly Dancing with Snakes

I had the greatest of pleasure many moons ago to come into contact with a very informative site on reptiles. A great love and passion I must admit shined through on this website and somewhere deep down inside I knew I had found the breeder that I wanted to learn all about reptiles from and ultimately purchase a snake to dance with.

CBGES - Exotic Morph Reptile Breeders and Conservationists (http://www.cbges.co.za/)

I was captured by his world of reptiles and saw animals I never knew existed. Beautiful 'morphs' as he put it with beautiful colours and patterns and WOW were they looked after and treated like kings and queens.

The above picture is of Christopher from CBGES in a photo shoot with one of his animals, an Iguana.

I have had the privelege since meeting Christopher to dance with his boas and pythons (both albino and normals) and have amazed and wowed audience members on them and at the same time educate people on how harmless in fact snakes are.

There is a lot of misconceptions on reptiles and CBGES is aim is to help alleviate these fears and grow a society whereby animals (including endangered) are appreciated and helped to repopulate the environment.

None the less, as informative as it was, CBGES offers various other services such as exotic reptile photo shoots, quarantine and boarding services, reptile education park, pet shop supplies, breeding programs and much more...



My first snake I bought, my gorgeous boy Ash.

Did a mini photo shoot with him by myself when I was pregnant 

Anyone who has anything to share about their love for snakes and reptiles, to please post to the blog.