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Vashti has over twenty years of experience teaching and performing belly dance. The former Artistic Director for Bellydance Odyssey Productions/Dance Odyssey Studio, Vashti is an award-winning performer and choreographer. Vashti has studied and performed a variety of stylizations within the "belly dance diaspora" but has dedicated her focus to the Suhaila Salimpour Format for the past seven years. Vashti became certified in Level 3 of Suhaila Salimpour's format in 2009 and has assisted Suhaila in both domestic and international workshops. In 2008, Vashti released an instructional DVD produced by Cheeky Girl Productions featuring her signature Spanish Gypsy stylization with Suhaila Salimpour's technical format.

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Sunday, May 3, 2009

Fusion

I don't really know what it means anymore. I mean, I know that most belly dancers (at least those who are being intellectually honest) consider themselves fusion artists at some level. Truly, how can an American dancer learning a dance form with origins in Middle Eastern cultural contexts be anything but a fusion artist?

It is interesting though, that other dance forms are struggling with notions of "fusion." This from a letter to the editor in the March 2009 edition of Dance Magazine:

"But pushing the boundaries of traditional dance does not mean always fusin it with a contemporary dance vocabulary. There are so many aspects that must be developed beyond the movement: rhythmic complexity, ability to improvise within the structure, as well as storytelling, poetry, singing and recitation."

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