College Park Rehab "Splendor of Egypt"

We always have a wonderful time dancing with our friends at College Park Rehab! We don't get many opportunities to perform our favorite Egyptian dances as we'd like, so we appreciated the chance to dust off our canes and saidi moves for this performance.

"Splendor of Egypt"
College Park Rehab
May 2017

College Park "Fourth of July!"

We had such a good time dancing at College Park in July! This was our first Fourth of July performance, and it was wonderful celebrating it with our friends at College Park. See you soon! :)

Atria Seville "Belly Dance Celebration!"

 



We always enjoy dancing for (and with!) our friends at Atria Seville, and our "Belly Dance Celebration!" in July was no exception. Thank you for celebrating the joy of Middle Eastern music and dance with us. We're looking forward to seeing you again soon!!







 

2015 Year in Review

2015 was a wonderful year for Desert Gypsies, and we are looking forward to another year of sharing the joy of Middle Eastern music and dance with you! As we begin this new year, we wish you a healthy, happy year ahead -- and hope your year includes an abundance of music and movement that delights you, body and soul. Happy new year!

Desert Gypsies
2015 Year in Review

Christmas at College Park!

We had a fantastic time celebrating the season at College Park Rehab last week, as you can see from our picture below. Ladies and gentlemen, we wish you a very merry Christmas, and a healthy, happy new year!

NADHC Belly Dance Celebration!

We had a tremendous time dancing for -- and in particular, dancing with! -- our new friends at NADHC today. Wow, you ladies and gents know how to get up and shimmy! Thank you so much for inviting us to celebrate the joy of music and dance with you. We look forward to dancing with you again soon...!

Ren Faire 2015!

Did you make it to Ren Faire this year? We had a fantastic time performing, as you can see from the pictures below! If you didn't make it, don't worry...we'll be posting more pictures and videos soon!

Ren Faire Ready!

Las Vegas Renaissance Faire 2014
"Gypsy Show"

So, are you ready for Ren? We're ready for the Las Vegas Renaissance Faire! We're proud to announce we'll be performing four entirely different shows this year, all on the Shifting Sands stage:

We'll be performing our Arabic show on Friday, October 9th,  at 3 PM.

Saturday we're excited to present our Gypsy show at 1 PM, and we'll return to the stage with a flamenco-influenced show at 3:15 PM.

On Sunday, stop by at 2 PM to check out our Eastern Mediterranean show, inspired by music and dance from Greece, Lebanon, and Armenia.

If you've seen our shows before, you'll be happy to hear we're introducing many new songs, choreos, costuming, and props. There's something new in every show! We're excited to share our passion for Middle Eastern music and dance with you, and look forward to seeing you soon.

Throwback Thursday!

We're busy gearing up for the Las Vegas Renaissance Faire in October, and we're excited to share that we'll be introducing new music, choreography, props, and costuming. Naturally, that's keeping us busy until October, so today we'd like to call your attention to our recently updated Photo Gallery, where you can enjoy a sampling of the shows we've done since Desert Gypsies hit the road as a professional troupe back in June 2012. We've done holiday shows for Mardi Gras, Halloween, and Christmas; themed shows ranging from Arabic to Spanish to Mediterranean; and we've performed at venues as varied as the Las Vegas Belly Dance Intensive to the West Charleston Library.

Enjoy! -- and we'll see you soon at Ren Faire 2015!

Christmas Music...Middle East Instruments!

 

I'll be honest: I love Arabic music. That said, I especially prefer Christmas songs performed on Middle Eastern instruments. To me, there's nothing more appropriate than listening to music about a man born in the Middle East being played on Middle Eastern instruments!

I'm sharing links to amazon.com, but they're also available on iTunes and elsewhere. Enjoy!

My first Middle Eastern Christmas album was this one, "A Time of Peace," by Brothers of the Baladi. It's equally as enjoyable to listen to as it is to dance to...Take a listen!

Naser Musa's version of "Jingle Bells" is Desert Gypsies' favorite rendition of this classic song! Check it out, and the rest of Musa's beautiful album titled "Christmas and Beyond," at this link.



The title of George Sadak and Fae Wiedenhoeft's album says it all! "Christmas Tapestry--East Meets West" is a wonderful fusion of Eastern and Western music and instrumentation. Sadak provides the Middle Eastern rhythms, while Wiedenhoeft's angelic voice covers the lyrics. But don't take my word for it...Listen to the gorgeousness here for yourself!


 

Ren Faire 2014!!

We had such a wonderful time performing at Ren Faire this year! We especially want to thank all of our friends who joined us for our performances. It's a real delight to look out into the audience and see a familiar face or two! We're already looking forward to next year's Ren Faire. :) Here's a pic from our last performance, but if that's just not enough dance for you (and we hope it isn't!), check out our Video Gallery. Huzzah!

Las Vegas Renaissance Faire 2014!!

We're seriously excited about Ren Faire next week, in part because we're looking forward to sharing some exciting new music and choreography with our audiences! Here's our schedule on the Shifting Sands Belly Dance stage:

Friday, October 9th, 3 PM -- "Mediterranean Delights"
Friday, October 9th, 5:30 PM -- dancing with Tribe Al-Wadi
Friday, October 9th, 8 PM -- "Spanish Nights"
Saturday, October 10th, 4 PM -- "Arabic Dreams"
Saturday, October 10th, 5:30 PM -- dancing with Tribe Al-Wadi
Sunday, October 11th, 3 PM -- "Mediterranean Delights"

We look forward to seeing you at Ren!! :)

Las Vegas Renaissance Faire 2014!!

The Ren Faire is definitely one of our favorite places to perform, and this year, we're excited to share that we'll be performing more often than we have in previous years. Desert Gypsies will be on the Shifting Sands stage as follows:

Friday, October 9th, at 3 PM
Friday, October 9th, at 8 PM
Saturday, October 10th, at 4 PM
Sunday, October 11th, at 3 PM

We'll also be dancing with Tribe Al-Wadi on Friday and Saturday from 5:30-6:30 PM on the Shifting Sands stage. We hope to see you there!

"Juntos"
Las Vegas Renaissance Faire 2013

Atria Seville -- "Splendor of Egypt!"

We thoroughly enjoyed everything about our performance at Atria Seville last Friday! We love exploring classic Egyptian music and dance, and we have equally as much fun experimenting with more modern elements, too. Above all, we had a fantastic time seeing our good friends in the audience, and chatting with them after our performance. We <3 you, Atria Seville! :)

Las Vegas Belly Dance Intensive 2014!!

We had a terrific time performing at the LVBDI for the second year in a row! -- and we had even more fun connecting with old friends, making new friends, and watching the dancing. Lililililiiiii!

Las Vegas Belly Dance Intensive
September 4, 2014

Quinceanera Fun!

We had the privilege of performing at a friend's quinceanera last weekend, and we had a terrific time! It was also a perfect opportunity to explore some new choreography and costuming, and delve a bit deeper into flamenco and gypsy music and dance. We'll be revisiting this costuming, and much of the music and dance, at the Renaissance Faire in October. Until then...!Jale!

Word of the Week: Habibi

Many years ago, I was at a Persian restaurant with a friend, and got to chatting with a man who spoke Arabic. I asked him what habibi meant, as I'd heard it in practically every Arabic song, and thought it'd be good to know. He told me habibi means darling, sweetheart, beloved, etc., so it's no surprise it's an oft-used word!

Sometimes you'll hear the phrase ya habibi. In Arabic, "ya" is used before a name or endearment to clarify that you're speaking directly to someone. A reasonable translation to English would be "My darling."

PirateFest Performance Update!!

Yes, our performance schedule has changed again, but it's good news...PirateFest invades Lorenzi Park tomorrow! -- and Desert Gypsies is ready to take the Main Stage at 4:45 PM. If you can't make it that early, we'll be performing again on the Second Stage at 6 PM. Assuming the wind isn't too fierce, the second show will be entirely different, so if you catch our first show, we hope you'll stop by to rak with us again. See you then!

PirateFest 2013