Jamila salimpour biography samples pdf

When I moved to Berkeley, California in , it was alive with students who, stimulated by the Indian music of Ravi Shankar, were ready to listen to and look at yet another foreign import from the Middle East. The reaction to my dance ads was encouraging, and I watched as students absorbed the movements and transitions, and began responding to the music.

Teacher, researcher, and innovator Jamila Salimpour was definitely the right dancer in the right place at the right time.

As my teaching techniques became more refined from the experience of teaching four classes each week, the students began to learn more quickly. Three of my teenage students who were attending Berkeley High at the time taught what they had learned to all their girlfriends, and they in turn taught all their girlfriends. The ensuing result was spontaneity, yes, technique, no—but nobody seemed to care!

Jamila Salimpour with snake, Rennaisance Faire, Many of the students were disappearing from my Saturday classes. I was in for a professional shock when one of them invited me to what they called the Renaissance Pleasure Faire, which they had been attending on Saturdays. They explained that it was an arty affair, like a huge outdoor circus set in the sixteenth century.

Jugglers, magicians, mummers, Punch and Judy, and any type of entertainment was encouraged. One enticement was that anyone who came in costume, period or otherwise, was admitted without charge. I was admitted free because I was covered from neck to ankles in a Bedouin costume, which constituted being in costume to the Faire people. The scene I encountered upon entering the Faire was beyond belief.

Jamila Salimpour Part I; Jamila Salimpour Part II; Jamila Salimpour Part III. Biographical video by Suhaila, very informative.

I tried to make my way, either crawling at a snails pace or being immobilized completely, because every five feet a crowd was gathered around a wiggling novice, completely abandoned in her interpretation. One of my students recognized me, and pulled me along to meet the entertainment coordinator, an exhausted, harassed woman by the name of Carol Le Fleur.

But there are just too many of them.