Beladi d' Baja
2004
Kim and myself decided to take a mini working vacation and attend the Rhythm and Movement workshop organized by Basilion Enterprises and taught by the exceptional team of Souhail Kaspar, Angelika Nemeth, and John Belezekian. We had heard about the 2003 workshop but were unable to attend. After taking the local iteration at Orange Coast College I knew we had to go this time around. It was certainly worth it.
We packed Kim's car full of ourselves and two other dancers attending the workshop and headed down to Mexico early Friday morning. Scheduling worked out nicely and we arrived in San Felipe in time to get lunch and wander around town to get our bearings. San Felipe is a sleepy little fishing town isolated from everywhere; all the "towns" marked on the map between there and the Mexicali crossing turned out to be nothing more than a few run-down buildings on the side of the road. Talk about remote. While eating at one of the beachside food vendors Kim discovered that she didn't have to go shopping as the shopping came to her; I felt in defense of our funds the meal needed to be cut short.
In the evening we met with fellow students and the teachers at the opening cocktail party at the hotel. Linda and Charlie gave us a rundown of our busy schedule over the next couple of days and got some final administrative items settled. We also discovered that the workshop had basically taken over the hotel for the weekend. Since we were still tired from the 7 hour drive down we turned in early.
Saturday started early with coffee and a nice chat with Charlie on the patio. It was a nice, yet odd beginning to the day as I have never watched a sunRISE over the ocean. Eventually dancers began to drag themselves out of bed and things got rolling. Charlie organized a couple of caravans to lead students to the local Rotary Club--"Rotario" in Spanish as we all called it--to get classes going. Once driving up the dirt road to the building we got settled in and started class. We started with a drum class taught by Souhail. Several of us, myself included, were familiar with the concepts. Many dancers discovered the difficulties of the classical style of play. After a lunch break Souhail and Angelika conducted a brief lecture, then we moved on to the dance class. Those of us born with two left feet stuck with the drums (that means me), while the rest began to digest Angelika's choreography. Several dancers experienced their first opportunity to dance to live drumming. Once we were all worn out, class let out for dinner. We had a couple of hours to rest up and for the dancers performing to prepare.
Evening found us all back at the Rotario for the show. What can I say to sum up this show? Yes, it's a low-key production and all the dancers except Angelika were "students" that day--some even had their first experience with live drummers only hours before; the lighting was primarily Home Depot work lights. The sound system gave John fits. But with all that, it was magical. John and Souhail gave a terrific performance, truly enjoying making music and pulling us all in with them. This extracted more out of the dancers than they knew they had in them--Souhail giving each a drum solo calculated to push each dancer beyond where she thought her abilities ended.
The next morning I discovered Souhail is as sick as I am--we ran into each other at 7 AM getting coffee in the hotel lobby. Following another nice breakfast chatting with the instructors and fellow students, we all headed back to the Rotario for more classes. We start up with more dance class accompanied by drummers. We got a brief break while one student played bee hunter with Angelika's book. After breaking for lunch we got a final drum class. Then John came down and the instructors gave a lecture with many fascinating tangents. The day finished up with dancers getting a final session running through Angelika's choreography while several of us went back to the hotel for a Maqsoum lecture by John--again filled with fascinating tangents.
I got to make a brief side trip as my dancers-carpoolers and I had a slight miscommunication and they ended up getting dropped off in the San Felipe shopping district, not the hotel. I think to myself "oh, God, three unattended dancers with money, cheap alcohol, and shopping that comes to them!" Never mind the abundant pot holes, I've got to get down there soon! I found them still sipping on giant margaritas and financial disaster is averted.
To finish up the weekend with a bang Linda threw a birthday party for Charlie and Angelika. And, oh what a party. Much of the evening we were serenaded by John and his talented wife with songs ranging from the expected Middle Eastern tunes through Russian folk songs to Beatles, Country, and everything in between. Taking advantage of the lack of curfew in Mexico--and the fact that we had taken over the hotel--several of Souhail's advanced students and myself (no, I'm not there...yet) drummed for the last die-hard dancers well into the evening.
This workshop was an amazing experience and I can't wait until next year to do it again. If you are a dancer or drummer, do yourself a favor and find a way to make it.
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