MED-Dance List and Digest. This is the grandma of all the Middle Eastern Dance news groups and info exchanges. (Was happening in 1994!) Many thanks to the wonderful Eileen Bauer who made it all happen. Click the link to get Shira's very nice discussion of a list-serve is and how to enroll in this particular one and maybe a few words on using archives. I'm too tired to explain. If you decide you want to subscribe be prepared for lots of mail. When I belonged I opted for the digest--one huge email a day was often more than enough. However, using the digest makes it harder to post to the list should you become inflamed and experience a burning need to share. Advice--use the list for what it's worth. There's good information and news to be found on it; there are also great gobs of self promotion and posturing. And rumors. Don't get yourself all glamoured away about how important everyone says she is. In this game you are just about as major as the next person, and don't you ever forget it.
GATEWAYS AND FRONT
DOORS:
MSN Groups type in search terms to
find groups to join.
Be sure to try all possible relevant
terms--you'll get different groups using "Middle Eastern Dance", "belly
dance" and "bellydance". Locally it includes the Eastern PA MiddleEasternDanceClub
and Middle Eastern Dance in South Jersey groups (see below).
Topica Groups -
same kind of stuff as MSN & Yahoo in a different place. Easy to
join and to post.
Lycos
Communities - just this one and maybe another one or two.
Middle
Eastern dance interest groups on Yahoo - clicking here will find you over 150 groups to join.
but first you'll have to register with Yahoo. Advice--sign up
for a free email account with Yahoo and/or Hotmail and use it for your
newsgroups. Keep your regular email inbox uncluttered that way
and have all your news in one neat place.
OrientalDancer.net
- Resource site by Oregon dancer Salome with listings of dancers, music,
talent agencies plus song lyrics, discussions and more.
Bhuz.com/ Bhuz.com is a very slick
members only group promoting itself, its members, their events and merchandise,
plus discussion boards and surveys. Free membership.
Yahoo
Main MED listing page. take off for everywhere from here.
http://dir.yahoo.com/Arts/Performing_Arts/Dance/Folk_and_Traditional/Middle_Eastern/
Webring - search for Middle Eastern
Dance and you'll find a number of webrings leading you to new sites
to visit. Webring, now an independent entity would like a donation
but it's not required.
RingSurf - also
a place to search for Middle Eastern Dance and you'll find a number
of webrings leading you to new sites to visit.
Joy
of Belly Dancing - Yasmina from Arizona's website has an
abundance of links to dancers, vendors, musicians, organizations and
various gateways.
The Chronicles - A Dancer's Oasis. New. From Isis and the Star Dancers of Dallas/Ft. Worth, TX.
Habibi Magazine - Stella is the new proud Momma of the USA's premier print journal of Middle Eastern Dance and Music. The first issue due out late in 2006. See HabibiMagazine.com website for updates and publication news as well as contact information. All previous advertising and subscription commitments are being honored.
Jareeda- West Coast, again. Kinda nice and friendly. Classifieds and listings!
Wiggle Hips - Again Western (Nevada) and nice and folksy.
Zaghareet - East Coast. New management. Looks good. Something of a merchanting plan is afoot.
The Gilded Serpent - on-line out of SF. Very stylish.
Middle-Eastern Dance in New England - Hats off to Amy Smith for all she's done on-line and in print.
THE Magic Carpet Review - Melina tells us it "is a small local newsletter about Middle Eastern dance and related subjects. We distribute mainly throughout PA, NJ, NY, MD and DEL. " For contact information click HERE.
Papyrus Newsletter - published monthly by North Texas Middle Eastern Dance Association.
The Hip Circle.- Neon's new on-line venture with articles and listings
AFSANA - Finnish with international links in English. Lots happening overseas...check it out!
DANCEARABIC - UK and international focus. First issue due out in November of 2004. Click the link for full details and subscription form.
MOISAIC MAGAZINE - Describes itself as Britain's top Oriental Dance magazie. Publishes three times a year.
RAKAS - From Australia. Focus is middle eastern dance and culture.
TANZ ORIENTAL - In German from Germany
REGIONAL RESOURCES:
Bellydance
Pro is
a new online Yahoo newsgroup for NY area dancers on which dancers discuss
employment issue and other matters related to public performance.
BellydanceWeb.Com many useful links
to useful regional sites.
The International Academy of Middle
Eastern Dance - http://www.bellydance.org/iamed.html. For more
information about IAMED, contact Suzy Evans at (818) 343-4410 or send
e-mail to iamed@bellydance.org.
LA awards, info. National and international with a SoCal epicenter.
Middle Eastern Dance Association -
Canada
Yahoo
Regional listings: some of them are still alive.
Middle-Eastern Dance in New England Amy
Smith has combined a first class directory and journal of dance doings
in New England
Belly Dance Florida - We all have
friends there and this site is a descendant of BDNY via the late SoFlaBD.
http://search.msn.com then search under
"Middle Eastern dance." Hey, I'll set it up for you: http://search.msn.com/results.aspx?q=middle+eastern+dance&FORM=SMCRT.
My last seach netted 206543 listings containing 'belly dance'
when I didn't qualify the search terms.
Eastern
PA Middle Eastern Dance Club - Mission statement: "The
Eastern PA Middle Eastern Dance Club is a fun and dynamic belly dance
group located in the greater Philadelphia area." http://groups.msn.com/EasternPAMiddleEasternDanceClub/home.htm
Middle
Eastern Dance in South Jersey - Mission statement: "A small information sharing community
for belly dancers who live, take lessons, teach, or perform in Southern
New Jersey."
http://bellydancesource.homestead.com/Index.html
is the creation of Schehera
in Dayton, Ohio and will include several directories including events
and people. You can get yourself listed.
The Art of Middle Eastern Dance. Lots
of useful links and information and music sources and lyrics and people
and more. We really like Shira and her work. Performer/teacher
listings from all over. Yes, even you... at http://www.shira.net.
North Texas Middle
Eastern Dance Association - NTMEDA publishes Papyrus Newsletter
and has links to other western sites and associations.
www.sca.org The main Society for Creative Anachronism website. For a fairly complete list of local SCA organizations see the SCA Groups Page on this site.
The Sacred Dance Guild
Alexia sends us, "See http://bellydance.meetup.com/." I took a fast look and figured it was a harmless way to foster a sense of community. Caveat: Fees for Plus Services. (I don't know what those are.)
http://www.bdancer.com/ Stefan's original
links site not updated since '98. Some of the links live on.
Stefan's a guy named David from Oregon. He also adopted the
original M. E. D. webring, This ring, created in 1997 by Stacey Andrews
(aka Anoushig, Éireann), was transferred to Stefan January 1, 1999.
It's the old one with the fancy font and the flickering flames.
Kimberly
Cyr's site from '96ish came to rest with Stefan when Kim finished
her doctorate and got married: http://www.bdancer.com/med-guide/
will get you to it. (The original URL was http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/~kimberly/medance/medance.html
but the only place you'll find it is in un-updated search engines.
It's gone 404: Not Found.) Starting in Arizona and then branching out
into the rest of the country Kim poured through the print media to find
and list everyone she could. No sites to raid for instant gratification
back then, if you catch my drift. Lots
of pictures and a very different regional feel for the dance can be found
on another long time resource site: The Bellydance Gallery
at http://www.geocities.com/Broadway/Stage/7429/ by Jeff Obermann.
Gone
but not forgotten: The first NYC site was put up by Devon Schuyler
and called New York Belly Dancer. BDNY is my expansion of
what Devon started. Like most of us at that time Devon did her site in
order to learn html. WYSIWYG editors were very bad, hand coding
the norm, and it was a triumph to manage consistent indentations, forget
about inserting tables. Devon's site looked good.