MEET THE TEACHER

Fayme Zelena Harper You can see by my blue eyes why I choose the name Sapphira to dance under.  As the years went by, other dancers chose that name.  I haven't found anyone who has had it longer than I have.  But I did lengthen it to Sapphira of Alexandria to avoid confusion.

It is my philosophy of teaching that instead of teaching dancers a set choreography, that I teach them a multitude of steps, transitions between steps, acting, and theater skills.  I help them to get in touch with their primal dance intuition.  Deep inside of every dancer is an instinctive desire to move in time to the ancient drummers and pipers from long ago.  That memory lives in our soul awaiting discovery.  Routines lock us into a set format.  That gives some dancers a feeling of security and that works well for a time.  But then that yearning to express yourself uniquely starts hammering to get out.       Improvisation allows for each dancer to be the unique soul that they are.  It is scary at first, admittedly.  I am asking them to do something that is as fleeting as an irisdescent bubble on a spring breeze.  Once the dance is danced it is gone forever.      I was never comfortable with the choreography of others.  Nothing fits your body and spirit better than steps you've tried on for size and then modified to work for you.  Every time you hear the music, you can dance it in a new way to match your mood, skills, and spirit at the moment of creation.  Granted, many dancers never get to this level.  They plod along year after year content to move in a group with everyone else.  But my goal is to create mavericks in the dance.  We are truly dancing to a different drummer.       Did you know dance choreograhy belongs to the person that created it, who is often your teacher?  If you leave the troupe, she may ask you to cease performing any of the routines you learned.  Wouldn't you rather know how to dance on a gut level, so you can take the dance with you when you move on?

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LINKS My older web pages-contact info is outdated but the how to articles will be helpful::  Gypsy Productions MECDA Middle Eastern Dance and Cultural Association One of the places I teach dance. Learning Light Foundation