Davina - Dawn Devine

01/02/2025

Fam-Jam January 2025 - Nerdy Fun!

01/02/2025

Quick visit to see - wd took our mum out to the Riverside to stroll the car museum and the Colorado river!

15/01/2025

It's time to finish the 30th anniversary of my first book, "Costuming From the Hip." All throughout 2024, I slowly marinated in this project. After 30 years as a professional costume maker, there's so much I want to add, change, expand upon, and rewrite to craft my best costuming book. My goal in 2025 is to spend more time working on this book, so I'm carving out more time to write and transcribe the content for "Costuming From the Hip: 30th Anniversary Edition." This means more time spent in cafés and coffee shops, libraries and lobbies, and taking big breaks for deep dives in personal writing retreats....

It’s time to finish the 30th anniversary of my first book, “Costuming From the Hip.” All throughout 2024, I slowly marinated in this project. After 30 years as a professional cost…

15/01/2025

After a break - even m back at work in the studio working with my friends to build a couple of simple but elegant belly dance looks. .wz

Costume is for “Costuming From the Hip” 30th Anniversary edition!

09/11/2024

One week: Fabulous Fall Festival! Visit Babdama.org for all the deets and be sure to sign up for the newsletter - to receive the last newsletter and catch a subscriber bonus!

Save the Date: Fabulous Fall Festival 2024 - Saturday November 16, 2023 - We return to the Grant Community Park in Los Altos, Ca with another year of fun!

06/11/2024

Todays vibe
“Her Thoughts are with her Eyes” by Sir Lawrence Alma Tadema

31/10/2024

Dancers at the Turkish Exhibit, Chicago World Fair 1893.

This page is from the original Souvenir Program for the Turkish Theater on the Midway. This theater was sensationally titled the "Oriental Odeon."

A Primary Source - But Highly Inaccurate

If you lead in and read this caption there's some interesting information, not all of it true. I believe the dance "Delkey" is actually the line-dance the Debke.

However one of these ladies is American, not Syrian.

Can you guess which one is "A Local Girl" just by looking at the photo?

I'll be back tomorrow for the answer - and how we know!

30/10/2024

1893, Chicago World's Fair - One of the venues you could see belly dancing was the Street of Constantinople exhibit. According to advertisements, you would see dancers with "Elegant Costumes" performing to music by the "Oriental Orchestra."

However, this exhibit was simply not as fancy or as inviting as the Streets of Cairo just a few doors down.

17/10/2024

We're a month out from our annual belly dance event:
Fabulous Fall Festival!

Here on Facebook, our event organization group, BABDAMA (Bay Area Belly Dance and Music Association) hosts a group to find out more info: Fabulous Fall Festival or visit our website www.babdama.org

Over the next few days, I'm updating the BABDAMA website, and preparing our next newsletter! Are you on the mailing list? Sign via our website.

Now - off to work on the next BABDAMA newsletter and website.

16/10/2024

I went to Archive.org and discovered they are down.. Bummer... I was looking forward to a round of "recreational research" with my morning coffee.

"Rue du Caire" Félix Vallotton c. 1901

This image gives you a sense of the popularity and the kind of buskers that worked outside the theater where patrons could watch the Egyptian dance show. You could catch the Danse du Ventre several times a day for .50 centimes.

15/10/2024

Spending some quality time organizing information. I love fining fantastic vintage imagery like this Egyptian beauty wearing a beautiful assiut shawl.