Last week you met Nina Martinez, an amazing woman, gorgeous dancer, and member of my troupe, Gypsy Caravan Dance Company, Int. She lives outside of Cairns Australia, and travels the globe, exploring, and teaching dance… also a new Master Teacher in my amazing Collective Soul Experience!
Today I want you to meet Hilary Giovale, from Arizona. These women just amaze me, and I am so honored to have them be a part of my growing Team! The Tribal spirit spread its wings, empowering woman and making them soar through life, with dance as the catalyst… and whole healthy being and loving, and so much more!
Ever since I became a student of Tribal Style bellydance in 2003 it’s been waking something up in me that was wanting to come alive. I discovered an earthy, connected, passionate, joy-seeking goddess who knows her own worth, beauty and passion. This dance helped me channel the serpentine life force to awaken, energize, move through me. I’ve remembered the ancient circle that’s been there since the beginning of time but is now evolving and expanding to connect a web of women throughout the world.
As Paulette’s student, I have opened myself to evolution – the evolution of knowing that I don’t know it all, (and never will) but that I can make the most of my dance through my unique skills, perseverance, and dedication. The movements of Gypsy Caravan style feel good on my body – they are made to work with the body and not against it. I feel so healthy, energized, inspired and alive when I dance it.
I have an incredible toolbox of skills I’ve gathered from my experience learning and teaching Gypsy Caravan Style since 2007. I love to work with students on body mechanics and technique but also expression, intention, and knowing their own beauty. I love seeing women come alive through this dance, and waking up their own treasures, skills, power, and self-expression. I love how this dance is a catalyst for exactly the sort of transformation each student needs. What an honor and a privilege it is to witness that!
Hilary’s Tribal Manifesto, June 2013
(The intentions I strive for on my Tribal Path)
In Body
Eat real food, mostly plants (an idea borrowed from Michael Pollan). Prepare and eat delicious foods that are grown sustainably, locally, and fairly. Listen carefully to discover which foods do or don’t work for your body. Food is a gift from Mother Earth, and eating is a sacred exchange of energy. Honor the intuition of your body, knowing that its daily needs for food, water, movement, and rest change. This body is your temple for full self-expression. Be grateful for it every day.
In Mind
Study the words of those who light your path: Paulette Rees-Denis, Lynne Twist, Don Miguel Ruiz, Nina Simons, Arkan Lushwala, Illarion Merculieff, Thich Nhat Hanh. In them, find inspiration to create your own story. Remember, review, and rehearse what you’ve learned in your dance training and when the mood strikes, create. Write from the heart about the ideas that captivate your mind: dance, body, connection, community, health, food, spirituality, beauty, interconnectedness, finding our way back to Earth and each other. Don’t believe everything you think.
In Spirit
Meditate, read, journal, walk. Laugh and cry it out. When the story isn’t working, change it. Sit in stillness in the mountain forests, on rocks in the desert, next to clear streams, and by the vast ocean to feel the pulse of the universe. Feel gratitude for the extraordinary physical experience your spirit is having in this lifetime. With your dancing sisters, transcend the mundane. Become one, leaving thoughts, egos, and worries outside the circle. Dream a new dream.
As a Student
Never stop learning. Seek the experiences that will perpetuate your evolution. When you learn to dance, discover how to communicate from your heart and be in your power. When you learn to teach, remember how to be a student again. Have the humility to realize that you will never stop growing. As a student, everything is interconnected. Every lesson opens a new door.
As a Teacher
Your passion is to share this dance, and to be a catalyst for the magic it weaves differently for each student. Remember that each student comes into the studio with her own stories, loves, traumas, losses, joys, secrets, fears. Helping each student unlock her own magic is a sacred process and you must be so, so gentle and perceptive, to create the safe container for her unfolding. At the same time you must also challenge her to find her passion, the authenticity of her own movement, the aesthetic expression of herself. Help your students refine their movement so that we can all be one in the Tribal flow and create the hypnotic beauty of women moving in unison. Be a clear channel for the intuitive voice that shows you how to give each student what she needs. Learn from your students as much as you teach.
As a Troupe Director
Be authentic and be vulnerable. From this stand everything else flows. Listen and watch, protect the vibe. You don’t have all the answers but you have a vision that you invite others to share. Be open to unconventional methods. Sometimes you step up with the skills in your toolbox and sometimes you step back and watch as others bring their skills and inspiration to the table. Hold the space in your heart and your life so this troupe can weave its beautiful web.
As a Performer
Feel the fear and do it anyway. Performance is a pressure cooker that makes the seeds of potential creativity, expression, and energy explode into real time. Express your joy, pride, connection and reverence through performance. Hold it as a space for us, as women, to share what we’re all about, whatever it is in that moment. We are complex, beautiful, expressive creatures.
As a Dancer, Living Life
Know when to say yes to a new possibility or opportunity. Know when to say goodbye and how to let go with as much grace and authenticity as possible. Cross-pollinate ideas: the work of Tribal Dance is the work of healing ourselves and the Earth. Let your failures be the compost for a new garden of surprises. Watch for the quickening pulse, the spark of interest, the fire in the belly. These are indications of the right path to take.
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I am a lucky gal to have such vibrant women like Hilary to dance with me, study with me, carry my lineage of the Tribal Style that I started back in 1991….honored, enlightened, and so full of love this makes me… thank you Hilary!
If you are interested in having Hilary come to you to teach the Gypsy Caravan format and Collective Soul, please contact us at
dance@gypsycaravan.us
you can read more here,
http://globalcaravandance.com/soul.php
and you can join us in Portland this October. Also visit our Talking Tribal Vlogs at
Paulette And Gypsy Caravan-Talking Tribal Vlog #6-Moving With Intention
and more juicy tribal bits
with Carol Vance and Hilary Giovale
Flagstaff Arizona, July 2012
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Leave a comment and please share this with your friends… we like to share with all the tribes out there…
Thanks for being here!
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