If you love the book (and I hope you do…) or just want to help spread the word, I’ve made it as easy as possible to help promote Basic Production for Belly Dance. Just follow this link, copy the code provided to your website/profile/blog/journal/etc. Only your own webspaces, please! Please don’t spam on my behalf.

Your efforts are very appreciated.

Come and get it… here (or click the “Buy BPBD!” button at the top of the page).

Basic Production for Belly Dance is a 144-page introduction and guide to basic production with emphasis on belly dance and belly dancers. I’ve gone to some lengths (I won’t say great lengths, greatness is reserved to the judgement of my audience) to make the book approachable, accessible and educational. I hope it blends my life’s experience with production work of various sorts with the last several years of belly dance-show observation in a constructive and useful way. I hope I met my own goal – to create an guide to basic production – something to get people started producing good shows with the dance and dancers they love, even if they have no production background at all. I also hope I’ve managed to avoid writing a text book. Finally, I hope you’ll forgive my sense of humor buried in some of the pages.

It seems like a really long couple months to execute this project, but in reality, time (in classic “show time” form) has flown. Thanks to everyone that has assisted, read, commented, encouraged or otherwise helped bring this project to completion.

I hope that this is a good start on a path to elevating and advancing belly dance production across the [english-speaking] world (i only wish there were enough demand to offer the book in translation ). In the near future, i’ll have a workbook companion available (step, the second).

So, thanks again… and best wishes for your production efforts!

Once upon a time, I had hoped to make Basic Production for Belly Dance available via Amazon, Barnes and Noble and other classic online (and brick-and-mortar) book retailers. Unfortunately, the paper quality and printing options available within that distribution mechanism just aren’t going to meet my standards. So, what this means to you, as potential readers of Basic Production for Belly Dance is that I need to find a network of belly dance vendors and/or handle sales myself.

Please take a minute to suggest your favorite belly dance vendors (I know you have some!), so I can at least start a dialogue with them about carrying the book. If they’re specialists (say, they only sell costumes), and a book wouldn’t fit well within their current inventory, you can still suggest them, but let me know that’s the case…

Introducing the index background dancers… these dancers graciously consented to using their images to decorate the book.

In order:

Benat Baharat
Shadiyah
Belladonna
Damiena
Romka
Rachel Kay Brookmire

These images (and links) will display in random order in the sidebar…

Introducing chapter title dancers… these dancers graciously consented to using their images to decorate the book.

In order:

Lotus Niraja – Foreword
Samira Shuruk – Introduction
Sera – The Basics
Ebony – A Production
Artemis Mourat – Promotion
Lucy – Getting Technical
Amustela – Economics
Jahzaal – Wrapping It Up
Wendy Yousef – Resources
Zalya – Checklists

These images (and links) will display in random order in the sidebar…

several people have seen “sneak previews” or “working drafts” or “first drafts” or “review copies” as this project has progressed over the past several weeks. if you have seen something, and feel like sharing your comments before the ink really hits the paper, well… here’s your chance. let me know what you think!

Welcome to the online ‘tween-publication Basic Production for Belly Dance site. This is the place to order copies, discuss the book, suggest new directions and generally keep me honest.