Cinzia's Advice: How to choose a Costume

When choosing your costume think about these three variables: your own body, style and uniqueness! Your costume, make-up, hair style and jewelry all contribute to your artistry and the costume in particular can value your lines or show your flaws. If you are tiny, short and skinny, choose a long and wide silk skirt with two deep slits and enrich your hips and shoulders with decorations, hanging flowers or fringes so to make your figure bigger and more authoritative on the stage.

If, on the contrary, you are tall, with large hips and prosperous breast, emphasize your curves by using a sensual velvet dress with a tight skirt and one slit! BE CAREFUL! Skirts must be long….NEVER SHOW YOUR ANKLES!

And also, always decorate your arms with elegant jewelry. Sleeves and gloves are welcome as well! About style, for sure each style has its own costume and a set of rules that are dictated from habits and traditions that YOU, as a professional dancer, SHOULD respect!

A Bra and belt with an elegant wide skirt for the most classic of Mejance; A sinuous and adherent dress, perhaps in velvet, to express the passion of Tarab; A tunic with wide sleeves or why not, an original reinterpretation in modern key, to interpret a dynamic saidi; A tight half-sleeved tunic with a lurex belt to emphasize the hips for a Beledi dance; A sexy and cheeky short dress to interpret an Iskandarani ; And then the colors, the full skirts, the flowers, the braids, the jugs, the sagats that characterize the most cheerful and engaging folk styles such as Fellahi, Hagalla and Nubian.

So everybody agrees that For each style ... its rules! But dance is also evolution and innovation ...

so .... experimenting, innovating is always positive even when it comes to choose your costumes.

I, in fact .... love to play with MY COSTUMES. Firstly I chose them according to the style, then I think about my body and corporature and lastly I ask the sewer for something innovative, something inspiring: it can be an hairband, a skirt with my name written on it, a special veil with an image printed that recalls the topic of my performance!

Anything that can make my performance UNIQUE! IN particular, I love to play with my SAIDI costumes! To the usual tunic, I prefer innovative, inspiring and provocative dresses with which to make the show more engaging.

Give a look to my personal style in the SECOND HAND COSTUME SECTION!