Sword Magick: Preparatory

Name: Sword Magick: Preparatory
Start: 2024-08-04T12:30:00-07:00
End: 2024-08-04T15:00:00-07:00
Location: Spring Fall Dance Studio

Schedule

Sun Aug 04 2024 at 12:30 pm to 03:00 pm

UTC-07:00

Location

Spring Fall Dance Studio | Berkeley, CA

A new world of confidence, sensuality, and magick awaits you…
Join Sword Magick creator, Shannon Burla, and dive into the mysterious and beautiful world of isolations, undulations, shimmies and swords through the art of fusion-style bellydance and Shannon’s exclusive Sword Magick technique.
This experience is open to all, so come as you are and explore a fun and unique spin on fusion bellydance.
✨ Maybe you love dancing at clubs and festivals, and you’re ready to add some new movements to your vocabulary.
✨ Maybe you’re brand new to dance and looking for a movement practice that feels more like fun and creativity than the gym.
✨Maybe you’re already a Bellydancer, and you’re interested in adding sword balancing to your performance repertoire.
✨ OR! Maybe you’re a magickal practitioner, and you’re interested in using movement to bring embodiment and life to your spellwork.
But no matter who you are, the skill, community, magick, and joy you will find in these workshops will help you build coordination, increase your dance skill, tap into your confidence, build a deeper relationship with your body, and have an amazing time making new dance friendships.
For The Uninitiated…
Fusion Bellydance is a uniquely American dance style that draws on traditional Middle Eastern Raqs Sharqui (Bellydance), and blends additional styles including hip hop, pop locking, classical Indian dance, Flamenco, and other dance styles into one beautiful style. The emphasis in this dance style is on body control, isolation, musicality, and freedom of expression for the dancer.
Shannon certified is certified to teach DanceCraft, a fusion bellydance format created by Bellydance Superstar Zoe Jakes.
In Part One of Sword Magick: Preparatory, Beginner’s Journey through DanceCraft, you will gain a comprehensive understanding of your body, isolations, how to layer isolations, and build bellydance technique.
Classes will challenge you and inspire you, as you deepen your relationship with your body and find a new language for creative expression.
This class is appropriate for movers of all levels, no matter what size, gender, skin color, sexual orientation, or age you are.
If you can move, you can dance!

If you can move, you can dance…and if you can move, you can move with a blade.
Beautiful, mysterious, theatrical, powerful. These are words we can use to describe dancing with a sword.
And while Sword Magick is certainly beautiful, mysterious, theatrical and powerful, Shannon’s style is rooted in, and focuses on, literal magick.
As a practicing witch and Ordained Priestess in the Order of The Stag And The Rose, Shannon teaches witchcraft and magick and leads people on the crooked path.
Sword Magick blends her passion for dance, with her powerful understanding of magick, to unlock an entirely new world of self expression.
For those unfamiliar with witchcraft, an Athame is a common tool found on an altar or used in spells. An Athame is a ceremonial blade used to direct energy and draw boundaries.
In Sword Magick, we use your dance sword as an Athame, allowing you to create beautiful moving rituals that can be used to enchant an audience, or as part of your private magickal practice.
Usually, a blade is seen as an elemental tool of air or of fire (depending on one's system of beliefs).
In Sword Magick, the sword is used to represent all five elements:
⚔️ The cool rigidity of the metal for Earth
⚔️ Wisdom, logic and incisiveness for Air
⚔️ Passion and creativity for Fire
⚔️ Carving of dreams, expression of emotion and liquid quick movement of Water
⚔️ And The final spark, the charge of electricity that is Spirit can come only from one place - You. The minute you pick up your sword with intention, You are the final element that brings the magic to life. You, and only you.
In Part Two of Sword Magick: Preparatory, Sword Magick: Elementals, you’ll be guided to discover new pathways and a deeper connection possible through working with your blade.
In this series, you will learn foundational movements that will take you from a place of uncertainty to becoming a powerful sword dancer, dancing with precision, clarity, and freedom. You will also learn elements of magick, how to work with your sword in ritual, and how to create your own powerful movement ritual/spells, that allow you literally move your manifestations.
There is nothing else like this. Sword Magick is profound for dancers looking to expand their repertoire and vocabulary, and magickal practitioners ready to bring embodiment to their existing spellwork.
This workshop is appropriate for movers of all levels (yes, even if you’ve never danced before.)

Am I Too Big, Too Old, Or Too (Fill-In-The-Blank) To Dance?!
NO!
Hi, I’m Shannon, your guide on this dance journey, and I want to reassure you that dance is for every body.
All my life, I was made to feel like I should hide, be small, and not take up space - that I was too big to be beautiful.
As an adult, I thought that dance was reserved for folks to are smaller, faster, more flexible, and younger (I didn’t begin dancing until I was 33).
In the years since I began dancing, I learned that those beliefs are untrue.
I’ll be honest with you: I still struggle with anxiety and body dysmorphia every day. But over the years, I learned a simple truth: Your size or shape does not define your ability to dance.
Neither does your gender, the color of your skin, who you love, or your age.
Dance has soothed my anxiety and depression, and become a safe haven for me. Through dance I’ve gained body confidence and completely changed my relationship with my body away from what I look like, and into what I feel like, and what I’m capable of. This has given me freedom, and affected my confidence in every other area of my life.
I’ve found friends, community, joy, and unending creativity in dance, and I know that you will too.
I truly believe that if you can move, you can dance. (And if you can move, you can move with a blade.)
Even if you’ve never danced before.
In my classes, you have permission to show up in the body that you’re in today.
You will have the opportunity to set down your groceries, and for an afternoon, you get to take a break from your daily grind to refill your cup, doing something that’s just for you.
Registration options:
Option 1:
Beginner’s Journey Through DanceCraft (Fusion Bellydance):
Each class will include a warmup designed to strengthen the muscles required for specific isolations, how to find and isolate different parts of your body, drills for crisp and clear movement, layering movements together and over traveling steps, and then putting it all together in a short combination.
This option includes:
✨ 4 hours of Beginner-friendly DanceCraft Fusion Bellydance Technique
✨ Recordings of all classes for one month after the series ends for catch up and review.
When: Sundays Aug 4, 11, 18, and 25 12:30pm-1:30pm PST
Option 2:
Sword Magick: Elementals:
Each class will include a warmup designed to strengthen and protect the parts of your body we use in sword dance, with specific attention given to arms from shoulders to fingertips, hips, neck and back.
Each class will also include technique, drills and an intellectual and movement exploration of each of the four cardinal elements: Earth, Air, Water, and Fire.
This option includes:
✨5 hours of Sword Magick technique, drills, and exploration of the elements.
✨ Recordings of all classes for one month after the series ends for catch up and review.
When: Sundays Aug 4, 11, 18, and 25 1:45pm-3:00pm PST
Option 3:
Take the whole package!
Join me for the Beginner’s Journey Through Dancecraft and Sword Magick: Elementals.
This option includes:
✨ 4 hours of Beginner-friendly DanceCraft Fusion Bellydance Technique, an introduction to Zoe Jakes’ signature format
✨ 5 hours of Sword Magick technique, drills, and exploration of the elements.
✨ A $30 bundle discount
✨ Recordings of all classes for one month after the series ends for catch up and review.
When: Sundays Aug 4, 11, 18, and 25 12:30pm-3:00pm PST with a 15 min break between classes.
⚔️ Shannon and Sword Magick have a lot of big things coming up, including performance opportunities, showcases, retreats, and more. This 4 week series is a fantastic first step on your Sword Magick journey, and will prepare you for the opportunity to dance on stage with Shannon in the fall if you’re interested in adding performance to your dance journey. ⚔️
This is for you if:
✨ You’re a beginner
✨ You’ve done some dance before but not had much, if any, formal training.
✨ You’re finding your way back to dance
✨ You’re an experienced dancer and you want to add to your repertoire
✨ You’re an experienced dancer and you want to sharpen your technique
✨ You’re looking for a movement practice that’s fun and expressive
✨ You’re looking for a creative outlet and a opportunity to make new friends
✨ You have a magickal practice, and you’re ready to add an embodied movement component to your spellwork
✨This is for you no matter your experience level, body size, age, skin color, gender or sexual orientation.
FAQ:
Q: Do you have a payment plan?
A: Yes! You can choose Afterpay at checkout to set up payment plan.
If that doesn’t work for you, please email me at [email protected] and I can set up an automatic payment plan for you via PayPal.
All Payment Plan options will be automated.
Q: What is the Cancellation Policy?
A: All sales are final, and no refunds will be given for any reason.
If life happens, and you must cancel, you can sell your spot to another dancer and transfer the spot to them.
To finalize the transfer, all transfers MUST go through me to ensure everyone’s financial safety from scams and to get the new dancer set up in the system to receive all class details.
Email me at [email protected] for details or to transfer your spot.
Q: I have a question that’s not answered here! Where can I best direct my question?
A: I love questions! Please email me at [email protected] and I will get back to you ASAP! (Please note I endeavor to reply within 24 hours, but sometimes that’s not possible. I appreciate your patience!)
More about Shannon
I was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area. My dance journey began in 2014 at a magical event called Lark Camp with an amazing teacher who has now become a dear friend, Natalie Nayun of Pomegranite Garden Dance. Now, I am an international teacher and performer, I have become a certified Bohemian Bellydance Foundations Instructor, certified Dancecraft Teacher of Zoe Jakes’ signature fusion bellydance format, and director of The Dancers of Nyx.
I am also an ordained Priestess of the Elements with The Order of the Stag and the Rose, which is a formal training with an animistic approach guided by Faelan Shiva, as well as an ordained Minister with the Universal Life Church.
Outside of dance and magick, I am a self-employed hair stylist and salon owner in Berkeley, CA. I disappear into the Sierras as often as I can, and find peace in the solitude and wisdom that can only be found among endless cliff faces of granite, ancient sequoias, and alpine lakes. Also, I really love monster makeup, chocolate, beasties large and small, and world travel.
⚔️ “The minute you pick up your sword with intention, you are the final element that brings the magic to life. You, and only you. - Shannon Burla⚔️
www.shannonburla.com