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It Started with Shakira: Belly Dance and Daggers
- Amy Bright
- Apr 12
- 3 min read
Shakira blazed into the Oct. 2023 VMAs with all of her radiant glory--and she brought knives!
So many people shared the knife dancing clip with me, and I watched it for hours.
One of my students demanded that we learn, and I was ready to go for it.
First, I did YouTube research on other belly dancers who used knives/daggers and found more than a few.
Some had small, curved daggers, and more than one used a sai.
Georgia (the country) has a tradition of knife dancing, but I mostly found leaping men throwing daggers into the ground, and that seemed unsafe
I also researched Italian dagger fights with Guy Windsor, a Fiori dagger expert.
Combining all of that with Shakira's moves, I put together a workshop and a slow dagger dance in November-Dec. 2023.
In addition to teaching dance and daggers, I held a November 2023 HEMA dagger workshop to run through some of Fiori's dagger plays.
Teens and dance students and local adults showed up for stabbing!
To facilitate a safe class, I bought a boatload of Cold Steel training daggers from Amazon (my quota plus the quota of family members who helped me out).
These two worlds collided when I heard the song "Quake" by Samas in Dec. 2023 They played an IG clip of a performance with "Quake" and later promised a full release after a Kickstarter. I wanted early access to the song, so I joined the first crowdfund I've ever done!
Somehow, I wanted to include the dagger and stage combat with the song, although I had not heard it entirely.
The song didn't release until mid-2024, so I had to put off the idea until I had the song.
In the meantime, we included a dagger dance section with our sword choreography to "Immigrant Song" and performed it in Charleston and at various festivals in the Upstate along with the slow dagger dance.
The purpose was to use the slow dagger dance to lead into the sword song to provide continuity and introduce the idea of using a dagger in a dance.
Most of us found daggers on Amazon or Kult of Athena. We used the straight edged daggers rather than the curved one because, frankly, they were cheaper and easier to find.
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Once I had access to "Quake," I went to work combining dance with stage combat choreography.
We used the training daggers for safety and painted the "blades" silver to look more dagger-like.
By that time, a few of us were performing for Midgard at the Mill in October, so I ended up doing a split in the class.
One half learned a choreography for a Halloween party, and the other half did the choreography for "Quake" (trust me--the two overlapped).
Then we found out that Samas was going to be performing at Midgard, and they agreed to play live while we danced for the Viking feast! And we did so without any rehearsal with them.
Of course, the power of live music brings even more intensity to the dance, and we felt it that evening.
The set with Samas included several elements that will be incorporated into the 2025 Valkyrie Dance Project.
Kayla and Michael performed as Wench and Monk (lots of table dancing included), and we had a sword duet before "Quake."
However, the interconnective story element was missing, which will come in 2025!
This entire project started with Shakira, but who knows where it will end!
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If you would like to contribute to our production (this includes two more flame machines and the tools/materials to build rotating set pieces), please use Zelle or Venmo and mark it as a contribution!
If you want a shoutout on the socials for your help, mention that too!
Zelle: brighteyesarts@gmail.com
Venmo: @Amy-Bright-10 (my first name will show up as Lora on both).
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