Spotlight Dancer/Troupe
Rukshana

Rukshana started belly dancing five years ago as a way to escape her ‘day job’. Little did she know that it would slowly creep into her daily life with a vengeance. She began as a simple parks and recreation student with no aspirations of doing anything else but getting a little exercise and making some new friends. This was fine at first but then she heard the magic word ‘recital’ and both the stage fright and the urge to costume began to rear their ugly heads. Now costumes don’t have to be ugly, but when they are your day job and you are trying not to bring your work home with you, things can get tricky. Having sworn never to be an actor (ok—she went so far as to take an acting class at a community college so none of her peers at ASU would ever see her act) being a dancer was not something that was planned. After surviving (the operative word) the first recital in the ‘herd’ (ie. a group of beginning and or intermediate students trying not to draw special attention to themselves while dancing in a large dimly lit circle all the time praying that they remember play their zills in a pattern that complements the music) while wearing her first attempt at belly dance costuming things stabilized for a couple of years. As recitals would pass, a new costume would be made but no attempt was made to break out of the ’herd’ despite being encouraged by her first teacher Samia and then Yasmina. Now two teachers telling her to go for it was just too much to run from. Eventually she broke down and tried a duet with a friend (and she did not fall over dead from fright)—this lead to solos at the next two recitals and well, she was hooked. Apparently performing was not really as bad as she thought as long as she did not have to remember someone else’s choreography that was larger than a simple combination or two. After performing in a few shows it got even easier when she discovered that restaurant dancing could be a blast when she was able to interact one on one with the customers. This made the dancing even more fun and introduced her to even more great people-- which is why she started dancing in the first place. Rukshana managed to get back to original reason for starting to dance and it only took her five years to figure it out. Who knew! Now she is a house dancer at Mekan Mediterranean Grill in Scottsdale and dances regularly at Tandoori Times I and II (Scottsdale/Glendale).

Ah yes, but the costume thing—it didn’t go away. It just kept on growing until she accepted that she just couldn’t walk away from it like she had hoped. Rukshana has continued to build custom dance costumes for herself and other dancers. She enjoys refurbishing and altering costumes in need of TLC as well as teaching classes on a variety of belly dance costume related subjects. This fall she will be teaching a basic bra and belt construction class (Monday’s 10/15-11/5) and a low water immersion dying workshop (Saturday 10/13) through the art studio’s program at the Mesa Arts Center (www.mesaartscenter.com). 

Costuming is part of Gail Wolfenden-Steib’s everyday life and it is completely entwined with the Rukshana name as well. Gail is an award winning theatrical costume designer based in Phoenix, Arizona. She has designed for Arizona Broadway Theatre, Phoenix Theatre (both main stage and Cookie Company shows), Arizona Jewish Theatre, Southwest Shakespeare, Arizona State University and Stageworks at the Mesa Arts Center (where she is currently the resident costume designer) to name a few over the past 14 years. When not working as a freelance costume designer, Gail has enjoyed working for a number of other companies including the Tony award winning Utah Shakespearean Festival for the past 10 summer seasons as their costume painter/dyer, Tutu Etoile (a custom dance wear/tutu company) as an on call draper, crafts artisan and stitcher, Ballet Arizona as part of the costume production staff and for Childsplay as an over hire crafts artisan and stitcher. Gail is also a frequent presenter for USITT (United States Institute of Theatre Technology) at the regional level and this past spring she presented a professional development workshop on costume airbrushing and distressing at the national conference in Phoenix. She has a BS in Clothing and Textiles and a MFA in Scenography with a Costume Focus from Arizona State University

To contact Rukshana:
email: gwolf2@mindspring.com (please place belly dance in subject line to get through Spam filter)

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