Studio Davina

 

We’re one month out from our annual belly dance event, The Fabulous Fall Festival, hosted by the event production team BABDAMA, aka Bay Area Belly Dance and Music Association. 

2025 – Fabulous Fall Festival – For Leyla

This year, our event is honoring our fallen friend and organization co-founder, Leyla Lanty.  While she won’t be with us in person, she will carry on in our memories.  We’re dedicating this event to her and celebrating her life and work.

For more information about our event, visit the official website at babdama.org

Perhaps I’ll see you there?
Dawn Devine ~ Davina
Oct. 2025

October is here, and thoughts turn to my long-running ritual of participating in the Inktober challenge. However, this year, I’m mixing it up and changing directions.

Instead of drawing every day, I’m going to lay down my ink in the form of text. My mission is to write a little every day.  Even if it’s just an outline or paragraph, I’m going to make time to progress my current book project.

 

Writing and Rewriting, with a side of coffee

For those of you who are new, Hi, I’m Dawn, and I write books about belly dance history and costuming.  You can find my book on Amazon.com and over on my own personal Etsy store.

In 2023, I celebrated the milestone of the 30th anniversary of the first edition of “Costuming From the Hip.”  That humble collection of class handouts put together by an audacious young college student launched a career filled with beautiful costumes, interesting articles, and epic opportunities to meet dancers around the world.

Rewrite or Re-Envision?

There has been a lot of progress made in this head-to-toe rewrite and expansion of “Costuming from the Hip.”  But, I must admit, I’m look forward to really solidifying the shape of the book throughout October’s “Inktober” challenge.

I’ve grabbed an old notebook, and it’s now time to make tiny but potent daily progress on the book.  Throughout the month, I’ll make regular updates over on my old Facebook page.  And of course, I’ll be back here for an end-of-the-project status report.

50,000 Tiny Choices

Writing is simply making 50,000 tiny choices. Each word is a decision that shapes each paragraph and phrase. But in a DIY book, you’ve gotta consider all the images too. My writing will undoubtedly be filled with sketches, diagrams, and illustrations.  I’m including a bunch from past publications like some of the ones above.  But there will be a lot of new line art and photographs too.

But my first “Tiny Choice”
is to get started on Inktober 2025.  
Let’s finish this rewrite!

~ Dawn Devine ~ Davina
Oct 1, 2025

 

 

 

 

This week, the costume I dubbed “Blue Mermaid” is on the move.  I boxed the costume up and sent her winging away to her new home on the East Coast.

Remodel, Renovate, and Recycle

This costume arrived at Studio Davina last November.  I did some quick renovations to the bra and belt to get them onto the stage and in motion.

The bra is magical. The skirt is a dream. Unfortunately, the belt was lovely, but a bit of a mismatch. While impeccably made, the stones were sparse.  It was a match between a professional Egyptian imported bra and a more amateur level belt. 

Shalimar of North Carolina and I had a deep consultation. With enough time, I could bring this belt to a new layer of doneness to make a better stylistic match. The design brief included:

• Remodel: Make the costume more versatile by removing the skirt from the belt. As a working professional dancer, having a mix-and-match skirt wardrobe is essential for Shalimar.
• Renovate: Bring the belt up to the same level of finish and shine as the bra. Create a design connection between the bra and the belt for a more harmonious marriage of pieces
• Reuse: Use as many leftover bits and pieces of embellishments in my inventory.  The fabric was left over from a previous blue costume I made for Shalimar. The AB rhinestones were left over from a pink costume.

Good for the budget – Good for the planet

I’ve been sharing this project over in my Facebook Group throughout the summer.  The most two asked questions are “What glue do you use?” and “Where did you get the rhinestones.”

First, if I were to use glue, I would reach for a bottle of Beacon 3-In-One Craft Glue. But all the pearls, stones, and sequins on this belt were sew-on.  Although I sewed slowly over the summer, it was only about 12 hours of sewing. To save time, I choose larger embellishments that covered more territory with fewer stitches.

The rest of the supplies were pulled from my inventory and were primarily leftovers from past projects.  In my community, few places sell bulk quantities of surface embellishments. Amazon helps me access materials I simply cannot source locally.

• Flat Back AB Rhinestones
• Lake Blue Rhinestones in setting
• Rivoli Glass AB Sewon Rhinestones
• Assorted AB plastic Stones
• Rhinestone Chain – Three Row

With luck and good fortune, Shalimar will capture photos and video of this costume in motion.

And now the studio for the post-project cleanup.

Happy Dance and Costuming,
Dawn Devine ~ Davina
Sept. 2025

PS: As an Amazon affiliate for my books and publications, I appreciate your using my affiliate codes should you choose to shop for these materials and supplies. Using these affiliate codes adds no cost to you.