Dawn's Workshops:

Storytelling and Crafting Characters: From Rubber Duckies to Intimate Vulnerability
Friday 1:00-3:00pm
$45 through 6/21, $50 after
Can bellydance be funny? Can you make an audience fall in love with how ridiculously cute you are? Can you tell your most intimate, vulnerable stories onstage? Yes, yes, and yes!

Break all the rules and push past what's expected. Learn how to create characters that appear larger than life. Express real emotion rather than simply pasting on facial expressions. And learn how to tell stories without using words.

Making Money in the Arts: Essential Marketing/PR for Performers
Saturday 3:30-5:30pm
​$45 through 6/21, $50 after
You have a great choreography, an awesome dance production, a cool piece of film. You've spent years honing your craft, and you're proud of your art. But with so much noise, how do you get the world to care about your hard work? How do you get an audience to show up (and pay to see you)?

Dawn Xiana Moon is a multidisciplinary performer who’s performed on an international stage; she also spent a decade crafting marketing strategy for Absolut, Anheuser-Busch, the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, Jameson, and other brands both in-house and as part of marketing agencies. This workshop will give you the tools to create an audience for your artistic projects.

About Dawn Xiana Moon

Dawn Xiana Moon has appeared on Britain's Got Talent and was named "Best Stage Performer" (2020, 2019) and "Best Dancer" (2019) by the Chicago Reader. She has performed in London, Toronto, and Washington, DC; WGN-TV called her "spectacular!" She is the Founder/Director of Raks Geek / Raks Inferno, a bellydance and fire company that was named the Chicago Reader's "Best Dance Troupe" (runner up). Raks Geek has garnered international accolades through their commitment to blend a high degree of artistic and technical mastery with fun, creativity, and themes from geek culture; they were featured on UK Channel 4 TV's "50 Funniest Moments," and The Daily Mail hailed the group as "sci-fi seduction." In addition to her work as a dancer and fire performer, Dawn is a singer-songwriter who's sung the National Anthem for the Chicago Bulls; she's performed in 10 states and released two albums, fusing elements from traditional Chinese music with folk, pop, and jazz. She was named runner up for "Best Singer-Songwriter" (2019) and "Best World Music Act" (2020) by the Chicago Reader. Dawn has a degree in theatre from the University of Michigan and over 25 years of formal acting training and performance experience.

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