Thread: On having the basics in common.

And spot the science background over here... I thought you said 'note to self, explore such throughts at room temperature' (you know, to control the variables of the experiment.)

Hmmm... depends if it's outside an "acceptable temperature for posting" range. I guess we all have our own quality control for posting when ill/ annoyed/ silly/ drunk etc. I have been deleting a lot before posting the last few days - I keep looking at threads and thinking "I thought I posted on that...? ). Probably for the best.

I still think the basics diverge pretty fast and overlap with other non-BD styles down there. There's a 3-D tree 'n' Venn diagrams combo in my head but I think that's the fever talking.

Former winery lab tech here - qc is all about room temp for winery work.

As for style overlap it really does depend on the style. I can see some familiarity between tribal and bellydance, but even without music & costumes to tip me off I can spot the difference. Between turkish, Am Cab & Egyptian for example, not so much without the music & costumes to tip me off. There are a lot of blurred lines and borrowings from one style to the next and the big stylistic differences do tend to be how the music is interpreted and the music used.

I'm pretty confident I could spot the difference between dancers by movement alone. American Oriental, Egyptian Raqs Sharqi, Turkish, Tribal Fusion and ATS use a lot of different movement vocabulary, body points of reference, posture, arm use, and weight/foot placement. Anyone want to post a video challenge thread so we can all have a go?

Don't know if I am going off at a tangent from what you wanted to know - but to me this is a real example of how music, intention, how the moves are put together - which makes this into a whole different dance form - so I don't think that Egyptian technique shares roots with burlesque etc as I don't think that Egyptian technique at least is in any way separate from the aesthetic.

I agree that the minute you add music and intention and start putting the moves to the music in an Egyptian way, or a TF way, or a burlesque way etc it diverges into different forms. I don't buy the argument that we are all shimmy sisters under the skin and basically doing the same dance because it's got the same roots/core movement vocab, because so much else that is IMO overridingly important changes. I'm just musing on whether even the "core moves in common" argument holds up.

Would the dancers in that clip use the same basic technique if they were doing the kind of Egyptian that looked like it just left Cairo? Or an established Tribal style? Or do the core-moves-in-common only apply to a more globalised BD style?

Not expecting answers, just musing.

I don't think it applies to native egyptian styles. There is noreal concept of divorcing the tecxhnique from interpreting (drilling). My native Egyptian teacher was thinking of organising a trip to cairo. I asked her if she would organise any lessons for BD. She said that egyptians don't learn to BD.

Transferred genetically, is it?

Socially - at parties

Originally Posted by Aniseteph

I've read so many times that all the different styles of what gets called bellydance are linked by having the basic movements in common. The music, the aethetic, the intention may have diverged, but the core is the same.

How "the same" is it?

I see different techniques, different movement vocabularies, different emphasis within the same movement. When you get geeky on how movements are generated, where the tensions and releases are, where energy is centred, is there a difference?

In plain black leotards with no music, could you tell the difference between ATS/ITS, Egyptian orientale, TF, Turkish, American Orientale... if the dancer was just doing basic movements? Or do differences in body type and personal style override any of these divisions?

If you have studied more than one style yourself in depth, is there a difference between the way YOU do/feel the basics?

Thoughts?

I get what you are saying and yes without other cues and just on producing movement alone you could identify to which style. Oriental shares lifts, drops, slides, circles, eights, undulations, shimmes, traveling, spins etc. but how these movement families are generated and where on the body etc. is part of where the distinctions start happening.