Caroline_afifi
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Gilded Serpent presents...
So, If You Cut up a Rose, is it still a Flower?
Fusing Bellydance With Other Dance Forms
by Rebecca Firestone
posted March 14, 2009
Aside from some typical guidelines such as 7-minute time limits, the rules specified no live music, and the music chosen had to be either “alternative or non-traditional for the styles of dance you are performing”. Middle Eastern dance itself wasn’t banned, exactly. But it was definitely downgraded, now considered to be only one of many possible elements, as well as ethnic and modern, which performers could tap into as a source of inspiration.
A reader’s position at this point will depend on whether you think that bellydance and Middle Eastern dance are one and the same, and whether you feel any particular sense of ownership over either one of those terms.
Nowhere on the competition web site was the word “bellydance” itself defined. However, the judges could clearly see when contestants were using bellydance and when they weren’t, as could I.
So somehow, somewhere, in some collective unconscious that we can’t describe in words, we all agree tacitly at least on what bellydance is. For the purposes of the remainder of this article, I’ll define “bellydance” as “uses a lot of undulations” to distinguish it from “Middle Eastern dance” which is itself an umbrella term that doesn’t actually convey much.
The judging criteria shows what they felt was most important and included congruence between costume, music and styling, audience connection, whether the fused elements made sense together, the use of new “boundary pushing” concepts in dance, musicality, and smooth transitions. I could really “buy into” these criteria, especially the last two: the contestants’ depth of understanding of their own fusion vocabulary; and dance technique. Technique here was described as having strong carriage, balance, ability to isolate (body control), and quality of movement and line.
It was good to see so much emphasis placed on basic coherence. Even more important than coherence was basic dance literacy: “Does routine contain at least one legible additional dance form to their style of Bellydance?” OK, so it’s not very grammatical. But I know what they meant, and it’s something I’ve been ranting about almost nonstop in my reviews.
So… if it isn’t strictly bellydance, then out of all the styles of dance in the world, why does this word in particular appear all over in the fine print - but not the big title? This is really a fusion contest for bellydancers. And hey, they’re actively wrestling with the whole labeling issue.
The above is only an extract about the event, but I snipped it as I was more interested in this aspect discussion rather than the review itself.
Readers are free to view the full article on Gilded Serpent Website.
Thoughts anyone? :think: