What do you think of this

E

EnigmaMind

New member
I am a self proclaimed belly dancer (by that I mean I self taught). I have taken a few classes on and off and the teacher told me that I am advanced so I'm not like a bad dancer or anything. But, I am thinking of just doing my own thing when dancing. By this I mean, not following a certain style. I want to just have my own style. For some reason when I feel like a choose a style I have to stay within certain boundaries and I like to just be free to do my own thing. Maybe someday I will stick to a style, if the style is my kind of style, but right now I just like doing my own thing. And it's not just with dancing it's with other things like my style of dress and poetry (I always write in the freestyle style). But what do you guys think of this? Do you think it is cool that I am just doing my own thing?

Leave positive comments please :)
 
Amulya

Amulya

Moderator
All dancers develop their own style eventually, within a dance style of course. If you really want to have more freedom Tribal Fusion would be great for you.
What do you do? Cabaret style? More Egyptian or Turkish? Or something completely different?
 
Kashmir

Kashmir

New member
EnigmaMind said:
I am a self proclaimed belly dancer (by that I mean I self taught). I have taken a few classes on and off and the teacher told me that I am advanced so I'm not like a bad dancer or anything. But, I am thinking of just doing my own thing when dancing. By this I mean, not following a certain style. I want to just have my own style. For some reason when I feel like a choose a style I have to stay within certain boundaries and I like to just be free to do my own thing.
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Okay, here's the problem. It's the label. If you well move to the music - then you are a dancer. To be a belly dancer then, sorry, there are boundaries. Same as if you want to be a Hula dancer or a Flamenco dancer or a ballet dancer. To be a belly dancer you need to stay within the belly dance genre. Now, the boundaries are very wide and no one person can ever master all types of belly dance within decades - but they are there.

What makes you think what you are doing is belly dance? How did you come to pick this label? And possibly, more important, why do you want to call yourself a belly dancer? (I'm not saying what you are doing isn't belly dance - but frankly if it has come only from your own head it is very, very unlikley to be)

Amulya suggested Tribal Fusion - but if you want to do Tribal Fusion Belly Dance - you first have to master belly dance as it accpted to be and only then create a fusion. You cannot fuse something you don't know very, very well.
 
Amanda (was Aziyade)

Amanda (was Aziyade)

Well-known member
There are "boundaries" to every art form. They are what help prevent the art from becoming a chaotic mess of unrelated and unconnected movements or brushstrokes.

Also, "doing one's own thing" is often the first stage of learning a more complex art form. We sometimes call it "noodling" and it's expected. It's part of the learning process. It's the doodles you draw in the sketchbook, or the lines and phrases in your poetry journal. It's not art, and it may not even be a "first draft" of anything resembling art, but it's where we all start.

Don't abandon your education at the starting gate -- :) Keep taking classes and learning about what belly dance really is. It's much more than just a movement vocabulary. The movements themselves are usually fairly easy to master. It's understanding the music, and allowing the music to give you an emotional reaction, and then translating that emotional reaction into a physical expression of both the music and the emotion that is the HARD part!

And please don't view learning a "style" as somehow constricting your own ability to self-express. All the famous Egyptian dancers were "doing their own thing" as well, but inside a CONTEXT. Your teacher can help place your dancing inside this context, but it's highly unlikely you'll be able to do this on your own. At best, you risk looking like a hot mess of chaos and unrelated forms, and missing out on the real essence of what this dance is about.

You have taken about two steps down a VERY long and thrilling road to a wonderful journey of self-expression and self-discovery. Don't stop there, for your own sake. Keep taking classes. Self-taught (in this industry and art form) won't take you very far at all. Learn the so-called "rules" and learn the context, and you will have a much greater space in which to "do your own thing." -- AND it will mean a lot more to you. :)
 
Greek Bonfire

Greek Bonfire

Well-known member
I agree also that you can do your own thing but as stated above, you have to apply the correct label to your dance style. It might be a good idea to label yourself as a freestyle dancer until you decide what form of dance style you wish to pursue. Until you do, it is highly recommended that you not label yourself as a bellydancer because if you do pass yourself off as one, and someone wants to either hire you or invite you to a hafla, and you don't actually bellydance, you may cause embarrassment to yourself.
 
Yame

Yame

New member
Again, another thread that is hard to take seriously. Would anybody go to a ballet forum and say "I've been taking ballet for 2 weeks (and by that I mean I've been watching videos and trying to copy them on my own without any previous dance training and then I went to a class and the teacher told me I'm doing okay), but I decided I don't really want to learn a specific style of ballet, I just want to do my own thing, what do you guys think of that?"

It's fine to do your own thing, but learn the dance first. As you develop as a dancer, you begin to develop your own style and can maybe branch off into something else. Do it from a place of knowledge and experience. If you don't want to learn belly dance, then stop calling yourself a belly dancer.
 
Aniseteph

Aniseteph

New member
Too busy out getting gigs and Being A Bellydancer, while we sit here being jealous negative haters? ;)

LOL at the idea of being a self proclaimed ballet dancer, Yame. Don't you just KNOW what that's going to look like?
 
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