On having the basics in common.

[Kashmir]

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.

Classes are available - but not in basic technique (which is absorbed while growing up). People like Raqia Hassan, Kazafy, Aida Nour will take private classes if it fits with their other commitments. Yasmina is also a great teacher - English but with a good Egyptian feel.

 

[Aniseteph]

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.

YES.

Kashmir just mentioned Yasmina of Cairo. She taught a hip drop in a workshop that was one of those OMG lightbulb moments for me. The "standard" version I'd been taught involves a preparatory lift using the abs on the same side, then the hip drops. This one was done with no lift (much quicker - aha!) and generated from I think the glute (terrible on muscles, sorry) on the opposite side. A sharp contraction pulls the opposite hip down. Lightbulb. It looks so much more Egyptian, and it's generated totally differently to the other one.

Another workshop with Heather Burby reinforced that feeling that there are things they do very differently over there. But in the typical big name Egyptian FTBB workshop it doesn't get addressed. Maybe they are focusing on choreography (what we all want yeah? riiiight... ), maybe it doesn't occur to some that the reason half these Western idiots look all wrong is that their basic technique is different, maybe the Western idiots never realise there's a difference, maybe some teachers don't have the language/teaching skills to tackle it. I dunno, I'm not casting aspersions. I'm sure many of them get extremely technical in appropriate situations.

IMO it's the non-native teachers who have had to geek on "how comes their hip drops and mine are different?" and really unpick it all are the ones who can be absolute gold. Ranya Renee is another great example. They can explain the difference because they've been there done that.

 

[Aniseteph]

I don't think it applies to native egyptian styles. There is noreal concept of divorcing the tecxhnique from interpreting (drilling).

Not when you are dancing, but that doesn't mean there isn't a bunch of distinctive technique underlying it. Not so much divorcing, more focusing on one spouse's issues at a time.

If I drill those Yasmina hip drops and use them instead of the others when it is appropriate, my dancing will look more Egyptian.

 

[Kashmir]

Kashmir just mentioned Yasmina of Cairo. She taught a hip drop in a workshop that was one of those OMG lightbulb moments for me.
<snip>
But in the typical big name Egyptian FTBB workshop it doesn't get addressed. Maybe they are focusing on choreography (what we all want yeah? riiiight... ), maybe it doesn't occur to some that the reason half these Western idiots look all wrong is that their basic technique is different, maybe the Western idiots never realise there's a difference, maybe some teachers don't have the language/teaching skills to tackle it. I dunno, I'm not casting aspersions. I'm sure many of them get extremely technical in appropriate situations.

Yes, those hip drops are so different!

No, I started doing workshops before the push for choreography became all encompassing. What was tended to be done then was the teacher would dance in a specified style or to specific music and we would follow - trying to absorb as much of the feel and musicality as we could; watching for typical interpretations. Sometimes we could ask some questions if there was an interpreter - but any question about "technique" was meet with a blank stare - so we learnt not to ask. There wasn't the same approach as most western students expect. A teacher wasn't expected to teach you how to move your body but rather move it better "like this". Basic technique was expected to be engrained before you came to class.

 

[Shanazel]

Socially - at parties

Not nearly as much fun as transferring things genetically.

 

[Amulya]

It would be an interesting if a dancer who does several styles would make a video with multiple styles quickly changing within the same video. With the appropriate music of course (or to test people: without music!) It could really protray the differences. Has this been done already?

 

[Janene Aliza]

It would be an interesting if a dancer who does several styles would make a video with multiple styles quickly changing within the same video. With the appropriate music of course (or to test people: without music!) It could really protray the differences. Has this been done already?

I have wondered the same thing -- with a skilled dancer, it could be spectacular !!!

 

[Amulya]

I am challenging dancers on this forum ! Is there anyone who could do this?

 

[Aniseteph]

@Kashmir - oh well... maybe if you pay enough and get an analytically minded teacher... :lol:

Anyhoo, just because they don't see the technical basis doesn't mean it's not there. When I was studying German in school I asked my (German) mum to explain the dative case to me. Cue blank looks. Fair enough - I can't do any of that stuff in English either.

 

[Shanazel]

The dative case is usually a situation where a friend sets you up with a guy who "...isn't much in the looks department but has the most interesting outlook on life." You discover the guy is a Star Wars nerd and arrives to pick you up for the date wearing a Darth Vader Mask.

The guy is definitely a case.

 

[Yame]

The dative case is usually a situation where a friend sets you up with a guy who "...isn't much in the looks department but has the most interesting outlook on life." You discover the guy is a Star Wars nerd and arrives to pick you up for the date wearing a Darth Vader Mask.

The guy is definitely a case.

*snort* :lol: