Terminology question.

Aniseteph

New member
I just saw a list of moves on Bhuz, and found a long term question shaped space in my brain that needs filling with authoritative Knowledge.

So, what actually is "basic Egyptian"?

There's a step I think it might be that we do in the TF class - lift and twist forward unweighted hip then step onto that side and repeat with other. As I'm totally faking the tribal I don't know what that teacher calls it. Whatever it is, Basic Egyptian is not a terminology that I have come across in almost 10 years of going to Egyptian style classes and workshops. Which is strange. If it is both Basic AND Egyptian I'd expect to have had someone mention it by now.

There was also something called Arabic. Nope. :confused:. Edumacate me please!
 

Marya

Member
Different teachers use terminology for different movements, The tribal fusion/Salimpour basic Egyptian is not the same movement that I call basic Egyptian and they are both different from what other teachers in Europe might call basic Egyptian.

This discussion is a reprise of similar discussions held many years ago on the email list serve known as MEDlist. There is no standard terminology for Belly Dance. There are standard terms within certain off-shoots like ATS or TF, but even within those groupings there are regional differences. ATS and TF have very different movement vocab from Egyptian style Belly Dance and caution must be used when trying to move from one style to another since their terms and the way movement is generated are very very different. The differences can be described but are not easy to understand without actually being coached through them by a knowledgeable person.

Great question, and I hope others chime in. The other thing to keep in mind is to not get hung up on terminology but to learn to see what dancers are actually doing. sort of a rose by any other name.... the label is not reality, only a reflection of it.

Aisha Azar, my teacher uses the term basic Egyptian in her fundamentals of Belly Dance, we have Basic Egyptian posture, and a Basic Egyptian movement which is a muscular, contained, controlled downward hip movement which some people call a hip drop, but it is not quite the same. If you have Aisha's DVD you can see what it is that she calls Basic Egyptian and how she does it.


Marya
 
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Kashmir

New member
The term "basic" seems to be one of the worse ones. Everyone has their own. Personally I now label them with the name of the first teacher who applied the term in my hearing - so I have a Mo Basic, a Fatina basic etc. And sometimes the same move will have multiple names.

As for "Egyptian basic" - never, never had an actual Egyptian use the term - or the concept - other than Mo and he is folklorically trained. Footwork isn't "basic" in Egytian style.
 

Zorba

"The Veiled Male"
What the OP describes, is what I know as a "basic Egyptian" as well.

Nope, no consistent terminology. Especially between Cabaret and Tribal worlds. A Tribal "Camel" isn't anything like the "Camel" I know from my Cabaret training. Tribal also has "Taqsim" as a move, where its a beatless portion of a routine in Cabaret. And so on.
 

Kashmir

New member
Nope, no consistent terminology. Especially between Cabaret and Tribal worlds. A Tribal "Camel" isn't anything like the "Camel" I know from my Cabaret training. Tribal also has "Taqsim" as a move, where its a beatless portion of a routine in Cabaret. And so on.
Don't know between Tribal and Cabaret - but there is a difference between the Egyptian and American use of "camel" - the former is a pelvic undulation only.

In Arabic dance "taqsim" refers to dancing to the taqsim - which is a solo improvisation by a musician - usually without percussion - but not without rhythm.
 

Aniseteph

New member
Thank you everyone. As I thought then, it is a widely recognised terminology.

The term "basic" seems to be one of the worse ones. Everyone has their own. Personally I now label them with the name of the first teacher who applied the term in my hearing - so I have a Mo Basic, a Fatina basic etc. And sometimes the same move will have multiple names.

I like that approach - better to have multiple names for the same move than the same name for multiple moves.

As for "Egyptian basic" - never, never had an actual Egyptian use the term - or the concept - other than Mo and he is folklorically trained. Footwork isn't "basic" in Egytian style.

THIS. This is it exactly. Not using the name would be no surprise; everyone has their own terms and it's usually Follow The Bouncing Butt and no labels in an Egyptian teacher's workshop anyway. But me too - I never came across the concept in many years of UK based Egyptian style, or with Egyptian teachers. Not as a "basic" anything. So my inner pedant/nerd is shouting "But it's NOT :protest:" in TF class.
 

AndreaSTL

New member
I don't pay any attention to what an instructor calls a something since everyone has their own terminology. I focus on the movement itself, and so even though I've heard the term before I have no idea what they were actually doing at the time I heard it.
 

Sophia Maria

New member
I don't pay any attention to what an instructor calls a something since everyone has their own terminology. I focus on the movement itself, and so even though I've heard the term before I have no idea what they were actually doing at the time I heard it.

Yeah, at this point I've given up on names. When my teacher runs through choreography, it mostly sounds like, "Dum! Tek Dum tek! Tekatek brrrrrrrrr dum dum!"
 

Aniseteph

New member
Aha. Arabic is kinda like a camel, only not the AmCab style or (of course) the Egyptian one. As a pedantic nerd, I would get on so much better with this if as well as it being stylistically nothing to do with anything ME, it didn't use words that implied it was.

(the drills are good for you the drills are good for you the drills are good for you, repeat until the aesthetic upset passes...)
 
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