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Amanda (was Aziyade)

Well-known member
In regard to American culture, I do think there are some areas (maybe some ethnicities, during certain times?) who prefer to identify with THAT ethnicity first. It's a way of holding their group identity together -- and it's protection, to a degree. It wasn't that long ago that you saw signs like "No Irish served here" in restaurants. I really didn't believe that part of our history for a long time until I saw photos. eep. Maybe the Italian-Americans DO self-identify as Italian first. And maybe the Swedes don't. ??? Germans around here don't speak German anymore, and don't really think of themselves as German in anything other than last name, but we've been a German town for 300 years, so maybe it got old.

The American Jewish culture --at least as I have experienced it -- is very much representative of this identity hierarchy. You are a Jew first. Then an American. This really makes total sense to me, post WWII.

I also think the idea of a "big cultural umbrella under which we all can live" is BS. We don't have that in America of course, but if you talk to ANYONE from any other country, they don't have a single unifying "culture" of their own. Spain is fragmented six ways to Sunday. Egypt is divided almost by the streets. Indians recognize HUGE differences between people in different states or regions. China has several hundred different languages and ethnic backgrounds, but they attempted to unite them all under one "Chinese" government umbrella and that has proved devastating to a lot of smaller ethnic groups.



Regarding my comment about structure and rules and lists -- I know it doesn't apply to everybody LOL! But in my classes, that is the overwhelming thing I've noticed, both in my own personal classes and the ones I teach. Americans grow up with a graded syllabus -- literally! We call it school. And we tend to think of most things in terms of "beginner, intermediate, and advanced."

Yes, there are students who don't "play by those rules." They just want to move, and they don't want the structure of technique or "rules" to hold them back. I respect that. I see it a lot with self-taught individuals. Some successfully grow and some don't. Reminds me of people who learn to play an instrument by ear, and then go on to be very successful musicians, despite a lack of early training.

I also wonder if structure isn't something that was imposed more recently on how we teach this dance (here in the US.) I was told back in the day the teacher would just get up and dance and you would just follow them. You learned to move by watching your teacher, and if she broke something down it was merely to say "it's the left hip" or something equally vague.

If you learn like this, it's more of a process of self-discovery, and you wouldn't maybe feel the need for the same kind of structure. BUT I heard SOOOOO many complaints when DeeDee started bringing Egyptians here -- people said "but all she did was dance. She didn't TEACH anything." Follow the bouncing butt doesn't seem like a viable method for learning these days. Or maybe students just can't adjust to learning that way, more visual than intellectual? It took me a LONG time, and I still struggle with it.
 

Shanazel

Moderator
"Don't tell them how to do it, show them how to do it and don't say a word.
If you tell them, they'll watch your lips move.
If you show them, they'll want to do it themselves."
- Dr. Maria Montessori

I notice that when I just turn on the tunes and dance my students (even the newer ones) follow along and easily do things they have trouble with when thinking too hard about those things.
 
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Kashmir

New member
I mourn the loss of follow the bouncing butt. When I first did workshops with Egyptian teachers that is what they did. You didn't learn a choreography (which I would rarely use) - but you got a feel for the parameters of the style. As in, this is beledi and to this music this - and this and this - is acceptable. This is sa`iidi and this or this or this is how you can interpret the music. Once they were forced to produce a chorography the boundries became harder to identify.
 
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Darshiva

Moderator
Once they were forced to produce a chorography the boundries became harder to identify.

Oh, that explains it then! I was wondering why I could never figure out what the heck sai'idi was despite going to heaps of workshops on the matter. All I've been able to figure out is two different hopping steps and that a stick is frequently used!
 

Shanazel

Moderator
Choreography in my classes is a group effort: everyone contributes Ideas and I have the final say in what goes.

No one is allowed to stand and watch me dance unless I say so and I am one scary lady. I make my students run laps of the dance room if they get too lazy; just ask 'em. :D

I'm not sure how many more years of bouncing my butt has but I reckon it and I will carry on the old-fashioned way of teaching by doing until we drop.
 

Mosaic

Super Moderator
Choreography in my classes is a group effort: everyone contributes Ideas and I have the final say in what goes.

No one is allowed to stand and watch me dance unless I say so and I am one scary lady. I make my students run laps of the dance room if they get too lazy; just ask 'em. :D

I'm not sure how many more years of bouncing my butt has but I reckon it and I will carry on the old-fashioned way of teaching by doing until we drop.

Oh Shan you make me laugh - I wish I could come to your classes .... I wonder if you would scare me;)
~Mosaic
 

Sophia Maria

New member
I mourn the loss of follow the bouncing butt. When I first did workshops with Egyptian teachers that is what they did. You didn't learn a choreography (which I would rarely use) - but you got a feel for the parameters of the style.

I like the bouncing butt as a teaching style, I really do. But I also think I wouldn't go to a class if that was all the teacher did. I studied with one teacher for a few months who I thought had a really good method. She would start the class by turning a few songs and improvising and having us follow her. Then after some time she would stop the music and explain a few things that she was doing so that we could refine them. If you don't refine any technique, you may have the right feeling for the music, but you will slop around too much. On the other hand, I think that if you do the occasional follow the bouncing butt session, it helps students understand the music more.

Aziyade said:
I also think the idea of a "big cultural umbrella under which we all can live" is BS. We don't have that in America of course, but if you talk to ANYONE from any other country, they don't have a single unifying "culture" of their own. Spain is fragmented six ways to Sunday. Egypt is divided almost by the streets. Indians recognize HUGE differences between people in different states or regions. China has several hundred different languages and ethnic backgrounds, but they attempted to unite them all under one "Chinese" government umbrella and that has proved devastating to a lot of smaller ethnic groups.

Yes, it can clearly be very divided. I think the problem is we're always conflating the term "ethnicity" and "culture" with "nationality", which is not the same thing at all. All a nationality can tell about you is your citizenship, legal status, and maybe your language (or one of your languages). It's always easier to see the divisions when you're familiar with the country--for example, if you've never been to Britain before, you think of everything you hear as a "British" accent. And then later you realize that there are tons of different British accents and they all sound different.
 

Shanazel

Moderator
Oh Shan you make me laugh - I wish I could come to your classes .... I wonder if you would scare me;)
~Mosaic

Shan might be able to scare Mo upon occasion, but scare Chaotica? Never!

I wish you could come, too. Wouldn't the four of us have fun?
 
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