Generally, how long before I should do Tribal Fusion?

[achilles007]

This is the school i go to. Arguably, the best bellydance school in all of Miami:
http://www.belly2abs.com/class/

They have it set up where there are three courses that a beginner must take and complete before moving on to the open level stuff (which includes Tribal Fusion, Intermediate Egyptian, etc.): Beginner 1, Beginner 2, & Intro to Intermediate (each spanning 8 weeks, 1 class per week). I am currently taking two Beginner 1 classes and am on the 5th week of both. And I just enrolled yesterday for a third Beginner 1 class in order to to perfect the movement(s) learned earlier before moving on to Beginner 2.

So my question is:

How long ideally should a beginner wait before taking up Tribal Fusion?

I read on here that people who rush into Fusion without a proper Egyptian or ATS base often are stiff, incompetent, and rather ''same-samey''-looking. Looking to avoid that at all costs without spending too much time learning Egyptian though, as I have no interest in dancing Egyptian at all.

I just want to become a Tribal Fusion dancer as fast as possible.

 

[Shanazel]

Tribal Fusion is a form of bellydance that began in 1996, in San Francisco, California, with Jill Parker, who founded Ultra Gypsy Dance Theater company, the first Tribal Fusion dance company. Tribal Fusion Belly Dance is a modern form of belly dance which has evolved from American Tribal Style belly dancing, blending elements of ATS with any other style of dance. It frequently incorporates elements from Popping, Hip Hop, Breakdance, ‘Egyptian’ or ‘Cabaret’ belly dance, as well as from traditional forms such as Flamenco, Kathak, Bhangra, Balinese, and other folkloric dance styles

Okay. I'm trying to be polite here but it's not easy. Given the description of Tribal Fusion from the site, I don't see any reason beginning belly dance classes would be any more important than beginning classes in hiphop, Balinese, Flamenco, and "any other style of dance." TF by this description has damn all to do with belly dance, be it Egyptian or Cabaret, and referring to TF as "a modern form of belly dance" makes me wonder what else the advertiser doesn't have a clue about.

Why the heck don't they just offer a beginning tribal fusion class instead of requiring you to spend hundreds of dollars taking classes that are only vaguely related? Hmm, could the good old bottom line be at work here?

 

[Daimona]

How about asking your teacher/dance school about this? Your teacher know the level required, and could probably give you feedback on what you need to work on too. If there are something particular you need to work on, how about a private lesson to target your most challenging areas with the thing in mind that you'd like to to tribal fusion?

 

[Shanazel]

Listen to Daimona. She's nicer than me and gives actual advice as opposed to going on unrequested rants.

 

[Kashmir]

With any fusion dance you should have a good grasp of the basics. In my experience it takes people about 2 years to get beyond beginner belly dance ie be able to do the basic moves nicely and have some appreciation for actual belly dance as opposed to doing belly dance moves. There are exceptions - some take a little less and some are still doing aerobics with belly dances years later.

However, as Shanazel says TF can be anything and often has absolutely no connection to belly dance - even in the eyes of the GP (I mean new age music, no hips, and no emotion? WTF?) If you really want to grow in belly dance though, rather than taking three classes from the same school I'd suggest getting a different perspective from other teachers and sign up for workshops. Oh, and listen to lots of Arabic music.

 

[Aniseteph]

How long ideally should a beginner wait before taking up Tribal Fusion?

In practical terms it depends on the student, and on what level the class is. If their bottom line TF class expects a certain level of knowing some generic basics and being familiar with their terminology, and that's what their beginner classes deliver, then fair enough for them to specify.

In wider terms I agree that to create a genuine original fusion you need a decent grounding and understanding of the elements you are fusing, and a couple of months of beginner belly dance are never going to do that for the belly dance part, IMHO. But to learn a Tribal Fusion where someone else has done all the fusing already? I don't see why you couldn't learn that from the outset. The downside is that you don't get the depth of understanding of what you are fusing, so when you want to create anything of your own you don't have the same background to draw on as a dancer with wider experience.

 

[achilles007]

With any fusion dance you should have a good grasp of the basics. In my experience it takes people about 2 years to get beyond beginner belly dance ie be able to do the basic moves nicely and have some appreciation for actual belly dance as opposed to doing belly dance moves. There are exceptions - some take a little less and some are still doing aerobics with belly dances years later.

However, as Shanazel says TF can be anything and often has absolutely no connection to belly dance - even in the eyes of the GP (I mean new age music, no hips, and no emotion? WTF?) If you really want to grow in belly dance though, rather than taking three classes from the same school I'd suggest getting a different perspective from other teachers and sign up for workshops. Oh, and listen to lots of Arabic music.

Thanks Kashmir,

The school that I'm at has multiple teachers teaching same or different classes. As an example: I have four different teachers that I am taking all of my Beginners 1 classes with (one is Tribal Fusion) . I can leave the studio and go somewhere else if that is what you mean also but many other places (as well as workshops) just don't really cater well to beginners. Many advertise as Intermediate and I have a long way to go before that. I would feel intimidated stepping inside of a class that is well above my level and slowing class down. There is one other studio that I know of that teaches beginners though, but I think that place only has one teacher.

So about two years learning the basics? May I ask if what you mean by basics, do you mean just learning how to do the basic hip circle or Omi well enough to music?

Or do you include layering, combinations, and more traveling stuff?

Off the top of my head in the Beginners 1 class we have learned chest/hip circle, hip lift/drop, chest lift/drop, snake arms, choo choo shimmy, twist shimmy, basic egyptian, grapevine upper/lower undulations, hip drop w/kick. Latest class we learned vertical figure 8.

I won't be seeing any layering or anything more complex until Beginners 2 class, I think.

 

[achilles007]

In practical terms it depends on the student, and on what level the class is. If their bottom line TF class expects a certain level of knowing some generic basics and being familiar with their terminology, and that's what their beginner classes deliver, then fair enough for them to specify.

In wider terms I agree that to create a genuine original fusion you need a decent grounding and understanding of the elements you are fusing, and a couple of months of beginner belly dance are never going to do that for the belly dance part, IMHO. But to learn a Tribal Fusion where someone else has done all the fusing already? I don't see why you couldn't learn that from the outset. The downside is that you don't get the depth of understanding of what you are fusing, so when you want to create anything of your own you don't have the same background to draw on as a dancer with wider experience.

Okay this sounds good. I'm just worried that I will look too much like an Egyptian dancer when I finally am ready to do Fusion and I will have ingrained the wrong ''look'' and will have to spend years starting all over again.

 

[Zumarrad]

OK, so you hate oriental dance and don't want it to taint your tribal purity. The best thing you can do is stay far far away from Middle Eastern anything and do some ATS as foundation. You may find over the years that you learn a few things about the importance of ME music and dance EVEN to tribal fusion leading lights, but right now, you hate it, you don't want to learn it, so don't.

Just please don't accept any performance gigs in a restaurant or anything where you are expected to represent ME culture and stick to haflas and tribal community shows. You'll be sweet.

 

[Daimona]

Okay this sounds good. I'm just worried that I will look too much like an Egyptian dancer when I finally am ready to do Fusion and I will have ingrained the wrong ''look'' and will have to spend years starting all over again.

I wouldn't worry too much about looking too much like an Egyptian dancer when you're aiming for fusion and you're still learning the basics (different schools consider the basics differently, btw). The basic belly dance moves are in general the same for most styles, but names may differ and what parts of the movements you emphasize will differ. True stylization comes later.

Whatever style you prefer and would like to do, you need to understand the body mechanics to produce the moves correctly. Then you must practice combinations and transitions, then combine moves and combinations to choreographies and learn to improvise and interprete the music. And as you learn more and understand more over time, there is always room to revise the basics. Yes, some combinations are more common in some styles than others and are closely tied to the choice of music, but this isn't something you need to worry about at this stage of your stage journey. There is still so much to learn for the open-minded dancer.

Many think that doing the isolated moves are enough to call it belly dance, but it isn't the moves that make it belly dance as a lot of the moves we do in belly dance are also found in other dance genres. It includes the whole package of learning the framework of what can be called belly dance and not, considering the choice of music and the interpretation of it, the history of the dance (both original middle eastern part and the newer tribal part all the way up to contemporary tribal fusion), and much more. You know, you've got to know the boundaries to be able to break them successfully as well as creating a good and interesting fusion.

It takes a good while both to learn and combine the moves and to learn to listen to and interprete the music in a good way (it doesn't matter if it is western new age or traditional arabic music), this is why you'll need to listen to a lot of music and view a lot of dancers in addition to your own dance practice.

If you want to truly study tribal fusion, it is actually necessary to also study the origins of tribal fusion (TF) - AmCab and ATS. You don't have to be an expert in all of them and don't have to learn one before the other, but it will expand your toolbox of the dance you would like to dance and understand the framework. Study the background of your favorite dancers to get an idea of what other elements you could focus on in addition to belly dance. I'm sure most of them have a much wider background than you've imagined.



ETA: If you see links in my post above, it is done by the forum software. I didn't add them.

 

[Zumarrad]

That is a wonderful post, Daimona.

But, see, I don't think that a person who wants to do TF has to do these other things *first*. Concurrently, yes - I do think anyone keen on TF with no BD background should do some ATS because it is foundational to what most TFers do. Some oriental dance training hell yes, especially if it is good oriental dance training. But I believe that if a person has fallen madly in love with TF then it's not wrong for them to pursue it in the first instance, if that is what they want to do. You can't forcefeed them.

I've tempered my views a lot over the years and I have figured that it doesn't actually matter HOW you get to "the real thing" or in what order you study; ultimately, those who are serious practitioners of this dance form can and will open their minds to the deeper complexities of MENA dance. It just takes time.

Back In The Day before tribal was invented (and I know they like to date it from the 60s and even earlier now but what is called tribal today was not widely performed anywhere before the 1990s and really exploded, dare I say after 9/11) and there was only "cabuhray" or "fakelore" , plenty of bellydancers had difficulty relating to dancers like Fifi, Mona, Suhair, Samia, Tahia, later on Dina... it's generally only after a fair few years in this dance form that you have the knowledge base and the ability to appreciate their subtlety and style. So what if people then only liked flashy dancing with lots of fancy veil tricks, sword etc, or people today only "relate" to snaky hip-hop to farting robot music? Eventually, as they continue on their journey, IF they continue, they come to a deeper place. It's OK to get the surface noodling out of your system.

I am not a TFer or tribal dancer of any kind but I've been around it a lot. I think a lot of people do not realise just HOW well set-up tribal's communities, networking and training methodologies are. THEY are the ones who pretty much started (or certainly best commodified) the insistence on certification and ongoing training. If you are a TF dancer, there is no way that eventually, you won't be going to study with big names in the field. Not if you want to be taken seriously. And most of those big names by and large insist that their students open their minds to oriental dance. Most of them, as Daimona says, had their start in oriental dance. If they rejected it once they have returned to it on some level. If you are a serious TFer you "have" to study with all the hot names and sooner or later you'll end up with the ones who insist you learn about ME dance history, rhythms, musicality etc.

We can be negative about some of the things we perceive in TF and its lack of "authenticity" in terms of being tied to ME culture, but we've got to give them credit for opening or re-opening their hearts and minds to what started the dances that inspired them in the first place.

The only thing I dislike is when tribal is presented as ME dance to the GP and/or held up as more feminist/liberated/better in some way.

 

[Bellydance Oz]

This is the school i go to...They have it set up where there are three courses that a beginner must take and complete before moving on to the open level stuff (which includes Tribal Fusion, Intermediate Egyptian, etc.)

So my question is:

How long ideally should a beginner wait before taking up Tribal Fusion?

I read on here that people who rush into Fusion without a proper Egyptian or ATS base often are stiff, incompetent, and rather ''same-samey''-looking.

I think you're misunderstanding those other comments. When people talk about "rushing into fusion", they're not talking about going o a fusion class and learning a ready-made fusion from a teacher - they're talking about people who move straight on to creating their OWN fusion. Obviously, drawing influences from other dance styles isn't easy if you don't know those dance styles intimately!

However, I know plenty of people who went straight into Tribal Fusion classes without any other bd training at all, and I don't see the problem with that. It's really irrelevant where the moves originally came from. You might as well say that you can't start studying ATS until you've done courses in Egyptian, Bollywood, Kathak, flamenco ....and no one suggests that!

Having said all that, your school has a particular approach and it sounds like their particular Tribal Fusion classes are not suitable for total beginners - the teacher is going to assume you are competent in the basic moves before you enrol. That's an unusual setup, and for that reason I'd say your best bet is to approach the school and ask them to guide you. Are you sure they really expect you to every move perfected, or do they literally mean you have to complete each level once?

 

[achilles007]

OK, so you hate oriental dance and don't want it to taint your tribal purity. The best thing you can do is stay far far away from Middle Eastern anything and do some ATS as foundation. You may find over the years that you learn a few things about the importance of ME music and dance EVEN to tribal fusion leading lights, but right now, you hate it, you don't want to learn it, so don't.

Just please don't accept any performance gigs in a restaurant or anything where you are expected to represent ME culture and stick to haflas and tribal community shows. You'll be sweet.

Sorry. I Didnt mean to come off so negative. I will be the first to acknowledge that I really dont know or understand the differences in any of these styles. I'm going based off of what Ive heard tribal dancers tell me.

Also based off of what my friend, who is a tribal dancer, has told me-- I was under the impression that Egyptian was all about ballet tricks, sword balancing, cane and veil usage whereas Tribal fusion (I was told) was more focused on the isolations themselves (what I think of when i think of ''bellydancing'').

So that basically, tribal fusion has an aesthetic that seems to use muscles to create movement, whereas egyptian is about using the entire body to move through space and do a bunch of chaine turns or flashy tricks.

It's not that I hate egyptian, it's just that I would like to focus on say-- how to do a basic egyptian beautifully (tribal fusion), as opposed to trying to balance a cane on my head while doing a backbend (egyptian). I would like to Tribal in order to get the dance technique down first before props or other things that would just get in the way (cymbals, swallowing fire, veilwork, etc.).
Does that make sense?

 

[Darshiva]

I feel really bad for saying this about someone I don't know, but your friend doesn't have the first clue about the various styles of oriental bellydance. In fact, I'm not sure she'd recognise it if she saw it without someone pointing it out to her.

Ask your teachers. That's actually part of what you pay for in your class fees - their wealth of knowledge & experience, as well as your space in the classroom each week.

Here's some baladi for you - this is one of the cornerstones of Egyptian style.
[video=youtube;A7YG7i2WmK4]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7YG7i2WmK4[/video]

 

[achilles007]

Many think that doing the isolated moves are enough to call it belly dance, but it isn't the moves that make it belly dance as a lot of the moves we do in belly dance are also found in other dance genres. It includes the whole package of learning the framework of what can be called belly dance and not, considering the choice of music and the interpretation of it, the history of the dance (both original middle eastern part and the newer tribal part all the way up to contemporary tribal fusion), and much more.

Ok. Why do we need to learn the history or consider music choice/interpretation in order for it to be called belly dance? Why isnt just learning the isolated moves enough? Other dances do have isolations, but none like bellydance. How can knowing the history of a dance possibly effect the way you move?

It takes a good while both to learn and combine the moves and to learn to listen to and interprete the music in a good way (it doesn't matter if it is western new age or traditional arabic music), this is why you'll need to listen to a lot of music and view a lot of dancers in addition to your own dance practice.

For some reason, the only dancers I like are Tribal Fusion dancers. They look very strong, expressive, emotive, controlled and graceful.

If you want to truly study tribal fusion, it is actually necessary to also study the origins of tribal fusion (TF) - AmCab and ATS. You don't have to be an expert in all of them and don't have to learn one before the other, but it will expand your toolbox of the dance you would like to dance and understand the framework. Study the background of your favorite dancers to get an idea of what other elements you could focus on in addition to belly dance. I'm sure most of them have a much wider background than you've imagined.

Oh man. Then Im in bad shape, because the male TF dancer that I look up to has told me that he's taken AmCab, Turkish, AND Egyptian in addition to being a TFer. Too much...

 

[achilles007]

I feel really bad for saying this about someone I don't know, but your friend doesn't have the first clue about the various styles of oriental bellydance. In fact, I'm not sure she'd recognise it if she saw it without someone pointing it out to her.

Ask your teachers. That's actually part of what you pay for in your class fees - their wealth of knowledge & experience, as well as your space in the classroom each week.

Here's some baladi for you - this is one of the cornerstones of Egyptian style.
[video=youtube;A7YG7i2WmK4]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7YG7i2WmK4[/video]

Wow!That youtube video is awesome!

It looks just like Tribal Fusion, doesn't it! ''Baladi'', is it? You mentioned ''oriental''... is that the same as ''Egyptian''? And there are various styles of it?
:think:...Now I'm really confused.

You sure she isn't doing TF?

This is what I thought Egyptian BD was-- with the required veil and everything:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QsbCN5AlQG8

Egyptian such as in that^^^ link seems much faster, more skeletal, more exciting and ballet-esque compared to your ''baladi'' clip and this Tribal one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wzDntuye_k

I'm just plain confused now. My head hurts.

 

[Darshiva]

That is the complete opposite of tribal fusion. My goodness, you have a lot to discover. Here's a link to get you started: http://www.shira.net/

I wish you joy, happiness and many many shimmies on your voyage of discovery. I think you might discover a hidden passion for the folkloric styles of bellydance. Enjoy!

 

[Shanazel]

Poor you! No wonder your head hurts: there really is a lot to learn and as Dar says, you may discover a passion for belly dance as you begin to study, if you decide to study.

To try to illustrate answers to your questions:

Is hula still hula when done wearing a tutu and using music from The Wizard of Oz? Pretty silly picture, hmm? The picture is just as silly when wearing tights and a crop top, dancing to the latest pop music, and calling it belly dance because the movements include hip drops. Belly dance is an entire package: music, costuming, movement vocabulary. Lose one, you lose the genre.


You could learn by rote to play a Mozart piano piece without knowing a damn thing about Mozart, classical music, or even pianos, for that matter. Could you play it with understanding, sympathy, and passion? I don't know how; if all you've ever listened to is Emo, that's all you're going to be able to express no matter who wrote the music.

 

[Farasha Hanem]

Let me see if I can help a little. Bellydance is so much more than just the moves---it is an expression of Middle Eastern musical culture. It is their dance, the dance of the people. In the Middle East, EVERYONE bellydances---men, women, even the children, at weddings and festivals, at parties, at any occasion that brings joy and happiness. The people of the Middle East dance to express that joy, and they let their music dictate how their bodies respond to it. This is why it's so important to study and understand the history of bellydance. For me, loving bellydance extends to loving the people of the Middle East and its culture.

What we see on the stage is the "stage version" of bellydance, which is based on their local, cultural dances, and if you think you're confused now, there are many genres of their cultural dances (not only baladi, but also khaleegy, Raqs assaya (what you know as "cane dance"), sha'abbi, Maleya leff, Haggala, and a few others I can't think of at the moment. But don't get discouraged, you don't have to learn all of these genres to do well in basic bellydance or TF. Just know that they do exist, and at least have a look at a few examples (they're fun to watch!).

Anyway, the stage, or performance, version of Raqs Sharqui usually does take up more stage space than the actual cultural dances, simply because if a dancer doesn't make use of a big stage, audiences get bored. So yes, unless it's a more intimate setting or venue such as a crowded restaurant or small stage, performance bellydance (be it Egyptian, Lebanese, Greek, Turkish, American or Western Oriental, or ATS or TF, will have more traveling steps in order to make more use of a large stage. It doesn't have anything to do with ballet influence (though there are dancers who also have backgrounds in ballet, jazz, or other forms of dance. It's not necessary to have such a background---some dancers do, some dancers don't). As for veil work, Western Oriental makes faaaar more use of the veil than classic Egyptian. In Egyptian bellydance, the veil is more for a dramatic entrance, swish it around for a minute or two, then tossing it aside and dancing the rest of the number without it. As for swords, that really isn't an Egyptian thing, either, though I think some might use sword now.

UUUUUGH, I'm sorry if I'm not making much sense and confusing you more. I know what I want to share, but it's 1;45 in the morning! @______@ If I seem to be losing focus, I'm sorry, and I hope there will be someone here that maybe can understand what my tired little retail brain is trying to say.

I wanted to post some cool vids of ordinary Egyptian folk dancing. If I can stay awake long enough, I might find one before going into a sleep coma! @_______@

 

[Darshiva]

It also doesn't help that Draconis leans strongly to the oriental side of tribal fusion. That's got to add in so much confusion here.

Draconis is lovely, btw. Thanks for sharing the link.