Caroline_afifi
New member
If she is 14 or 15, I certainly *hope* she is escorted by her mother to gigs!
Well I would have liked my mum to come to gigs with me til I was 30! lol
I dont care how good someone dances or looks, call me old fashioned but 14,15,16,17 is way too young to deal with the restaurant business.
I once helped a girl get a job in a restaurant who was 19 and very beautiful, her dancing was OK.
She really needed the money to help support herself, her mum and younger brother. She worked at a very nice place until everyone who worked there (including the owners) had tried it on with her and was unsuccessful, they then replaced her with a more experienced dancer whom they knew who was in her mid 40's.
Apart from this they messed her around, cancelled last minute, didnt pay on time, made her wait along time to dance so she missed her last train home and spent half of her money on a taxi etc etc.
Some people really can self-teach effectively, and many pro singers got their start as children. And how many popular singers were truly "taught" how to sing, hmm?
Some, but very few.
On the other hand, I'm always slightly suspect of self-taught people who teach; my experience is that self-taught teachers' classes are not as focused, nor do they move as quickly as the classes of teachers who have had skill-specific teaching methods modeled for them over a long period of time.
There is also an element of self teaching which means it is selective, you choose which information you wish to absorb possibly ignoring many important things. People maybe able to teach themselves but even fewer are great at self assessment.
But the proof is in the pudding. I certainly don't think the "performing arts degree" and the 3.5 years of college dance classes I took qualify me to teach or perform bellydance professionally. Nor do my 4 years of bellydance classes (and more years of video study). In my mind, the proper qualifications are: 1) do you dance at (or very near) pro level, and 2) do you have the *teaching* talent as well as patience and personal integrity necessary to handle a class.
I agree it is not about time and specific training. Sometimes the most random people who live in the middle of nowhere can outshine someone who has been at if for 20 years.
The talent for this dance can be quite random. There are people who have something which makes them more natural at this dance than others, but I doubt it can be completely self taught.