Duvet
Member
If you are a teacher with a student group who perform with you at fetes, festivals or restaurants, and if you get paid for those gigs, do you share out the money with the troupe? Or do you view them as volunteer dancers who are gaining experience and having fun, and besides, there are too many of them to get a share and still leave enough for you? What do students think about this?
If teachers allow or expect students to perform in public for nothing – because its ‘fun’ – what message is that giving students about the value of performing properly? There are times when professional dancers complain about amateurs undercutting them at restaurants, or dancing for free and giving bellydance a poor image because they are not very good dancers. But if you encourage your students to see it as ‘only fun’ that ‘anyone can do’ and doesn’t actually need to be very good to be seen in public, how are students meant to understand that a performance before the general public has to be worth seeing and needs to keep certain standards of technique and style?
Do you have certain levels that a student knows that they must pass before they can perform at a hafla, a fete, a festival, etc, and then reward those students accordingly for dances well done? What would students like in return as way of encouragement?
If teachers allow or expect students to perform in public for nothing – because its ‘fun’ – what message is that giving students about the value of performing properly? There are times when professional dancers complain about amateurs undercutting them at restaurants, or dancing for free and giving bellydance a poor image because they are not very good dancers. But if you encourage your students to see it as ‘only fun’ that ‘anyone can do’ and doesn’t actually need to be very good to be seen in public, how are students meant to understand that a performance before the general public has to be worth seeing and needs to keep certain standards of technique and style?
Do you have certain levels that a student knows that they must pass before they can perform at a hafla, a fete, a festival, etc, and then reward those students accordingly for dances well done? What would students like in return as way of encouragement?