The two most important belly dance moves

[Yame]

This is a "just for fun" thread. There is no right or wrong answer.

Which belly dance moves do you consider the most important? Or, phrased differently, if somehow your body was forced to "forget" every belly dance move but you could choose two that your body could retain, which ones would it be?

This will of course vary upon style and personal taste... I have my own two that, in my opinion, whole performances could be made up of. But I am going to wait for a few answers before I give my own. This forum has been a little slow lately, let's get some life going on here!

 

[Shanazel]

Up/Down.

Side to side.

 

[Mosaic]

Hip circles ( big & juicy or small & neat) & of course the wonderful shimmy ( though there is the fall back when you can't think of anything else - the hip drop ... hmmmmm so hard to chose )

 

[Sirène]

MVM (Most-Valuable-Move) = Hip drop/lift.

2nd MVM = undulation. It's versatile and works the other half of the body.

 

[Jane]

Figure 8 and shimmy for me

 

[Kashmir]

Vertical hips - slow it is a rock, fast it is a shimmy, play with the timing and you have a hip drop.

The other most important move would be a backwards horizontal hip eight - for the squishy bits.

 

[Roshanna]

Backwards horizontal 8 and hip drops. I can get a long way on those. Though I guess too much layering would probably be cheating...

 

[Duvet]

Hip drops, and a smile.

 

[Amulya]

Hip drops and shimmy

 

[Yame]

Hip drops and shimmy

Ding ding ding! That would be my choice as well.

 

[Selene]

Figure 8 and hip drops!

 

[AndreaSTL]

Hip drops and shimmy

These were my two picks as well. I almost chose the figure 8 over the shimmy, but sometimes you just need a shimmy and nothing else will do.

 

[seona]

Shimmies and taqs! (Taqs are what my teacher calls hip bumps/hits/etc) up 8's, nice & gooey are a close contender though, but taqs & shimmies I feel I gravitate towards more. Actually the three moves i mentioned I tend to use just those if I ever perform improv, i get brain freeze, this thread has reminded me that I need to get more moves in my memory, don't want to bore the audience haha

 

[Darshiva]

I call these moves (the one or two you can't live without) the "when in doubt" or default moves. They're different for everyone but there's usually overlap. For me it's shimmies and wahda wa noss (hip drop with release on the second count). If I don't know the music you can count on me doing one of those two moves until I get a feel for it!

 

[isajones]

Shimmy!
Tossing up between hip drops and figure 8s for my second choice. :think:

 

[Sophia Maria]

Darshiva, I didn't know that was called 'wahda wa nos'! Never heard that before.

But yes, I would have to say that for me, the thing that I always come back to is that classic hip drop release. The second is definitely horizontal figure eights

 

[Jeanne]

Hip drop and shimmies for me, too!

 

[Jeanne]

Darshiva, I didn't know that was called 'wahda wa nos'! Never heard that before.

I never heard that before, either. Darshiva, do you know a literal translation of that name?

 

[Daimona]

I never heard that before, either. Darshiva, do you know a literal translation of that name?

Isn't it "one and a half" or something like that?

 

[Darshiva]

Yep, it's one and a half. I can't remember where I learned it, but it was probably a Keti dvd. It's almost always a Keti dvd or a private/workshop with Barbara Wolfkamp!