what is clean technique?

Ahava_Melantha

New member
When someone says to make your movements cleaner, or to have cleaner technique, what exactly does this mean?

I'm having a hard time understanding sharp moves and clean technique.

thanx.
 

Darshiva

Moderator
What it means is that your move looks like what it is. A hip slide, for example, should be perfectly horizontal and should both start and stop with intention (no wobbling, etc) That's clean technique.

Sharp technique means that a move should have a clear driving force. For example, a hip slide can have the obliques activating it, or the lower abs, and both will give a different look. Sharp technique keeps things clear and separate, without muddying the underlying motivators.

One does not necessarily preclude the other, and frequently the words are interchangeable.

Examples:

Ranya Renee has clean technique. Ava Fleming has sharp technique.
 

Kashmir

New member
The two are related but different. Clean technique is when movements are completed rather blurring into each other; there is a degree of isolation. It is about being able to deliver isolation even if every move is not - although the perfectly flat hip slide is the ideal in Orientale technique you can have clean technique in other styles without it - but you are in control. The opposite would be a general mushy look with all movements looking much the same and the whole body being involved in everything. Is that a horizontal 8 or a vertical one? or was it sorta a circle? Is that a hip move or a chest move? Is that arm waving deliberate or a reflex action?

Sharp movements are ones that come to a definite stop. So I can do a hip rock as a continual wave it moves up and down - or I can clench my glutes at the top and give a split second stop. Same speed, same body, completely different look. I think you probably need clean technique to achieve sharp movements.

If a dancer always had sharp movements then either s/he has a poor choice of music - or has missed the point - in belly dance you dance to the music; all the music. If the music is sharp - dance sharp; if it flows flow. In music with both - you should switch between - don't always dance to the drum!
 

Darshiva

Moderator
although the perfectly flat hip slide is the ideal in Orientale technique you can have clean technique in other styles without it

Would you expand on this? I teach a lifted or dropped or twisted slide as a layered move and use language to distinguish it from the base move of hip slide. I'm curious to know if there is a difference in what you're describing or if in certain styles the horizontal part doesn't matter so much as a transition of weight from left to right or an outward motion of the hips.
 

Kashmir

New member
I'm currently teaching an old (1970s I think) western choreography. For instance, rather than nice flat slides there is more of a scoop. The students have having great difficulty in dropping the Egyptian styling - just looks wrong with a horizontal slide. Yet, the technique (when done as I'm trying to get them to do it) is still clean. There is still a definite move which has a start, a journey, and a finish - but not Orientale clean.

Ditto old style beledi. No flat horizontal hip eights as a rule - but the resulting dance can still have clean technique with the blurred eight.
 

Darshiva

Moderator
I'm currently teaching an old (1970s I think) western choreography. For instance, rather than nice flat slides there is more of a scoop. The students have having great difficulty in dropping the Egyptian styling - just looks wrong with a horizontal slide. Yet, the technique (when done as I'm trying to get them to do it) is still clean. There is still a definite move which has a start, a journey, and a finish - but not Orientale clean.

Ditto old style beledi. No flat horizontal hip eights as a rule - but the resulting dance can still have clean technique with the blurred eight.

See, I don't think of that as blurred or not clean, but as variations on base moves. Interesting the way that terminology changes from classroom to classroom.
 
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