Which is better?
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Kashmir
New member
My students start in the second week
Seriously, you need both types of practice - technique where you analyse everything and dance where the music rules (and maybe the third kind where you get feedback from your teacher on how you improvise). For me, choreography is just a way of practicing the technique you need in a fun way, getting some ideas on how to interpret music as a belly dancer and a safe way to get to perform (plus with choreo you can put 10 students on stage all at once and they will look good).
Traditional belly dance was done in a very small space. The travelling about was added very recently - in the last 100 years or so. But it is hard. I have had two "bath towel" gigs - one in a bay window and one on a staircase. You really have to concentrate on dancing then not just travelling about!
I have taken beginner/advanced beginner bellydance classes in three different countries, and so, so few of them had any kind of improv or even "do your own mini choreo" component. It's amazing. I know there are some teachers who do it early on, which I think it's great, but most of the teachers I've had, even if they were fantastic at teaching technique or choreo, really didn't leave any space for the student.
I really don't understand this. I regularly read online discussions by pro bellydancers (on Bhuz, on Fb, etc.) about how unmusical so many N. Americans/students/beginning dancers are. And yet, in my experience, the teaching has so little to do with musicality. I've even had some teachers point out the doum or even a rhythm, but then *tell* students what they should do on that doum, rather than guiding them to listen to the music and move to it. That's not musicality. That's following instructions.
I get that clean technique is great, and a wonderful goal. It's a goal of mine too. But so few classes seem to be about *dancing*. What gives?
Amanda (was Aziyade)
Well-known member
As a teacher, I can tell you that it's really hard figuring out how to spread my entire syllabus out over a series of 60-minute classes. There are many times in class where I just have to skip the 5-minute improv, and I hate that. We do, as teachers, spend a lot of time focusing on drilling and technique because it's one of the easiest things to "fix" when a student is doing it incorrectly. It's a lot harder to fix a lack of musicality. So a lot of the blame for non-musical students is really on the shoulders of us teachers.
That said, you really should be improvising at home. I know you won't get the same vibe dancing in your living room, but for years all I had was the space between the couch and the TV and I made it work.
You're obviously at a point in your studies where you are YEARNING to dance, so do it!!! All that noodling around and playing in your living room is what will help you become an artist rather than a technician. Plus it's fun
I know you were actually replying to the OP, Aziyade, but I want to point out in respect to my own comment -- <i>all</i> my classes are 90 minute classes. My teachers aren't skipping the five minute improv, they just never planned one in the first place.
Re: improv, I'm one of those people who loves noodling around the house, and feel comfortable doing it. It's what I really enjoy. But I know some are not, and even so, there's a big difference in terms of what I can do creatively when I'm doing a guided improv. I've had a few experiences with this using DVDs and in workshops, and it just releases things I didn't know were inside me, or forces me to improv in a slightly structured way, listen more closely to the music, etc. It's just different. I do think teachers should teach this stuff, even in little five minute exercises.
Darshiva
Moderator
I must be a very strange teacher. I will happily cut out choreo and cut down on the number of technique drills (not the duration) to allow time for improv. Even the students who hate improv at the start are really enjoying it after a few lessons because it allows them to be creative with the moves they are using. I give general guidelines of course, but the rest is up to them, with the only restriction being to close your eyes or turn away if you feel the urge to copy what someone else is doing. Moving similarly because you don't have a large movement repetoir or that's what the music calls for is fine. Letting someone else make the decisions for you is not.
For my personal preference, improv is more important than choreography because you can use improv to create choreo but you can't really use choreo to improvise.
For my personal preference, improv is more important than choreography because you can use improv to create choreo but you can't really use choreo to improvise.
When I'm planning a solo performance, I often choreograph the beginning of the dance and certain sections of the music and have a plan for the ending. The rest I improvise. A mix of choreo and improv works best for me; I have some structure but I'm also free to react in the moment. Of course, it's best if I know the music really really well. But that goes for full choreographies, too.
p.s. In my classes I do try to include time for improvisational dancing, but mainly for my intermediates, not the beginners. My classes are only one hour and I have a lot of turnover in the beginning classes, so we are constantly drilling the basics or learning a simple choreography in that class.
p.s. In my classes I do try to include time for improvisational dancing, but mainly for my intermediates, not the beginners. My classes are only one hour and I have a lot of turnover in the beginning classes, so we are constantly drilling the basics or learning a simple choreography in that class.
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Farasha Hanem
New member
The problems in my class are that: 1. We don't use real ME music for our improv time (it's Shakira and Christina Auguliera -_- ), and 2. Our teacher puts a LOT of emphasis on traveling ("use the stage, take up that space"). Although I get that you do have to move around some, I don't always feel like traveling. And I want to dance to REAL music. -_-
Kashmir
New member
Poor things. You are right - you cannot learn belly dance improv to that sort of music. It is important to know how to use a stage - but I deal with that as a separate exercise - and usually with only one or two doing so at once.
MizzNaaa
New member
Okay, here are my two cents in.
You know that god awful phrase "Westerners just don't dance as good as us middle easterners"? I know the reason behind it, at least the reason it's said on my end of the world (here in Egypt). It's your emphasis on choreography.
I'm only 20, but I've been belly dancing since I was four-ish , that's almost 16 years, it's always been part of my life, and I've NEVER...EVER done a choreography. The only time I ever did a choreography was one me and my friend set up for my birthday party, we were going to do a belly dance duel, and we didn't even really 'choreograph' the moves, we basically just broke the song into segments to know which one of us gets what part. That was it! There were no moves agreed on. Every time we practiced the moves would be different.
The thing most (in my humble opinion) western dancers I've seen/watched/talked to don't get is that Bellydance is literally all about spontaneity and improvisation. Studying the technique makes sense of course, yes you need to understand how the moves are done, but treating Bellydance as a theatrical dance and breaking it down to 1, 2, step takes away from it's magic.
I hope to teach bellydance one day, cause I feel like I have a lot to show/tell people about our type of dance, and in my class there will be NO room for choreography until my students fully understand the technique and can easily express themselves to ACTUAL ME music by improvising.
So, you want my opinion? Go the the class, learn from your teacher, but ALWAYS make time to just sit, listen to ME music and understand it. Look up the lyrics, ask here, I'll help with any translations I could and most importantly; improvise.
Watch Egypt's top bellydancers; Naima Akef, Samia Gamal, Tahia Carioka, Suheir Zaki, Fifi Abdu, Badia Masabny, and watch other dancers who choreograph just to get new ideas but don't cop out and rely on choreography. So yeah, make time for improvisations and don't focus on travelling around much. Honestly, here in Cairo when we see a bellydancer moving over the dance floor too much rather than actually focusing on moving the common reaction is "She's covering up her inability to move".
Moving around is good, but it's only a minor part of the dance, you can literally have a very successful performance by just moving in a tiny 2x2 meter dance floor because it really relies on your technique and how well you express yourself in the music. Same thing for the variety of moves, you don't have to use 9374374 different and complex bellydance moves to have a successful performance, just watch Suheir Zaki, she's mesmerizing and yet, there are very little fancy moves, it's all about the expression.
You know that god awful phrase "Westerners just don't dance as good as us middle easterners"? I know the reason behind it, at least the reason it's said on my end of the world (here in Egypt). It's your emphasis on choreography.
I'm only 20, but I've been belly dancing since I was four-ish , that's almost 16 years, it's always been part of my life, and I've NEVER...EVER done a choreography. The only time I ever did a choreography was one me and my friend set up for my birthday party, we were going to do a belly dance duel, and we didn't even really 'choreograph' the moves, we basically just broke the song into segments to know which one of us gets what part. That was it! There were no moves agreed on. Every time we practiced the moves would be different.
The thing most (in my humble opinion) western dancers I've seen/watched/talked to don't get is that Bellydance is literally all about spontaneity and improvisation. Studying the technique makes sense of course, yes you need to understand how the moves are done, but treating Bellydance as a theatrical dance and breaking it down to 1, 2, step takes away from it's magic.
I hope to teach bellydance one day, cause I feel like I have a lot to show/tell people about our type of dance, and in my class there will be NO room for choreography until my students fully understand the technique and can easily express themselves to ACTUAL ME music by improvising.
So, you want my opinion? Go the the class, learn from your teacher, but ALWAYS make time to just sit, listen to ME music and understand it. Look up the lyrics, ask here, I'll help with any translations I could and most importantly; improvise.
Watch Egypt's top bellydancers; Naima Akef, Samia Gamal, Tahia Carioka, Suheir Zaki, Fifi Abdu, Badia Masabny, and watch other dancers who choreograph just to get new ideas but don't cop out and rely on choreography. So yeah, make time for improvisations and don't focus on travelling around much. Honestly, here in Cairo when we see a bellydancer moving over the dance floor too much rather than actually focusing on moving the common reaction is "She's covering up her inability to move".
Moving around is good, but it's only a minor part of the dance, you can literally have a very successful performance by just moving in a tiny 2x2 meter dance floor because it really relies on your technique and how well you express yourself in the music. Same thing for the variety of moves, you don't have to use 9374374 different and complex bellydance moves to have a successful performance, just watch Suheir Zaki, she's mesmerizing and yet, there are very little fancy moves, it's all about the expression.
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Shanazel
Moderator
MizzNaaa, your two cents is worth many, many expensive workshops. Thank you! :clap:
This!
I never performed a choreography until I was forced to invent one for my classes three decades after I started dancing. I find them artificial and restrictive and probably right now someone is thinking, "If Shanazel says she hates choreography one more time I am going to throw something at her."
And this:
And this, too:
(Sighs contentedly).
The one time I entered a dance competition I did so as part of a duet with a student who wanted very much to compete but couldn't afford to do it unless someone shared the fee. The judge's comment that stands out in my mind years later: "Use the stage, fill it up, move across it more." Why they include BD in competitions with no BD savvy judges I will never know.
This!
I never performed a choreography until I was forced to invent one for my classes three decades after I started dancing. I find them artificial and restrictive and probably right now someone is thinking, "If Shanazel says she hates choreography one more time I am going to throw something at her."
And this:
And this, too:
(Sighs contentedly).
The one time I entered a dance competition I did so as part of a duet with a student who wanted very much to compete but couldn't afford to do it unless someone shared the fee. The judge's comment that stands out in my mind years later: "Use the stage, fill it up, move across it more." Why they include BD in competitions with no BD savvy judges I will never know.
Farasha Hanem
New member
MizzNaaa, may I please, please, PLEASE quote your entire reply on Facebook? I love my teacher, but everything you have explained here is the opposite of what she teaches, and when we have "improv" time at the end of class, it's almost never to real ME music, and she gets on to us if we don't "use the stage." The class is so big, and our studio is always so small, that we end up bumping into each other. She's not the only teacher in my state that teaches this typical "American bellydance," pretty much all of them in my area do. -_- I don't know of a single teacher here in Oklahoma who teaches REAL Egyptian style.
And if I have to dance ONE MORE TIME to Shakira or Christina Auguleira, I'M GONNA SCREAM MY COINS OFF!!!!
Farasha Hanem
New member
And yeah, my teacher is on Facebook... >.>;;;
EDIT: Would someone please rep MizzNaaa for me? I have to spread the love before I can again.
EDIT: Would someone please rep MizzNaaa for me?
I have to spread the love before I can again.
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Erik
New member
42nd Street Trailer (1933) - YouTube
Giant apes kidnapping beautiful women and climbing up skyscrapers may have become passé since 1933, but in the West we will NEVER let go of our beloved choreography.
EDIT --- To Farasha Hanem: You may consider her repped.
Giant apes kidnapping beautiful women and climbing up skyscrapers may have become passé since 1933, but in the West we will NEVER let go of our beloved choreography.
EDIT --- To Farasha Hanem: You may consider her repped.
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Aniseteph
New member
Farasha, I feel your pain about those music choices. How anyone can really belly dance to those is beyond me. It must be so frustrating.
As for our choreography fixation - not choreographing is SCARY, that's why people are so attached to it IMO. That and the fact we learn in classes and do class dances that are inevitably choreographed. It's easy to get a mindset that the same process but on your own is what solo belly dance is about. For me it takes some nerve to step off that path and trust that your technique won't disappear, that you'll "do enough" to keep the audience's attention, that you will be able to get yourself out of any holes you dig yourself into.
Every time I start choreographing another solo to death, all this goes through my head:
"Just know your music, go with it and move, you know you can, and it looks and feels better."
"But who are you to think you can do that? You owe it to them to plan it all out and practise to perfection. And you know that "improv's better" is an excuse because you are too much of a lightweight to put in the hours of rehearsal to do that 3 mins properly. :naghty:"
"The more you angst and micromanage it the more likely you are to get up there and go blank and have to wing it anyway."
"Ha, more excuses..."
"What's the worst that could happen? let's try improv as an experiment and just see what happens."
Aaargh. :wall:
As for our choreography fixation - not choreographing is SCARY, that's why people are so attached to it IMO. That and the fact we learn in classes and do class dances that are inevitably choreographed. It's easy to get a mindset that the same process but on your own is what solo belly dance is about. For me it takes some nerve to step off that path and trust that your technique won't disappear, that you'll "do enough" to keep the audience's attention, that you will be able to get yourself out of any holes you dig yourself into.
Every time I start choreographing another solo to death, all this goes through my head:
"Just know your music, go with it and move, you know you can, and it looks and feels better."
"But who are you to think you can do that? You owe it to them to plan it all out and practise to perfection. And you know that "improv's better" is an excuse because you are too much of a lightweight to put in the hours of rehearsal to do that 3 mins properly. :naghty:"
"The more you angst and micromanage it the more likely you are to get up there and go blank and have to wing it anyway."
"Ha, more excuses..."
"What's the worst that could happen? let's try improv as an experiment and just see what happens."
Aaargh. :wall:
Farasha Hanem
New member
HUGSHUGSHUGS!!!
Seriously. -_- And she doesn't like Hakim! :shok: :'(
Like I said, I love my teacher (she's 27, a year older than my own daughter), and I love my troupe sisters. I love the ladies I've met in the bellydance circles in Oklahoma (WHY don't I have any dance brothers in this state???). But there is really so little of the ME culture here. Ohhh, surrrrrrrrre, we eat hummus and taboli, we may listen to Westernized club-mix versions of Enta Omri, and we might get to dance to live drummers every now and then at the Ren Faire. Wheeeeeeee. -_- We do have a few dance routines that are supposed to be Egyptian-style, and use songs like "Mastika" in those routines, but they're still choreographed. Plus we have all this weirdness going on concerning bellydance ("Bellydance is thoooooooousands of years old, danced by temple priestesses. It is a dance BY women, FOR women, and helps them find their inner goddess," yada yada yada). -_-
I know, I'm venting again, sorry. Sure, I want to have fun bellydancing, but when I study a subject, I take it seriously. I want to learn the truth, and I want to learn it properly---I don't want some watered-down version of whatever it is I'm studying.
Someone said something about stepping out to do solos? Maybe that's our big problem with dancing in a troupe---maybe we have a herd mentality (YES, I'm from Oklahoma, so I'm going to use that expression), and so we've somehow trapped ourselves into "needing" choreography in order to dance in a group? :think:
I'm sorry if I've offended anyone with my venting, or with any of the things I've said. It's just very frustrating when you hunger for a steak dinner and only get pablum. -_-
Seriously. -_- And she doesn't like Hakim! :shok: :'(
Like I said, I love my teacher (she's 27, a year older than my own daughter), and I love my troupe sisters. I love the ladies I've met in the bellydance circles in Oklahoma (WHY don't I have any dance brothers in this state???). But there is really so little of the ME culture here. Ohhh, surrrrrrrrre, we eat hummus and taboli, we may listen to Westernized club-mix versions of Enta Omri, and we might get to dance to live drummers every now and then at the Ren Faire. Wheeeeeeee. -_- We do have a few dance routines that are supposed to be Egyptian-style, and use songs like "Mastika" in those routines, but they're still choreographed. Plus we have all this weirdness going on concerning bellydance ("Bellydance is thoooooooousands of years old, danced by temple priestesses. It is a dance BY women, FOR women, and helps them find their inner goddess," yada yada yada). -_-
I know, I'm venting again, sorry.
Sure, I want to have fun bellydancing, but when I study a subject, I take it seriously. I want to learn the truth, and I want to learn it properly---I don't want some watered-down version of whatever it is I'm studying. Someone said something about stepping out to do solos? Maybe that's our big problem with dancing in a troupe---maybe we have a herd mentality (YES, I'm from Oklahoma, so I'm going to use that expression), and so we've somehow trapped ourselves into "needing" choreography in order to dance in a group? :think:
I'm sorry if I've offended anyone with my venting, or with any of the things I've said. It's just very frustrating when you hunger for a steak dinner and only get pablum. -_-
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Darshiva
Moderator
Farasha, maybe the problem is that your teacher either:
1) Doesn't have any ME music
2) Doesn't know how to dance to ME music
or (and this is most likely)
3) She's tried it before and haemhorraged students as a result
I know it sounds odd, but the second is incredibly common, and is compounded by the first.
I know you're incredibly frustrated, but why not arrange to go for coffee with your teacher & ask her why you don't dance to ME music in class. You might well find that she's had very poor response to that in the classes. If so, perhaps you can ask her to run a second class that does use ME music exclusively. If she has so many in the first class, a second class with a lower turn-out shouldn't be a financial hardship to her and (if I am correct) she can start teaching what she loves while having her income provided by what brings the money in.
1) Doesn't have any ME music
2) Doesn't know how to dance to ME music
or (and this is most likely)
3) She's tried it before and haemhorraged students as a result
I know it sounds odd, but the second is incredibly common, and is compounded by the first.
I know you're incredibly frustrated, but why not arrange to go for coffee with your teacher & ask her why you don't dance to ME music in class. You might well find that she's had very poor response to that in the classes. If so, perhaps you can ask her to run a second class that does use ME music exclusively. If she has so many in the first class, a second class with a lower turn-out shouldn't be a financial hardship to her and (if I am correct) she can start teaching what she loves while having her income provided by what brings the money in.
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