what is clean technique?

[Ahava_Melantha]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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.

 

[Ahava_Melantha]

thank you ladies. I deeply appreciate it.

 

[Darshiva]

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.