I returned to Najmat’s dance class tonight. First time back in about 2 years. Some things never change, like a few of the same students are still there. Returning is strange, because there were definitely familiar faces but also new ones. It’s like a weird memory.
The class was enjoyable. I was pleasantly surprised that my technique is still fairly decent, that I didn’t entirely lose it while not doing much. I think I may feel the dance a little tomorrow.
Getting myself motivated to return was difficult (my money fears, procrastination, etc.). I find it easy to keep something up, for better or worse, if that thing is habitual. Unfortunately, not attending dance class had become habitual. I’m hoping now that attending and practicing will be my new habit.
I spent yesterday sick. Coincidentally, right as I began administering the exam for my students, my nose began dripping like crazy. I came home yesterday and slept like crazy. Dance class (I was going to try drop in ballet tonight) is not in my best interest right now.
However, I do plan on starting back with practice. I know how drill, even if my notes and DVDs are still in Chicago. I can with that and should I get exhausted, break. I do plan on looking at new DVDs. I don’t want to do a drill DVD necessarily; I think I’ve more or less have a good background on drilling practice from class or other DVDs. I’m looking more at technique right now. Something to sharpen mine and create new ideas for me when I start choreographing again. Any amazing DVDs people have come across, either in the past or very recently?
Needing to fill my need of veil work, I picked up Fabulous Four Yard Veils with Shoshanna – Belly Dance. Shoshanna is of Arcata, CA; she is involved heavily with L.Rose Designs, since her mother is in charge of that. When I saw her last year for the Aida Nour show, she was very captivating. She and her veil are really partners; it isn’t just some prop to look cool. One of the issues with props of any kind is if the dance becomes a bunch of prop tricks vs. dancing. Shoshanna is one of the best examples of someone who dances with veil, not shows off a bunch of tricks while standing there.
Onto the DVD. You don’t need a 4 yard veil for this DVD, although some of the moves would look better with one and the claim is that if you can do something with a 4 yard veil, 3 yards should be a snap. The DVD is moderately long, which is nice, and the price is very reasonable at $20. I’m not sure how easy this DVD is without veil training; I have a quite a bit at this point. I found the DVD easy to follow. Shoshanna has good technique and works through a move fairly quickly, but I don’t think it’s impossible to get the gist. Veil moves are often best practiced in combos, since they have to transition really well. Shoshanna does go over some combos at the end.
There are a good number of moves. The best thing about this DVD is Shoshanna really does give you more bang for your buck. She goes over numerous moves, both skinny edge and long edge. Even though I have a fair amount of veil experience, I learned some new moves on this one, too.
Shoshanna has two people behind her, doing the same move that she does. The only difference is that they use different types of veil (for instance, one may use a half-circle) which is interesting to see; different veils move differently.
I’ve heard some criticisms that she speaks very quickly at times on this DVD. I myself am considered a fast speaker by some (I think it’s the difference between growing up on the East coast and now residing in the MidWest), so I didn’t have a problem. I liked that her speech speed was a little uneven. Shoshanna came off very natural.
During the DVD, Shoshanna goes over one of the more useful ideas: covering up mistakes and going beyond them. From what I understand about veil, veils have mood swings during performances. Since many people do end performing at some level (amateur to pro), I think it’s valuable to discuss what to do when something bad happens.
One of the things I’d change about it were the veil discussion (which veil works well with what) was a little brief, and I thought it was odd to follow the warm up with that. If you’re warmed up, you should continue on with exercise, not break. There are a few parts in the beginning where she is bent over and speaks too closely into the microphone; the sound difference was jarring to me.
This is a good choice to learn some veil moves or to hone in on your practice. I have some new ideas of moves to practice that I hadn’t done in class. I would definitely purchase another DVD by Shoshanna.
DaVid of Scandinavia suggested his book to me on Bhuz, when I wanted to come up with a means of cateogrizin my own moves. I like DaVid’s dancing, and he knows a lot of stuff. Besides, an ebook is only $15. Not too pricey. I did consider buying the print version, but at $40+shipping, I decided that the ebook was a better deal for me.
I started out with what’s called the EDA Handbook For Middle Eastern Dance. The EDA is the Ethnic Dance Academy, also known as DaVid’s dance school in San Diego. The book is full of goodies. It takes you through many aspects of Egyptian oriental, discussing history, technique, performance stuff (improv, how to choreograph), and professional career (teaching and/or dancing). It’s breadth is the best aspect of this book. It takes you through everything. Obviously, in 90some pages, the book isn’t an in-depth look at Egyptian Oriental, but the taste it gives is helpful. For newer dancers, I can see this book helping them understand what all is involved. The dance isn’t simply about wearing a costume and looking cute. I love how DaVid goes over the fact it’s important to practice, even the basics.
For dancers who are more well-seasoned, this book goes over nuances that can take you to the proverbial next level. DaVid writes very frankly about what it means to be a professional dancer and instructor. If you lack guidance in these areas, I’m sure the book would be helpful to read. Unless you spend a lot of time on message boards, I’m not sure where you would get this information, besides trial and error.
The only aspects of the book I would say were lacking are the technique explanations and this chart in the back. The technique explanations I found a little confusing. Perhaps it’s because I’m not familiar with DaVid’s teaching or that I don’t learn movement merely through reading. DaVid does provide some diagrams of the moves, but I’m not sure if I’d know what he was talking about if I didn’t know the move to begin with. I wouldn’t use this book to learn technique. I doubt DaVid intends for this book to be a means of learning technique.
The chart in the back was a very smart idea; it shows how everyone is interconnected. However, I found that confusing to read.
Despite those two issues, the wealth of information I got out of this book was worth it. I’m sure a print copy would be nice, but I’m squeezing pennies right now. David writes in an easy-going style. I hope he pens more books. I definitely recommend checking this one out to get an overall view of being a Middle Eastern dancer.
For personal reasons, I missed part of Day I of Hadia’s workshop but managed to catch some of it. Hadia, if you haven’t heard of her, is a Canadian dancer. Surprisingly, a lot of people have not heard of her (most of the people at the workshop confess they did not). I would say that she’s most famous for her teacher training. Her training, according to the people I know who have gone through parts of it, is about teaching instructors safe ways to dance.
Hadia was very nice to me, despite showing up for only half the first day. I arrived just in time to learn what really interested me in the first day: Khaleegi. Khaleegi is dance done by people in the Gulf parts of the Middle East. Below is a clip of what Khaleegi looks like.
Hadia went over some brief information on Khaleegi before going into steps and what they signify. I thought this was very useful, since I’ve only seen on Khaleegi performance and know very little about the dance. What I think was highly useful was Hadia emphasized safety and demonstrated how to something safely. For instance, Khaleegi is known for the swinging hair. It would be very easy to injure your neck doing it by using your neck. She instead pointed out if you put your shoulder into the move, instead of making it about using your neck, that it’s much safer and still throws your hair.
I was there for all of Day II, with almost a completely fresh set of people. We went through her warm up, which was rather goofy. Just all sorts of random movements that seemed to not make any sense. It turned out that everything in our warm up was a goofy, silly way to do the dancing she wanted us to do later on. I thought that was very clever and intelligent. She did a lot of quizzing throughout the raqs sharqi portion of the workshop, making sure we knew rhythms and why she chose the combos she used in the music. She also taught us how to move simpler, like using our arms to help with a turn. A lot of her moves were very simple. The tricky part was not doing what you’ve practiced for so long.
The Turkish Rom section was probably my favorite. I’m starting to really warm up to Turkish dancing period, so this was a special treat for me. Again, there was review of history and explanation of the moves. I thought it was a good overview of it.
Although I recommend taking a workshop with Hadia, I will say that she is very opinionated and is not shy about sharing them. She is also very silly; she randomly sang twice to us on the second day and likes making random sounds to show where we are the music. She also does seem to have very little regard for personal space. Hadia danced in your space, very close, when she was dancing around all of us to demonstrate a move.
However, I think she has a lot of offer and has very intelligent thoughts, such as questioning who are your teachers’ teachers. I also appreciate that she cares truly about people’s safety; she saw someone do a stretch she thought they were not warmed up enough for and stopped them. Hadia is very friendly (ate lunch and talked with us) and gladly answers questions.
Before I end this review, I must give a positive review of Pineapple Dance Studio. It is a beautiful studio, and Erika is a fabulous host. I don’t mind big workshops, but I admit there is something nicer about attending a 20-30 person workshop over a 60 person one. She had the best spread of food at a workshop I’ve attended; she had Middle Eastern food! I know workshops aren’t required to have food, but when you aren’t familiar with an area or trying to save money, it is certainly more than welcome.
Someone located my blog by the search term “I don’t know how to dance but I want to.” Without knowing what kind of dance that person wanted to learn, I can’t give specific advice, but I hope it is helpful for someone.
I think if you didn’t grow up with dance lessons, you feel hesitant to start. I did a little, since I live very much inside my head and don’t have a gigantic connection with my body. For most people, I thoroughly recommend finding a good teacher and not going with an instructional DVD. Why? A good teacher (note: the teacher must be good) will correct bad body habits ASAP and prevent damage to your body. It is very hard to unlearn bad habits in the body. DVDs can be a great supplement to your education, particularly when you get familiar with the proper posture, but they can’t correct you and you can’t ask it questions.
If you’re nervous about being too old/overweight/out of shape/etc., I would not. Particularly with every Middle Eastern dance class I’ve taken, most of the women are at least 40s and were not athletically inclined. I know that most dance forms offer an adult class, and from what I understand, the students range from absolute beginners to former dancers.
Once you find the teacher and commit to the class, make a point of regularly going. Also, practice outside of your class. These two older women in my veil class wanted to see my shimmy and were impressed. I have a good shimmy (the up and down hip variety), because I practiced that thing like crazy until I got it. I told them it comes with practice, but I think they were still left a little dazzled. Although there may be some people in the class with innate abilities, probably a lot of the better students practice or attend classes more frequently or have some prior background. Don’t be discouraged by them. It takes time to get good at anything.
Finally (and this is advice I am now taking), take time to enjoy the music. It’s so easy to drill technique and get stuck in that, but truly dancing to the music is more important, in my opinion. Even if you let loose only for a short song, let yourself do that at the end of every practice you have for yourself.
Because I miss the class camaraderie and seeing people, I’ve been trying to attend workshops more. Arabesque runs small workshops by local instructors. For people who are mass transit reliant, like me, this is a good way to get exposed to other instructors while not having to worry about travel.
I signed up for the Graceful Arms workshop, despite Danielle being my instructor. I thought I could learn something, it’s fairly cheap ($30 for two hours), and I get to see other people in class. Since arms are something I don’t feel I’ve had a great emphasis on, I thought it would be a good thing to try.
The workshop was a good size (7 people), so you could ask questions if you had any and get plenty of mirror space. Danielle is very particular about technique, so there was no music. At all. Her belief is that it is easy to get into the music and not pay attention to technique, so she doesn’t play music during technique things.
The pace of the workshop was a little slow. I think it’s predominantly because I’m familiar with Danielle’s posturing and beliefs; however, it’s great that she went over it for those not familiar with it. Despite the speed, now that I’m thinking about it, Danielle went over a lot. The moves covered were a variety of standard Oriental, tribal (ATS), tribal fusion, Flamenco, Bharatanatyam, Javanese, and Balinese arms. A very nice sampling of arm ideas.
Danielle’s strength (which also attributed to the pace) is thoughtfulness in dance. She discussed a lot of the motivations for the posture, the reasons why arms are important, and what’s good about each arm fusion. She also films workshop DVDs prior to the workshop and prepares handouts. Although I have not bought any of her DVDs, she says they always include extra “bonus” moves, because she prepares more material than she’ll ever go over, just so she can guarantee she doesn’t run out of material.
Since I’m so familiar with Danielle’s style of dance, this wasn’t full of any surprises or “aha!” momements for me. However, I do think it’s great for people who really want to add a world fusion aspect to their dance or be exposed to some different technique.
Since I finished my homework for the week at last, got some research in, I feel like I really have reclaimed my life. February (I know it isn’t over yet) as been a pretty bad month for me. I’ve been on pins and needles waiting to hear back from grad schools (nothing in either direction, and it’s been frustrating to say that when the few well-meaning people I’ve told I applied have asked). Schoolwork has been a bit overwhelming, partially because I’ve spent a lot of time in my lab. The stress has caused me not to sleep well. I’m trying to figure out what class I want to take next quarter; I already have figured out one, which is my thesis research credit. My bus pass was confiscated last Friday, because the transit authority accidentally disabled some of my school’s bus passes. In short, it has been rough.
And to top it all off, I had the dumbfounding discovery I don’t know how to dance. I mean that I do, but I spend so much time worrying about perfecting technique vs. letting loose that I find it rather hard to think up my own combos and choreography. I know that I’ve written about trying to choreograph. I think I attributed my issues to lack of inspiration in life or music, but I now think it has to do with the amount of time that I’ve spent doing drill-like stuff to get my technique down solid.
I think my concentration on technique stemmed from hearing people talk about Middle Eastern dancers wanting to dance and perform more than understanding technique, hence seeing sloppy dancers. I don’t want to be a sloppy dancer, so I’ve been working (not this month too much admittedly) on that. However, I think I’ve lost meaning or the big picture. Although clean technique is very important, having that emotional connection and not worrying about being perfect is so critical to Middle Eastern dance or performance in general. It is really what sets one dancer apart from another.
I also think the focusing on technique is about my time. It’s a lot easier to drill 30 hip drops on the right and 30 on the left than it is to think of a little combo incorporating that. There’s no originality in the former, whereas the latter requires more thought, like how to link move A to move B.
I am going to continue my technique drilling and such, but I’m going to work on feeling the music and combining moves. I also hope I have some happy news and less stress soon.
Last week when I was in a lesson, I noticed that my right wrist has this weird tendency to turn when I do an upward swaying arm move (Danielle calls it a snake arm up, even though it’s basially done with the wrists).
I think that sparked Danielle to quiz me on why certain aspects of her posture are. That went fine (I remembered most of the points, I believe). The important piece of the exercise, though, was when she asked me what I plan on using in my dancing and what I prefer.
I began thinking about that on Sunday, and I’ve been thinking about it since. I, as of today, still don’t have a strong leaning in any direction with dance. Maybe it’s time I start really developing a style. By style, I don’t mean I want to create an ATS or something of the like. I mean, there is a difference between how each dancer dances. I’d like to develop that style more within the vocabulary of dance I’m doing. Something that can simultaneously be identified as me dancing but also be identified as Middle Eastern dance. Does that make sense?
I always believe I don’t dance like a copy of my teachers, because I’ve had too many. But I don’t think I have truly developed a style. Part of me wonders if my dancing is more like the little kid who wears bright tights, shorts, skirts, and 5 shirts in clashing colors. I don’t think it’s as bad as that analogy, but I want to develop something very cohesive. Most of the “greats” have distinct styles and signature moves or stylings, even if they didn’t 100% come up with them themselves.
More thoughts will come on this later, but I think this might be the next good direction to go.
I started one over break to sort out my growing pile of workshop handouts and notes. After talking to Danielle, though, I decided to keep a notebook for other class stuff. She made the excellent point that handling my dance training like school would probably be useful. I’ve been thinking about it. I already keep a notebook where I sketch costumes ideas. I additionally have a folder on my computer photos of costumes I like. I just started a notebook that will be full of drills I do daily.
My next organization project is to create technique lists and zill pattern lists, as well as other useful stuff I learn in class. The technique list will, I hope, stop me from getting stuck on the idea that I only know 2 moves. With zill patterns, I hope to really start identifying them beyond a handful.
Now just a matter of getting it together… I unfortunately decided this was a good project to begin during midtrms.
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