It’s Thanksgiving Day in the USA, a holiday with some terrible colonizer overtones, but I like that it promotes gratitude and thanks.I am grateful for you, for this dance, for all it has brought to my life. Gratitude is pretty powerful stuff. Most of us have learned to focus on what is wrong, on what we lake–on that little red dot of pain.
Focusing on the good widens our attention, and there is a lot of good, even in the midst of some pretty bad things.
You, for instance.
I am grateful for you, for this dance, for all it has brought to my life.
It’s Fall here in the Northeastern USA–cold and damp abound. The heater is on, warming me and ticking quietly to itself. Thank heavens, because I do not love the cold.
I rather do love Dina, though. I am sure that she has her ruthless side–one does not get to to the top of the heap and stay there without a lot of energy. But she has. And so we find her perspective and opinions interesting.
Dina performing at the Bellydance Blossom Festival 2018. Photo by Ken Dobb
I’ve posted two articles about things she said or did at the 2018 Bellydance Blossom festival. Now Yasmina Ramzy has thoughtfully compiled a series of videos of Dina’s groundbreaking interview there. And here they are for you.
In other news, Glorious opens November 4th. Nov 4-Dec 8 Glorious: A Five-Part Series about the Five-Part Routine This is the dance I grew up with. I’m delighted to share it with you.
Each week we will: Highlight one part of the routine. Dance through an entire routine (different every time). Each class will be recorded. Each recording will be available for one week. There will also be a Q&A video/phone conference each week.
Students will learn structure, moods, and technique, as well as practice improvising through the routine. Trust the Chef Premium Earlybird Pricing (until Oct 28): $79 (full price $99). It’s going to be a LOT of fun!
I’ve been looking over the material in the Bundle, and I have to say, there is some good stuff in there.
Nadira Jamal’s Improvisation Toolkit. Keti Sharif’s beautiful Traditional Arts of Egypt video seminar. Sahra Saeeda’s complete Journey Through Egypt (JtE) Fundamentals–first time ever as an online class. A month of the Salimpour School. Makeup info, posing for pictures, making beaded appliques–There’s just a ton of stuff. It’s really quite impressive.
I’m also pleased by the class I’m making for the Bundle–Embodiment: Musicality for Belly Dance. It’s one of the best classes I’ve designed yet.
Embodiment: Musicality for Belly Dance.
To embody something is to “be an expression of or give a tangible or visible form to (an idea, quality, or feeling).” In the case of belly dance, we seek to embody the music–visually expressing our feeling from the music.
The problem comes when we don’t feel the music. How are we supposed to express something we can’t even understand? We need a way to enter the structure of the music so we can relax and enjoy our own dance, so we can share our joy with others.
But how do we do that?
Ah! That’s where this course comes in.
In this six-week course, you will learn musical structure; explore rhythm, melody, and phrasing; and practice improvisational templates so you can bask in joyous expression. . Week 1: Demystifying the Music Week 2. Understanding Rhythmic Structure Week 3. Dancing on the Melody Week 4. Interpretation and Texture Week 5. Using Combo Templates Week 6. How to Float and Land . Each week includes a conceptual breakdown, musical assignment, dance étude, video example, and song suggestions. . This course helps students feel the music. It helps teachers teach musicality. .
Best of all? It’s FREE to buyers the Bellydance Bundle 2018. Yep. A $95 course, FREE . That’s a big win-win for everyone.
And that’s just one offering.
The value of this package is through the roof.
Embodiment is $95. The Salimpour month is $80. JtE is $100. Mahin’s zil course is $125. And that’s only four things. There are 27 contributors, with a combined value over $1,300. That’s a lot of stuff. And a wide variety of stuff! Take a look–you’ll be amazed: aliathabit.com/bundle
Plus you get a nifty little guide to help you decide what to work on first, and a FaceBook group so you can find friends to work on things with you. It’s a really well-designed package.
There’s only ONE problem…
Yeah, only ONE day left. The Bundle closes at midnight on Wednesday October 10 (technically it closes 8AM Thursday Eastern time to cover all the timezones)
So now’s the time.
Take a look, see what you think. I think it’s pretty impressive. And so have a lot of us!
THANK YOU to everyone who has supported the Bellydance Bundle!
Thank you to everyone who has taken a look, followed the Instagram challenge, or taken any notice of this at all ; ). It’s not for everyone, but…
Maybe it is for you. I invite you to take a look–soon. Before it’s all gone.
Back when I was a kid, you wanted coffee, that’s what you got. There wasn’t much choice. The only decaf was Sanka, and instant coffee was pretty much undrinkable. Now you go into a nice café, or even a small grocery store, and the assortment is dizzying. Coffee from Sumatra, Brazil, Columbia, East Timor, Bali, even Hawaii. There’s Fair Trade, Shade-Grown, Organic, light, dark, and medium roast—a stunning level of diversity.
Just like belly dance, right? Egyptian, American, Russian, Tribal, Fusion and on and on.
We asked about the state of belly dance. “Is bad,” she said. “Every country takes belly dance for her own. Spanish belly dance, Russian belly dance. Is bad.”
“Is there Russian samba?” she asked. “No. Samba is samba. Why isn’t belly dance belly dance?”
“Samba is samba. Why isn’t belly dance belly dance?”
I had never really thought about this in such a way, but it makes sense. I’ve spent my time internalizing the big picture elements of belly dance—celebrating the feeling in the moment, incorporating the infinite variation of micromovement, and bringing joy. Everything else is window dressing– regional accent or personal style.
In addition, Dina’s point reminded of what Mo Geddawi had said at the same festival the previous year, when asked about a suitable name for belly dance. Egyptian dance, he said promptly. It comes from Egypt. Historically, when other Arab-speaking countries dance this dance, he explained, they call it raqs Masri—Masri being Arabic for Egyptian.
Dina (and Dr. Mo) want Egypt to get credit for this monumental addition to world culture. Even if Egypt herself is not willing to take the credit, even if, as she maintains, that raqs sharqi will never be the national dance of Egypt (Dina dismissed that hope with one word—Dream). Still, it’s from Egypt and that’s that. I can relate to that. So then we asked her,
What is the number one foreign dancers mistake?
Dina said it’s that they don’t follow belly dancing. It’s not a style to mix, for example, Russian style. She said “Dancers go to Dubai and see hair dance, or erotic steps and mix that with belly dance. They call it belly dance. It’s not. Golden age dancers never used their hair like this. I’m different–but I do the same steps [as the golden age dancers]. To be different, you have to BE different, be you,” but the steps are the same. The dance is the dance.
“To learn belly dance for real is difficult,” she said, “but
you have to do it, because you love this art and you have to do it real… Easy to
dance and get money. To love this art, is not about money. It’s about the
future of your art, where it’s going.”
What should beginners do?
Beginners should “learn technique first—torso (the hips and
upper body), then take hands. Hands important, showing the step or moving the
step. Don’t touch choreography before two
years.”
Dina’s ideas about teaching and learning really resonated for me. How many beginner classes start out with choreography? Most of them, right?
Mine don’t. When I teach beginners, we learn technique and
improv and transitions. My Community College students can dance in 15 weeks. Yes, this dance takes your whole life, but they
dance with more grace and confidence than lots of folks I see who’ve been
dancing for years.
What is our
responsibility as pro dancers?
“The new generation,” she said, “to teach them the truth of belly dance. This is Egyptian, this is the rules, 1 2 3 4, Oriental belly dance–and this–this is other thing. If you mix, it’s fusion. Call it fusion.”
And what do we call all our merging of belly dance with
ballet, hip hop, kathak, and god knows what? What do we call that?
“Fusion,” she said. “Is a good word. Fusion.”
Okay. But where does this leave Turkish belly dance?
Also Greek, Lebanese, and any other Near Eastern regional style?
When Dr. Mo suggested Egyptian dance as a name, Yasmina Ramzy said, no, we can’t have that because we have Turkish etc.
Turkish stye is a fusion. But I believe it is also authentic. Here are three reasons off the top of my head.
Turkish music is somewhat different–clarinet, influences, etc–so some of the dance differences are from representing the music, plus it’s regional accent, see below.
The dancers there have a regional “accent” related to the local folklore and culture. I think that’s authentic, as everyone has that, no matter where they dance.
The inclusion of Romani steps (and music). Here is where it’s mixing and now it’s fusion. And it is–though it is a venerable established thing. To me, it’s still belly dance.
Why? Leila Farid once told me that in Cairo, audiences expect a dancer to mix in some of the folklore from her native village. This is what the Romani dancers have done. So that’s authentic.
How is it different from us dancing the cancan to Peter Gunn in bellydance costumes? To me, that’s too many things that don’t go together. That’s clearly fusion (not to mention some hints of appropriation, depending on who what when where why).
Now, Dina or Dr. Mo might not agree with me.
They may well think that Turkish style is an abomination. The Ottomans did, after all, control Egypt for almost 300 years, and they are roundly disliked for it (which is why you don’t see much 9/8 in Egyptian music). And Egypt and Turkey have blamed each other for belly dance, neither willing to accept the blame (or credit) for being the originator of the dance.
But the Romani people are not Turkish. They are a separate ethnic group, an oppressed people who take on the styles of their oppressors to make a living from them. So they get special dispensation.
What’s the answer? Yes, you can certainly say it’s fusion, however it’s A. Very old, and B. the unique creation of an entire ethnic group. So I think we can still say Turkish style, just like we always have ; ).
And there you are.
Dina’s points make sense to me, especially having explored the differences between Eastern and Western values though writing Midnight at the Crossroads. Belly dance is a uniquely magical, healing, creative, expressive dance form–it deserves to be valued for itself.
Wikipedia says, “The native (undomesticated) origin of coffee is thought to have been Ethiopia, with several mythical accounts but no solid evidence. The earliest substantiated evidence of either coffee drinking or knowledge of the coffee tree is from the early 15th century, in the Sufi monasteries of Yemen,[1] spreading soon to Mecca and Cairo.”
So coffee is another thing, like belly dance, that comes to us from Africa. Clearly, there are some similarities. But everyone seems to be happy to let coffee become nativised in country after country. The thing with coffee, though, is that it’s still coffee, no matter where it’s grown. The species doesn’t change. It has regional differences due to terroir, but it’s the same plant. It’s the same stuff.
Belly dance hasn’t always fared so well. When we see our dance through Western eyes instead of an Eastern perspective, we start to lose its most important attributes–feeling, improvisation, and joy. And then belly dance becomes something very different–stylized, externally focused, competitive, and performative. Yet, in its home environment it is internal, joyous, social, healing, and free. So in this way, it is unlike coffee.
Both coffee and belly dance are are delicious and addictive. But if I drink too much coffee, I get a headache and my armpits stink. Too much Western culture does this, too. Belly dance never does that to me. So there’s that ; )
Over the years, I’ve developed classes that teach technique, improvisation, musicality, and composition from a clear Eastern perspective. Some of them are coming up (details are below), but whatever classes you take, or styles you dance, these are things to think about. So let me know what you think ; )
Love,
Alia
PS I’m on Instagram!
@BellyDanceSoul, or instagram.com/BellyDanceSoul Come say hi!
My ridiculously cute Un-Drill video airs today on Instagram! It’s part of the Bellydance Bundle’s #21DaysofBellyDance. See it at https://www.instagram.com/p/BnrC4VqnexX/
Sept 23-Nov 3 Effortless Improv, a Six-week Online Improvisation Crash Course Want to improvise with joy and ease? You can! Effortless is a forum-based course with daily exercises and accountability. More at aliathabit.com/effortless
Oct 1 The Belly Dance Bundle Returns! Over $1000 worth of belly dance madness. 27 contributors. Over 80% off! I’m making a class on Musicality. See more at https://aliathabit.com/bundle
Nov 4-Dec 8 Glorious: A Five-Week Course about the Five-Part Routine Each week we will: Highlight one part of the routine. Dance through an entire routine (different every time). Each class will be recorded. Each recording will be available for one week. There will also be a Q&A video/phone conference each week. Students will learn structure, moods, and technique, as well as practice improvising through the routine. This is so fresh it doesn’t even have a sales page. Trust the Chef Premium Earlybird Pricing (until Oct 8): $69 (full price $99). Link goes straight to Paypal. Please copy and paste if the link is not clickable. https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=WGXCTY2AW22LW
I’ve been in SoCal for the last week, visiting my godmother. She is 90, and pretty tired. I’ve been pretty tired for the last few years, so I can relate. But I’ve been resting a lot and taking good are of myself, and it’s been working! This is a good thing, as I have a lot of dancing to do this fall.
And today is the last day for super-early pricing!
Oct 1 The Belly Dance Bundle Returns! Over $1000 worth of belly dance madness. 27 contributors. Over 80% off! I’ll be making a class on Musicality. See more at https://aliathabit.com/bundle
Nov 4-Dec 8 Glorious: A Five-Week Course about the Five-Part Routine Each week we will: Highlight one part of the routine. Dance through an entire routine (different every time). Each class will be recorded. Each recording will be available for one week. There will also be a Q&A video/phone conference each week. Students will learn structure, moods, and technique, as well as practice improvising through the routine. Trust the Chef Premium Earlybird Pricing (until Oct 8): $69 (full price $99). Link goes straight to Paypal. Please copy and paste if the link is not clickable. https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=WGXCTY2AW22LW
I teach writing at a state college in Vermont. I mostly teach first-year English Composition. Students learn how to compose a college paper—how to find something to say, and how to back up their points with evidence. Students evolve fairly consistently through several stages of intellectual development as they learn these skills. That’s the point of a college education—you learn how to think. But its not all peaches and cream. Not everyone wants to do this, and people stay in various stages.
I see many belly dancers in these stages.
In the field of intellectual development (ID), the first stage is Dualism, aka Received Knowledge. Students receive information from their teachers. There is a clear Right and Wrong, and teachers are there to give the Right answers. These folks are rule followers. They like to know the difference between right and wrong so they can do the Right Thing. There are a lot of these folks in Belly Dance. We call them…
The Dance Police
The Dance Police are always right, always telling us what we did wrong, or how wrong our dance is, or how we are Not Good Enough, because it take a lifetime to be good enough and they are the gatekeepers. These are the folks who never think we are ready for whatever—the advanced class, teaching, etc.
Of course, some things are right or wrong, and sometimes we are not ready, but most things are pretty gray. There are a lot of opinions, and people do things many different ways, yet still manage to make exquisite art that is well-within the parameters of Oriental dance.
As folks get past this sense of iron-bound Right or Wrong, they start to realize that there are in fact a lot of different ideas out there.
This stage is called Multiplicity, aka Subjective Knowledge. People in this stagedecide that if it is all a matter of opinion, then theirs is as good as any. They are just going to go their merry way and do what they please. We have a lot of these in belly dance, too. Introducing…
The Six-Week Wonder
These folks take some classes (or even a lot of classes), have it all figured out, and consider themselves experts who answer to no one. They often perform or teach early on. They are pleased with themselves and defend their turf adamantly. They seriously irritate the Dance Police and pretty much everyone else with their sense of entitlement.
In many cases this is a short stage as folks continue to learn and grow. But other folks just stay here. They ignore, mock, or gaslight anything that challenges their world view. Not surprisingly, their dance rarely evolves, but hey, they are satisfied. For example of both of the above, just read any Facebook conversation on Cultural Appropriation, Fusion, etc. They abound on both sides of the issues.
The folks who push on from here desire a wider perspective. They often find such a wealth of material and information that it can get overwhelming. This stage is called Relativism, or Procedural Knowledge.
These folks have done their homework. They have learned an amazing amount. The see the multiplicity of approaches—but they also see that it is all relative—some approaches are more well-informed than others. We’ll look more closely at this (and the fourth stage, Commitment in Relativism), in our next newsletter.
Love,
Alia
PS want to level up your evolutionary stage?
I’ve got a local live workshop coming up and a series of live online classes. Do come join us! They will be fun, sociable, and inspiring!
Live LOCAL Classes this fall:
This fall, I’ll teach some local classes at the Raq-On Dance Studio in White River Junction VT.
It will be a fun class with a lot of variety–a focus topic, technique, a combination, some follow-me, free improv, and whatever comes into my head at the time.
Live ONLINE class series
This new series of live online dance classes will be reasonably priced, with drop-in and session rates.
I’m thinking each class will be about an hour, delivered via Zoom.us (low bandwidth and easy to use). They will include a brief warmup, a focus topic with technique, a combination, some follow-me dance, some free improv, and whatever comes into my head at the time, lol. Each week will be something new.
Folks can join live or view the class recording. Each recording will be available for a week when it will be replaced by the next class. When I am traveling, there may be no live class; in that case, I will replace the current class with archive classes so there is something newish to enjoy (these will be free for session-level members and not count towards their sessions).
I have a few technical things to refine, so this will start in June.
When to schedule the live class? A weekday, like Tues, Weds, or Thurs, is preferable as I am more likely to be at home, where I am set up for video. For myself, afternoon is good (like 1 or 2pm Eastern time), but I’m guessing for most folks, evening is better. Still, we have a variety of time zones in the world…
For the moment, I’m curious to know who is interested—who would like join live (can ask questions and get feedback), and who would prefer a recording, so I have a better idea of when to schedule.
What would you prefer?
What sorts of things would you like to see in a weekly class?
Back in 2006 I went on a long trip of several months. When I got home, nothing had changed. Nothing. My little town was exactly the same as when I left. It was terrifying. I felt like I had never left, that none of things I had done really happened. I’ve since found that, for me, travel (and being home) is like this. Wherever I am is reality. Everything else is a dream.
It is strange. But it makes me a fairly adaptable person.
Our dance is adaptable, too.
Despite traveling all over the world, it is at home. Even though all these people from all these cultures overlay their own values on top of it, it is still there and still secure in itself. It is adaptable.
Through the dance, we become adaptable as well. Improvisation is all about adaptation. We make do with what we have, and we create new things out of odds and ends. I was a judge in a dance contest once. There was a section where we got to ask each dancer questions. Because all of the judges were old school dancers, we quietly gave higher marks for improvisation.
Then one gal (whose show was wonderful), when we asked about her music, explained that the music that she danced to wasn’t her music. Someone played the wrong music. She didn’t even know the song. But she thought it would be tacky to complain, so she just danced to it. (She won the contest.)
This is what an improv practice does—it allows us to dance to anything, any time.
Lately, I’m playing with taqsim. With live music, a taqsim is the ultimate in not knowing what will come next. But it is scary because of this, especially when there is little to no rhythm to help us carry along, no symmetry of verse/chorus to help us follow the structure. So here are two ideas that might help.
1. Do less
Just turning the head can have a lot of power. Just lifting the arm. Just taking one step. When simple movements are filled with intention, with energy, they become mesmerizing.
2. Trust.
This is where we let the body lead. Let it unfold. The more we just go with what we feel, without any interference from the thinking mind, the easier the improv is.
3. Love.
Love the music, the guests, the process, the moment. Become a boundless well of compassion and joy. When we enjoy the music, the company, and our own movement, everything becomes glorious. The dance is not about the dancer. It is about shared joy.
Here’s another 90 Days Love Note. We’re counting down to the start of this year’s 90 Days with a Love Note a day through March 11th.
Day 15: How to sneak it in
I don’t know about you, but I like to have fun. In some ways it is my downfall, in others my salvation. I will blow off responsibilities to have fun—but fun keeps me sane so that on other days I can face those responsibilities. I kinda think that most of us don’t get enough fun. We get overwhelmed by those life and death responsibilities, chained to the grindstone, taking care of others.
Wait, fun? What’s that? I know! We get so ground down we don’t even bother putting on lipstick, let alone eyeliner. We just wear sweats—all the time. It’s so hard to feel glamorous in dirty sweats with our hair tied in a knot as we rush from one useless take to the other (or sit and watch TV to keep someone company). We’re bored, tired, and overworked. Some of us have a hard time getting out, or don’t have any friends around. Our plates are just too full, and everything on them is canned spinach and overcooked liver. It’s jam yesterday and jam tomorrow—but never any jam today. So let’s get some jam.
How to sneak in some fun.
Pay attention to what you enjoy. I have found the smallest things can rev me up. Coffee with a friend. A phone call with someone I love. Drawing pictures (I haven’t drawn one since I finished the Cat book). Performing and teaching dance. Running around and hanging out with friends. I am a social bipolar—hermit most of the time, and the rest I’m a café society kinda gal. I even like sitting in a café all by myself, enjoying the hubbub and basking in my solitude.
Include your obligations
I usually hate for anyone to see me practice, and that has not been a productive approach. So after sulking for over a year (and not dancing), I now dance for my Mom. I made a tiny habit that when Mom gets up, I put on dance music. It doesn’t always work, but most days it does. I dance for 20 minutes. She’s happy, and so am I. One of our members dances with her kids. You can’t maybe roll around on the floor as much as you would like, but, hey, it’s a lot better than nothing, and it helps build the habit.
Step back
It always seems impossible, but it’s surprising how it can work out. We can’t control everything. Other people won’t do it as well. The world will end. Usually, it won’t. And while some of those things are life and death, most aren’t as important as they seem. So just announce it. I will be doing X instead of Y starting Monday. I will be going out for a coffee instead of vacuuming the house. No one will step up. Step back anyway. Nature abhors a vacuum.
Just blow them off
I had to study for a math final. I also had an invitation to a lunch party an hour away. I declined, based on the final. My friend, said, “Oh, just come. You know you’re going to procrastinate all afternoon and not study till tonight anyway. Might as well do something fun instead.” She was right. So I went. And at the party, I got an idea I used for an English paper—and that idea got me an A, the first in two semesters with that particular professor. Never underestimate the power of relaxation to free your mind.
Sometimes letting go breaks the pattern of interaction–it disrupts the dysfunctional distance that must always be maintained, and gives others the space to approach. It’s still dysfunctional, but it can be a doorway to change. (I’m in this motel in Eunice LA, drinking coffee and eating donuts. The innkeeper (who has a law degree), tells his daughter, “The only person whose actions you can control is you. If you want to go outside, go outside. He doesn’t want to go, so let him alone.”)
Be nice to your liver
See Day 12. Feeling trapped is a prime symptom of liver stress. Whenever you feel trapped and resentful, pay attention. The doorways are there, you just can’t see them. Sometimes difficulty is our karma (when my Mom came to live with me, I looked up one day and said, “Really, God? Really? This is what I’m supposed to do?” The answer was a firm Yes). Sometimes it’s just what we have to do for a while. But sometimes that yes is about learning how to manage in the face of great difficulty, and a healthy liver helps us find the ways. If nothing else, it makes the load much lighter.
Here’s another 90 Days Love Note. We’re counting down to the start of this year’s 90 Days with a Love Note a day through March 11th.
Day 71: How to “face” the music…
We’ve all seen the glued-on smile—the frowny class face—the distracted counting face, the anxious, the mopey, the bored, the fake—and the genuine. Ah, now that we like. Real feeling, openly expressed. That’s nice. It draws us in. It feels inviting.
Facial expression and dance are an interesting conundrum. We’re told to smile, and we’re told to feel the music. Not all the music is smiley. Neither are we. So how do we reconcile this? How do we express genuine emotion and be true to ourselves, if we always have to smile?
One word – connection. Its all about the feeling, right? In our dance we express the feeling from the music and the movement through our bodies and faces. So the first step is connecting our bodies, faces and feelings.
This takes practice. Explore what the face and body do, how we hold them, during various emotional states. Memorize this, so you can access it “offline,” as it were. Notice your feelings. Notice how your face and body behave when you feel sad, angry, happy (if you never feel happy, that is a more important issue to explore). Map that facial expression. Map that body line. Practice putting it on like a special dress. Over time, you can place yourself more easily in a mood.
If the music feels regal, be regal. Stern, be stern. Not all of us are smilers. We don’t have to smile, but neither do we want to dilute the impact of our feeling from the music with a lot of noise. Noise is external personal concerns that interfere with our embodiment process. Watch out for those moments of, What the heck am I doing? What comes next? What is sticking to my dress? Because those are clearly visible, plus they knock you out of your zone.
Of course, sometimes we feel anxious. We’re worried about the next step, the floor, falling off the stage. Do we show that? NO! Sure, it’s a feeling, but not from the music—it’s a factor of NOT being in the moment. This is why we practice. Practice doesn’t make perfect—it helps us recover gracefully from mistakes. We can often see in a video where a dancer is worried about the floor, the choreo, the costume, whatever. We feel what she expresses, so we worry, too. This is not good.
Some things we don’t want people to know. We need to shift back and forth. In real life, we often wear a mask, for if everyone saw how much they annoy us, there would be problems. And there are other reasons. In poker, you wear a mask—you keep good news to yourself, and/or may deliberately mislead the other players.
I fell off the stage in Vegas. I laughed. I taught myself to laugh when I make a mistake—previously, I frowned (even cursed), and anyone could see I had screwed up. Laughing helps me recover my groove and puts any observer at ease. Wherever I notice personal negative feelings showing instead of the music, I practice myself out of it.
The feeling is what’s important. But not our outside feelings—not the everyday, today sucks, my cat is sick, I hate my bra feelings. Those are outside the dance. It’s the feeling from the music and the enjoyment of the movement that we express in the dance—and this is a dance of joy.
Does this distinction make sense?It’s very important.
What if the music is sad? It depends upon our purpose. In classic oriental dance, the sadness is always tempered by the joy of the present moment. The sad thing happened before—it’s sad, but we have perspective, so there is always a bittersweet dialectic. In a theatrical piece, however, we may express a wide range of strong emotions untempered by time.
Sometimes we dance for ourselves.The dance brings up emotions. We create a safe space to allow ourselves to feel and release them. Even so, random outside stuff doesn’t really belong here—and neither does dwelling on any of this stuff. Let the music carry you through. Let the feelings go. Come back to your joy. This is part of the 90 days.
All of these are fine. Each has its place.
What we express matters, even at home. Placing oneself in an attitude of joy is contagious. Smiling makes us happier. This is science. People study this stuff—frowning makes you concentrate more, too, so if you really have to study, go ahead and frown—just not while you dance. Check out Kahnemann’s Thinking Fast and Slow for more on this.
What we do in practice also shapes what we do on stage. Even in class, learn to release concentration face (try opening the throat—it helps). And remember to breathe.
I grew up on President Street in Brooklyn, NY in the 1970s. You grew up somewhere else, somewhen else. Each of us has been marked by our micro-culture: our family, our location, our environment, as well as by the larger culture of our respective countries. We are each as different as leaves, as clouds, as trees. None of these are exactly the same. Neither are we. We each have our own special sauce…
The warmth of Soileau, LA.Mr. Andrew tempted this young man into attaining high grades by promising him a horse–which he promptly earned! You can see the whole album here (if the link isn’t blue, please copy and paste): https://www.facebook.com/aliathabit/media_set?set=a.10153203790844363&type=3
To me, having one’s own style brings all of our self and our influences into our dance. We may not be (and probably won’t be even if we want to) “pure” anything, and why should we? Every dancer of the culture is a product of her culture and influences–so are we. We synthesize all our aspects into our dance–and that is how it becomes us, our personal style.
We dance how we dance—the mitigating factor is the music. The music to which we dance influences our choices. So we will dance differently to Turkish music than to Egyptian music, or fusion clank-n-crank, and so on. Sure, we want to have the specific vocabulary and cultural understanding of whatever genres interest us, but even within those genres, we need to be our own dancer. Everyone from the culture is, so why not us?
So you grew up Cajun or Greek or Spanish or Nebraskan. You bring that with you, because that’s who you are. You don’t have to leave everything behind. I mean, you can if you want. But you can bring it with you, too—whatever you want, because it’s part of you.
We want to understand the deeper nuances of the dance. I’ve been watching folks two-step for the last few days (and done a little myself). It’s a deceptively simple dance—there is a lot of nuance. It takes time to get it. Just like in bellydance. The cultures have all this precious stuff that you can’t see at first glance.
And you can’t get all of it by reading or listening.
You have to feel it—like the warmth of the people of Soileau, LA, you can’t see it in a video or read about it in an article—you have to feel it. You feel the subtleties by doing it and being open to it.
I hope this makes sense. It’s almost contradictory.
On the one hand, it’s steal like an artist. You see a step, a song, a costume element and it resonates for you, steal it. Everyone does this. You copy what you like, and through experimenting with a lot of stuff you gain the confidence of your own style.
On the other hand, explore, learn, understand, and grow as an artist. Feel the character and the humanity behind the surface. That takes time and effort. When I went to Beirut, I only planned on staying a few days, I soon realized I would have to stay longer. That city doesn’t just give itself to you on the first date. You have to stick around and develop a relationship.
Even though “steal what you like” sounds like cherry-picking cultural whatever, it’s not the same thing as ignoring all the context. None of the sparkles will feed you unless you also take the time and make the effort to experience the richness underneath.
Take your time. Dance yourself. This is how you find your style, find how you respond to the music. It’s worth the effort.
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I wrote the above for the 90 Day Dance Challenge of 2015. I was in Louisiana with Tamalyn Dallal at the time, experiencing rural Mardi Gras traditions.
Just like each dancer, each 90 Days is different. Each Love Note is written fresh, that day, an improvisation to go with all the dance improvisation.
We’re doing the 90 Days again. It starts March 11th. Still time to join us. Will you please take a look? I’d love to see you there. aliathabit.com/90days
In honor of this, I’ll send you an email a day from now to the 11th, each one a Love Note from one of the previous 90 Days.
