Wednesday, November 16, 2005
Dance Prodigy
Jamila al Wahid was here this weekend. Somra el Nubia sponsored her in a weekend workshop aptly titled "Belly Dance Bootcamp". It certainly was! Monday was a complete day of rest to recoup from it.
I got a chance to pull her aside and ask her some questions about how she does what she does as far as teaching workshops. Her answers really gave me a window to her personality. Jamila is very close to my age, but she admits that she is old school! The masters that she learned from are either dead, retiring, or thinking of retiring. So she started her training really young to say the least! And she has been teaching since she was 16! Whoa! She told me that she often gets put in the Aziza and Shoshanna peer group, but as she told me, she was teaching them, so dancewise, she is NOT in their peer group. Her dance peers are people like Horacio and Beata, Suhaila, etc.
She also told me the business of workshops has changed. Since she is old school, it used to be you were asked to teach workshops by sponsors. I thought that was still how things were. However, she said that these days, most teachers asked sponsors to host them. Teachers call sponsors and ask them if they would like for them to come to their city. She even gave an example of someone offering to teach for free so she could say that she taught at this event and has travelled internationally as a workshop teacher just to pad her resume.
Needless to say, that was a real suprise to everyone that was listening. You could tell that she was a bit upset about folks who haven't paid their dues, but are out there asking sponsors to host them, even if the sponsor has no idea how they teach. She said "These days, it's about something other than the dance". She didn't say what the "something" was, but one could probably easily guess. Is the mantra "Fame first, dance second?"
I'm glad to have had a chance to take class for her, see her perform in person finally, and hear some of her words of wisdom. For me, it's a teacher's wisdom that takes them from great to fantastic, and Jamila is certainly the latter.
I got a chance to pull her aside and ask her some questions about how she does what she does as far as teaching workshops. Her answers really gave me a window to her personality. Jamila is very close to my age, but she admits that she is old school! The masters that she learned from are either dead, retiring, or thinking of retiring. So she started her training really young to say the least! And she has been teaching since she was 16! Whoa! She told me that she often gets put in the Aziza and Shoshanna peer group, but as she told me, she was teaching them, so dancewise, she is NOT in their peer group. Her dance peers are people like Horacio and Beata, Suhaila, etc.
She also told me the business of workshops has changed. Since she is old school, it used to be you were asked to teach workshops by sponsors. I thought that was still how things were. However, she said that these days, most teachers asked sponsors to host them. Teachers call sponsors and ask them if they would like for them to come to their city. She even gave an example of someone offering to teach for free so she could say that she taught at this event and has travelled internationally as a workshop teacher just to pad her resume.
Needless to say, that was a real suprise to everyone that was listening. You could tell that she was a bit upset about folks who haven't paid their dues, but are out there asking sponsors to host them, even if the sponsor has no idea how they teach. She said "These days, it's about something other than the dance". She didn't say what the "something" was, but one could probably easily guess. Is the mantra "Fame first, dance second?"
I'm glad to have had a chance to take class for her, see her perform in person finally, and hear some of her words of wisdom. For me, it's a teacher's wisdom that takes them from great to fantastic, and Jamila is certainly the latter.
Friday, November 11, 2005
The technique debate-Part one
I have recently been taking classes based on Suhaila technique. There is a local teacher here in St. Louis that has a Level 2 certification. Her class is very challenging, not to mention the only advanced class offered in the city. I so far am enjoying learning about Suhaila's technique and it has helped me define my own technique and how I execute my movements.
There are some nice advantages to doing things the Suhaila way:
1. The glutes are the most under used muscles on the body in my opinion. All we really do is sit on them. That's it. With the Suhaila technique, the glutes get put to good use! The reason I started certain types of dancing is so that I could learn to move body parts that were not moved in Western styles of dance. There are Senegalese glute dances (I forgot the name of them , but I will remember soon) that have been done for thousands of years, so Suhaila is not the only woman that knows how to use hers, but I do believe she has brought a better, um, "butt awareness" to bellydance.
2. It is much easier to stay in alignment when you use your glutes. Many students try to do advanced moves and mess up the first thing they learn, alignment. You must stay in alignment to keep your body safe and to execute more advanced movements more easily. Using glutes lessens the likelihood of getting unaligned and the likelihood of injury. Besides, I've never heard of anyone straining their butt muscles. If you have, let me know.
3. According to Suhaila, it is very dangerous to use the knees to shimmy or do any hip movement for that matter. One of my teachers once said that the three body parts that women need to protect the most are the back of the neck, the lower back and the knees. So knees saved with Suhaila's technique. I have never used my knees to shimmy. More on this later.
I do however see some disadvantages with the Suhaila technique as well:
1. I cannot layer certain moves. For example, I love to put a shimmy on my figure eights. I can't execute this when my glutes are contracting. I haven't seen Suhaila do this either in the performances I have seen on video. If anyone has any video with Suhaila doing figure eights with a shimmy, please refer me to your video. Raqia Hassan, who is said to have invented the straight legged shimmy, says that it is much easier to do layering with. I tend to agree at this point. I am willing to take a Suhaila layering class as well to do more comparisons.
2. I like for my torso and chest moves (shimmy excluded) to be nice and smooth, particularly when I'm moving the bottom half and top half independently. With Suhaila's emphasis on glute and oblique use, I find that my torso and chest moves are short and compact, making those moves look choppy. Some of my students and dance colleauges have said that sometimes it lookes like Suhaila is having convulsions, and do not like her style because of that. I have seen some performances where they would get that impression, and if there is a video with a smoother execution of top half moves, please advise.
I've come to the conclusion that learning new and different techniques is never a bad thing. It can only improve your dancing, and knowledge of how the body moves. That's why I study the types of dancing that I do. I can't however sign off on one particular technique or school of dance. For me, it's better to know about different techniques, be able to execute them, and know when, where and how to use them to improve my dance.
There are some nice advantages to doing things the Suhaila way:
1. The glutes are the most under used muscles on the body in my opinion. All we really do is sit on them. That's it. With the Suhaila technique, the glutes get put to good use! The reason I started certain types of dancing is so that I could learn to move body parts that were not moved in Western styles of dance. There are Senegalese glute dances (I forgot the name of them , but I will remember soon) that have been done for thousands of years, so Suhaila is not the only woman that knows how to use hers, but I do believe she has brought a better, um, "butt awareness" to bellydance.
2. It is much easier to stay in alignment when you use your glutes. Many students try to do advanced moves and mess up the first thing they learn, alignment. You must stay in alignment to keep your body safe and to execute more advanced movements more easily. Using glutes lessens the likelihood of getting unaligned and the likelihood of injury. Besides, I've never heard of anyone straining their butt muscles. If you have, let me know.
3. According to Suhaila, it is very dangerous to use the knees to shimmy or do any hip movement for that matter. One of my teachers once said that the three body parts that women need to protect the most are the back of the neck, the lower back and the knees. So knees saved with Suhaila's technique. I have never used my knees to shimmy. More on this later.
I do however see some disadvantages with the Suhaila technique as well:
1. I cannot layer certain moves. For example, I love to put a shimmy on my figure eights. I can't execute this when my glutes are contracting. I haven't seen Suhaila do this either in the performances I have seen on video. If anyone has any video with Suhaila doing figure eights with a shimmy, please refer me to your video. Raqia Hassan, who is said to have invented the straight legged shimmy, says that it is much easier to do layering with. I tend to agree at this point. I am willing to take a Suhaila layering class as well to do more comparisons.
2. I like for my torso and chest moves (shimmy excluded) to be nice and smooth, particularly when I'm moving the bottom half and top half independently. With Suhaila's emphasis on glute and oblique use, I find that my torso and chest moves are short and compact, making those moves look choppy. Some of my students and dance colleauges have said that sometimes it lookes like Suhaila is having convulsions, and do not like her style because of that. I have seen some performances where they would get that impression, and if there is a video with a smoother execution of top half moves, please advise.
I've come to the conclusion that learning new and different techniques is never a bad thing. It can only improve your dancing, and knowledge of how the body moves. That's why I study the types of dancing that I do. I can't however sign off on one particular technique or school of dance. For me, it's better to know about different techniques, be able to execute them, and know when, where and how to use them to improve my dance.
