Thread: Spin-off - Teaching Baladi progression?

I'd like to attack Mario Kirilis' New Baladi in my intermediate class. I don't want to choreograph it, because I think it's music you really need to feel and react to. But how should I go about teaching them to dance to a baladi progression? What skills should I cover?

I find it hard to teach improv because I tend to just put on the music and dance what I feel - I don't have any concrete way of explaining it. And the baladi progression is such a particular style, I feel like learning how to dance to a piece of music like that should be more structured.

Help me structure my lesson plan please!

I would suggest picking apart the song and showing techniques that can go with each section. For example, take the initial taxim and show juicy, curvy movements that go with it. Then take the beginning of the accents and show how sharp, percussive movements define this within the gooeyness of the underlying instruments. Then take the progression section and show contained, beledy-style movements that go with the music while at the same time talking about the feelings that emerge as the music takes you through its radical ride until the happy ending.

Haven't taught one yet, but that would be how I'd start. :)

I have been wanting to do the same kind of class, but have come up against the same dilemmas. I'll be watching this thread closely for ideas too.

I just taught beledi progression to my advanced students in my May-June session. We will be continuing our study this session, but I have 5 classes starting tonight so I shouldn't even be on Bhuz!!! Will post some ideas soon.

Ooh, please do post when you get a minute!

we had a lovely, lovely beledi class with orit in orlando last month. first, she took us through who the character is that would be dancing beledi - for an example, she had us imagine we lived in the desert and herded goats. she had us imagine that we were 20 years older and 20 pounds heavier and fat and lazy (ha! it was hysterical. you probably had to be there. but for me, imagining that I had another 20 pounds on my ass made my dancing sooo much better!). we wore a long caftan, maybe with a hip scarf, and we were barefoot. we're sweaty and stinky... but we still had a husband to satisfy ;) - and among our people we have LOTS of kids ;) ;).

after much laughter (especially when she insisted that we have our mouths open so we could breathe freely - she wanted to be able to smell the goat cheese on our breath!), she took us through what NOT to do: no light arabesques, no floaty arms, nothing on releve, nothing flourishy or showy. our arms were strong, heavy and low. it was all about being heavy, internal and toward-the-earth, rolling our big heavy strong hips. she gave us a vocabulary of movements and emotions to use (sorry, couldn't begin to make a list for you, but you should be able to come up with something for your students. we were given suggestions for accents to hit on the doums, and faster movements and travelling steps for when the music gets fast) - which I found to be particularly helpful. if you've only got a handful of movements to use, you don't have to spend so much time thinking about what to do when you're trying to improvise, and you can just let the movement flow.

from there we were free to do what felt best and made sense to us. she said if a movement came to us, it was the right one. the accent you feel is the accent you need.

have fun! I love beledi...

Elisa, I'm sooo bummed I missed that class (that was manatee morning!) but that explains a lot abut the difference between Orit's presentation and the clip I posted on the original thread. Thanks for sharing all of that! :)

Especially this:

Originally Posted by elisagamal

she said if a movement came to us, it was the right one. the accent you feel is the accent you need.

Originally Posted by elisagamal

we had a lovely, lovely beledi class with orit in orlando last month. first, she took us through who the character is that would be dancing beledi - for an example, she had us imagine we lived in the desert and herded goats. she had us imagine that we were 20 years older and 20 pounds heavier and fat and lazy (ha! it was hysterical. you probably had to be there. but for me, imagining that I had another 20 pounds on my ass made my dancing sooo much better!). we wore a long caftan, maybe with a hip scarf, and we were barefoot. we're sweaty and stinky... but we still had a husband to satisfy ;) - and among our people we have LOTS of kids ;) ;).

after much laughter (especially when she insisted that we have our mouths open so we could breathe freely - she wanted to be able to smell the goat cheese on our breath!), she took us through what NOT to do: no light arabesques, no floaty arms, nothing on releve, nothing flourishy or showy. our arms were strong, heavy and low. it was all about being heavy, internal and toward-the-earth, rolling our big heavy strong hips. she gave us a vocabulary of movements and emotions to use (sorry, couldn't begin to make a list for you, but you should be able to come up with something for your students. we were given suggestions for accents to hit on the doums, and faster movements and travelling steps for when the music gets fast) - which I found to be particularly helpful. if you've only got a handful of movements to use, you don't have to spend so much time thinking about what to do when you're trying to improvise, and you can just let the movement flow.

from there we were free to do what felt best and made sense to us. she said if a movement came to us, it was the right one. the accent you feel is the accent you need.

have fun! I love beledi...

Still kicking myself that I couldn't be there but no way. More details, please. I was sitting at home that weekend with the roads closed by Tropical Storm Fay and no way to get to Orlando (we had 20" of rain!)

Souzan

That workshop sounds amazing. Wow, so jealous!

I took a private lesson on baladi progressions and the suggestions I got were...
1.) try to stick with one movement or a variation of a single movement for a while.
2.) keep arms simple, maybe just framing hips. not too much arm movement - use the torso to express the goo-ey-ness instead.
3.) make sure to hit the accents once you get into the call & response section. you can try hitting them in different ways.
4.) once the fast section starts, it's cool to start travelling.

these are great! (that workshop sounds AMAZING). Keep 'em coming!

Oo, I'm loving this thread! I'm dancing a Baladi piece in Duisburg this November and it is *so* motivating to read stuff that really clicks with the way I feel the music. Great example (and un-example) videos as well.
PS:The lovely Orit will be teaching workshops in the Netherlands in October!!*joy*

all these baladi threads are making me want to post my most recent attempt and get some feedback on my "baladi"-ness to see what I need to work on...as soon as youtube cooperates, I'll start a new thread.
Perhaps the feedback from that thread will also be a good guide on things to talk about in class.

Originally Posted by elisagamal

we had a lovely, lovely beledi class with orit in orlando last month. first, she took us through who the character is that would be dancing beledi - for an example, she had us imagine we lived in the desert and herded goats. she had us imagine that we were 20 years older and 20 pounds heavier and fat and lazy (ha! it was hysterical. you probably had to be there. but for me, imagining that I had another 20 pounds on my ass made my dancing sooo much better!). we wore a long caftan, maybe with a hip scarf, and we were barefoot. we're sweaty and stinky... but we still had a husband to satisfy ;) - and among our people we have LOTS of kids ;) ;).

Mmm, not quite the same as the baladi progression which is an urban form (not a lot of quarter tone accordians or saxs in the desert ..g.:) She wasn't actually suggesting it was a dance of seduction was she? I thought Orit was a bit more switched on.

Originally Posted by Nepenthe

I took a private lesson on baladi progressions and the suggestions I got were...
1.) try to stick with one movement or a variation of a single movement for a while.
2.) keep arms simple, maybe just framing hips. not too much arm movement - use the torso to express the goo-ey-ness instead.
3.) make sure to hit the accents once you get into the call & response section. you can try hitting them in different ways.
4.) once the fast section starts, it's cool to start travelling.

Yes, that sounds right. Denise Enan briefly covered it this year in context with other beledi forms. A little more sophisicated than traditional urban beledi which has a very small movement vocab. But basically keep it simple. Don't over dance the music. Feel. Keep the arms very simple. Avoid full body undulations especially rib cage isolations.

Originally Posted by kashmir

She wasn't actually suggesting it was a dance of seduction was she?

Of course not! But she was trying very hard, and with some humorously-expressed frustration at times, to get people to be less polite, upright, precise, disconnected, analytical, busy, showy...and to be more simple, earthy, lazy, heavy, and sensual.

Orit exhorting us to move beyond our "too pretty" citified dancing, from my notes:

"What GOOD is it if I can't smell the GOAT?!"

Elisa Gamal gave a great description of the workshop above. (I'd love to see your notes, lady!)

I just want to add that it was a two-hour class, and Orit covered a lot of material. She discussed and demonstrated using different styles of beledi and shaabi music along the traditional-to-modern and rural-to-urban continuum. It wasn't all trudging through the sand, and there was no suggestion that (from the other thread) "beledi" equates to "peasant." I thought her use of examples to set the scene was completely appropriate and necessary, really, since we were all coming from different backgrounds and different levels of exposure to the topic. I learned a lot, and what was familiar was very consistent with what I've heard and seen from other trusted sources.

Originally Posted by kashmir

Mmm, not quite the same as the baladi progression which is an urban form (not a lot of quarter tone accordians or saxs in the desert ..g.:) She wasn't actually suggesting it was a dance of seduction was she? I thought Orit was a bit more switched on.

she wasn't suggesting that at all. and thank you, zana! smell the GOAT!

I've worked on Baladi Progressions with a few classes, because I love them. I find it works best to teach this over the course of a term, rather than just one or two classes, because it takes students a while to get comfortable with the complexity of the music and with improvising for a whole song.

I usually pick one song to teach to (I love 'Balady' from 'On Fire') and may provide copies of the music and notes which break down the different sections of the music. Basically, I want them to become really familiar with the piece.

Each week, I get the students to listen to a section and ask them to tell me about it (is it 'fast', 'languid', do they feel like they should do 'gooey moves', 'accents', etc). We discuss how you would dance to each section and we might practice some example moves.

Over the course of a few lessons, we do some practice exercises for each section. For the taxim beginning, I go over slower moves, practice flowing them together (I show specific techniques for this, as not everyone can just wing it). Then we work on improvising with guidance, such as 'see how many ways you can do a circle' or perhaps 'make your movements travel from above the head down the body'. Basically, I usually start with some sort of framework to assist improvise-phobes.

For the accent sections, we first practice moves that make good accents, then practice improvising accents joined with flowing moves.

For the faster sections, we usually practice some particular moves that go well (such as 3/4 shimmies) and then improvise around these moves.

In all of this, with the improv practice sessions, I usually get the class to follow me first, then get them to try, stop and make some comments or suggestions ('now try changing directions as you dance', 'now see if you can incorporate some shimmies'), and get them to give it a go a few more times.

I think it's also helpful to provide links to youtube vids of fabulous baladi progressions, so they can 'get' the feel they're aiming for. I also try and provide some general rules with regards to styling, such as keeping the arms closely framing the body, undulating with the tummy rather than the ribcage, reflecting the heavy 'doum' beat rather than making it too floaty or flippy, etc.

(PS - having said all that, I still don't got that earthy baladi feel. I wish I had more balad in my bint!!!)