Thread: "group choreo" is its own style

Because my students learn as a group and perform as a group, all the choreos they've ever learned are group choreos.

"group choreo" is almost like its own special style of bellydance, though. Far, far less traveling than Raks Sharki because the stage is full of people. No really detailed isolations or layering because people can't stay 'together'. Less turning, and arms tend to be held in positions rather than moving throughout the dance.

I periodically teach them 'solo skills' instead of choreo, and we talk about this stuff. I show them how to cover the stage by themelves, and we all run around the room like madwomen. I drill layering regularly, and put simple layered movements into choreos, but no detailed torso interpretation. And they incorporate *some* of that info in their solos, but I don't think they'll really *get it* unless I put something together for them.

So. I'm developing a group Sharki piece that will involve taking turns moving in smaller batches (groups one two and three) and making it like a Sharki piece, group dynamics be damned. Lots of arabesques and traveling steps, etc.

I showed them a bit of what I have in mind last night and they all looked very unhappy about it. Definitely outside their comfort zone! Which made me realize that by teaching choreographies all the time, I've really limited their learning. ,f::

Should I back off? They're primarily interested in dancing as a group anyway, should I leave the advanced solo skills for those who want to pursue it on their own? The

Or will they be happy once I push them a bit? Some of them have been dancing 5 years and never done a true Sharki piece.

Anyone else see 'group choreo' as its own style, that rubs off on people's solos, too?

Think of that gorgeous Asmahan clip Rakgirl recently posted -- wouldn't it look ridiculous to have 8 dancers doing those movements side by side?

Sounds like you are offering your students a wealth of info and forcing them to expand their horizons. It's a huge step for them so resistance is to be expected. If you do not offer them such a well-rounded spectrum of Instruction it could be even tougher for them to venture into solos in the future. Maybe sharing a few clips of troupe routines and solos involving some of the same people so they have an idea of the impact performing as a solo can have.

Hi Lauren,
Yes, you should continue with it. They'll be fine - a bit of discomfort on their part is completely normal but shouldn't put you off the idea.

Also, a lot of my troupe choreos have a section in them for a mini-solo. It's a nice interim step between troupe dancing and performing as soloist for an entire song. Many of my troupe have no interest is dancing an entire solo, but they like that 20 or 30 seconds to shine - so that's one way to incorporate the complexity of solo dancing within troupe work.

Originally Posted by Lauren_

Think of that gorgeous Asmahan clip Rakgirl recently posted -- wouldn't it look ridiculous to have 8 dancers doing those movements side by side?

I was just thinking about how I could expose my students to some of these skills in classes.

In the company we perform group work with large solo sections where we all sometimes free style or do it one at a time. that's how i first learned.

Originally Posted by CFerhat

Hi Lauren,
Yes, you should continue with it. They'll be fine - a bit of discomfort on their part is completely normal but shouldn't put you off the idea.

Also, a lot of my troupe choreos have a section in them for a mini-solo. It's a nice interim step between troupe dancing and performing as soloist for an entire song. Many of my troupe have no interest is dancing an entire solo, but they like that 20 or 30 seconds to shine - so that's one way to incorporate the complexity of solo dancing within troupe work.

That's *exactly* where I'm headed with this piece!

Thanks for reading my blathering above, I'm very wordy and unfocused this morning!

So. I'm developing a group Sharki piece that will involve taking turns moving in smaller batches (groups one two and three) and making it like a Sharki piece, group dynamics be damned. Lots of arabesques and traveling steps, etc.

Or will they be happy once I push them a bit? Some of them have been dancing 5 years and never done a true Sharki piece.

Lauren,

I think this is a great way to give the girls who have been there for 5+ years something NEW to chew on. THey need to know that they DON'T know everything yet. That might be something that's holding them back; the fear of feeling they might have to "start all over again" when learning something new.

It's imparitive that troupes or repitore (sp?) have a working idea of sharqi solo skills as well as working as a group. It allows those girls to expand their abilities to dance better choreographies and sharpens their own skills as well. Show them some great clips of what you have in mind.

To answer your question, yes, group dancing is on it's own in my opinion.

No, I understand exactly what you mean. I have a theory that this is why so many dancers have issues with arm work - so many us go from drills and combos to troupe choreographies and then when we, or our teachers, think we are advanced enough to attempt a solo, we've not learned enough of the arm work appropriate for solo dancing. Drills and troupe choreos, where arms are necessarily simplified, don't get you there.

Originally Posted by CFerhat

No, I understand exactly what you mean. I have a theory that this is why so many dancers have issues with arm work - so many us go from drills and combos to troupe choreographies and then when we, or our teachers, think we are advanced enough to attempt a solo, we've not learned enough of the arm work appropriate for solo dancing. Drills and troupe choreos, where arms are necessarily simplified, don't get you there.

YESSSSS!!! And floor patterns and even step patterns are simplified.

If you try to do a lovely solo choreo (like you might learn from Raqia Hassan, Yousry Sharif, Shareen el Safy, Hadia) as a group number, you'd all look like a school of fish meandering about! So much traveling -- and often they leave the taxim bits open, too, for the dancer to work on herself.

True Raks Sharki just isn't a group endeavor.

I completely agree that ensemble choreography is a very different animal from solo choreography.

Even if this falls outside their comfort zone, you should still teach it. Some may be intimidated at first, but discover they like it once they get used to it. Others won't like it as much, and that's okay too. But if you don't expose them to these skills, where else will they get a chance to develop them? What if some of them go on to teach someday - do you want them to go do that without having ever been exposed to this skill?

hey lauren

me too have been feeding y groups a lot of group choreo that is mostly baladi, folklore and pop. group sharki (that is real group dance and not just a bunch of soloist on stage next to each other), is a whole other challenge, that i'm only starting to face right now... precisely because of a lot of the typical solo elements in sharki being difficult to translate to a real group performance.

Time to play the Imperial Beyotch. Not everyone will like it, but that's OK. The only way to make an informed decision is to have various viewpoints. I can't even count how many group choreos that I performed but didn't like. I always had the option of not performing, and I usually learned some new moves/combos in the process. Stick with your program. At the very least they can grin and bear it until it's over. ,r:;

Originally Posted by Andrea2

Time to play the Imperial Beyotch. Not everyone will like it, but that's OK. The only way to make an informed decision is to have various viewpoints. I can't even count how many group choreos that I performed but didn't like. I always had the option of not performing, and I usually learned some new moves/combos in the process. Stick with your program. At the very least they can grin and bear it until it's over. ,r:;

Glad you feel that way -- they may be grumbling through it at your next hafla! ..l;,

Unless you'd rather showcase our group's interpretation of Faten Salama's melaya dance!

From a students perspective, yes make them do it! My teacher has recently been making each of us individually come up with our own combos and show the class. It can be uncomfortable at times, but it is a great excercise and very helpful for growth. Just because we whine doesn't mean we don't know it's good for us!

Yes, group choreos are a diff animal than pieces written for soloists or even duet/trio. But I disagree that you can't have a lot of turns, layering, movement etc. written for a larger group...
True it is MUCH MORE DIFFICULT to get multiple dancers all doing exactly the same things at exactly the same moment (sometimes millisecond - LOL), but thats what drills and practice are for - it can be done.

Our troupe "Yemanja" incorporates a lot of the above into our all of our choreos. I hate watching or dancing boring routines. It takes a lot more time/work - but we get it (eventually).
Now as to the problem of staging - that can oft be a problem/hinderance.
We always get to a venue early to scope out the stage or dance area. Size is a major thing for us (as there are 16 gals in the troupe)

Originally Posted by Lauren_

Should I back off? They're primarily interested in dancing as a group anyway, should I leave the advanced solo skills for those who want to pursue it on their own? The

Or will they be happy once I push them a bit? Some of them have been dancing 5 years and never done a true Sharki piece.

Push them into it--leaving your comfort zone is the only way to grow. And for every dancer who grumbles out loud, there's another one rejoicing inside that she's getting challenged. Not that I've been there or anything

Anyone else see 'group choreo' as its own style, that rubs off on people's solos, too?

Definitely. One teacher told me a year or two ago that my solos had always looked like I was still dancing with a group, but that I'd gotten past it and finally started dancing like a real soloist. I realized that she had been right and that part of my brain was always taking the other dancers on the stage into account, even when there weren't any others there. Dancing on my own for a while made a difference, as did building a collection of videos and watching them over and over and over. I owe that Legends DVD with Tahiya, Samia et al a big debt!

I so agree. I find myself in the difficult situation of negotiating whether I create a group choreography that looks interesting as a group exercise - and is therefore not any use without the whole group - or that is effectively a solo dance being done by several people. The latter is more useful at the higher level I am choreographing for, since the dancers can then go off and dance the piece themselves as a solo at a friend's party or as a duet with another classmate, but it doesn't look as *interesting* as stuff with floor patterns and dancers taking turns, when done in a group. And as you say, it has to be kept relatively simple to work in a group (though I also have the issue of what is considered level-appropriate and what the dancers can actually do.)

Where I live, "looking good on stage" is actually more important these days than good belly dance IMO, so big numbers with many bodies, lots of props etc etc tend to get priority in, for example, the national show. They mostly don't give a toss for raqs sharqi so far as I can tell, whereas if you just stand there and wave fan veils about everybody worships you. So on the one hand you want to produce work that is interesting, challenging enough for the dancers and also belly dance, but also something that looks effective and interesting as a group performance, and is also belly dance.

I am not the best at moving bodies around - I can't visualise, have to make the bodies move for me so I can tell if what I think works, works - but I do like working on group pieces with floor patterns because they are challenging in a different way. My end of year level 3 piece is like this. But the next ones are definitely going to be more "solo in a group with travelling bits".

Originally Posted by Lauren_

Glad you feel that way -- they may be grumbling through it at your next hafla! ..l;,

Unless you'd rather showcase our group's interpretation of Faten Salama's melaya dance!

Heck I'm up for both if they are!

The group choreos I've made are usually easily adaptable to solo work. I've also made choreos that are more like solos that happen to be performed in a group. What is consistent between the two types is that they tend to be on the simpler side, as all the other posts in this thread have shared, and as is generally necessary when creating choreos for students who are not advanced dancers. Nothing new there.

The idea of teaching solo skills in a group setting is right on target. If I taught such an advanced class, you can bet there would be homework of the kind that requires students to come up with their own solo choreos for a two-minute piece!

Deborah

This is so interesting to see how other folks approach this - most of my troupe choreos would have to be adapted quite a bit to be performed as a soloist because I put a lot of formation/travelling work into them - there are 13 of us in the troupe.

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Originally Posted by CFerhat

Hi Lauren,
Yes, you should continue with it. They'll be fine - a bit of discomfort on their part is completely normal but shouldn't put you off the idea.

Also, a lot of my troupe choreos have a section in them for a mini-solo. It's a nice interim step between troupe dancing and performing as soloist for an entire song. Many of my troupe have no interest is dancing an entire solo, but they like that 20 or 30 seconds to shine - so that's one way to incorporate the complexity of solo dancing within troupe work.

As a student, I think if started slow with mini-solo or small groups of 2-3 that would be a great lead-in to doing solo work! I, too, would be hesitant to go full on solo to start with.

I'm in agreement that you definately should challenge them. :)

AND...I don't know if you've seen it or not, but Yasmina Ramzy's DVD Asala 1 has a 25 minute performance of "Inta Omri" on it...her staging of group performances is incredible. I highly recommend watching clips, if you can.

:)

Originally Posted by yasmindiab

I'm in agreement that you definately should challenge them. :)

AND...I don't know if you've seen it or not, but Yasmina Ramzy's DVD Asala 1 has a 25 minute performance of "Inta Omri" on it...her staging of group performances is incredible. I highly recommend watching clips, if you can.

:)

Interesting! I'll have to look for that. I tried to choreograph Inta Omri for my students, I couldn't get past the intro. To me, the music was just too intimate and detailed for group work, anything I tried to do felt like I was having them dance over the nuances of the music, and I wound up abandoning the project only 2 weeks in. Honestly, watching my students try to dance to it when they weren't really hearing it was painful, too.

I do teach a separate solo skills class, but most of my group students prefer to stay in the choreo class. Once a year, before the student show, I help them all develop their solos for one session, it's my favorite of the year.

But a group piece with solo-style movement is a new kind of challenge for me!

Originally Posted by yasmindiab

I don't know if you've seen it or not, but Yasmina Ramzy's DVD Asala 1 has a 25 minute performance of "Inta Omri" on it...her staging of group performances is incredible. I highly recommend watching clips, if you can.

They performed this at the 2007 Int'l Bellydance Conference of Canada, so I got to see it live. Oh my goodness, it was AMAZING! They had a live band, including a singer whose voice was so much like Oum Kalthoum's it sent chills down my spine! The choreography was sublime. Watching this performance moved me to tears!

Originally Posted by *Shira*

They performed this at the 2007 Int'l Bellydance Conference of Canada, so I got to see it live. Oh my goodness, it was AMAZING! They had a live band, including a singer whose voice was so much like Oum Kalthoum's it sent chills down my spine! The choreography was sublime. Watching this performance moved me to tears!

Yasmina's singer, Najwa (I think) is FANTASTIC. I adore her.
She's pretty young too, if I remember correctly...Yasmina had mentioned something about her at the last workshop I took with her a couple years ago, and I think she said that she was in her early-mid 20s...so she's younger than me! lol

Zombie thread!

My group *finally* performed the piece I was working on when I started this thread. It was most definitely a valuable teaching tool, I see combos and steps from this dance cropping up in my students' solos, and they learned how to listen for and incorporate a little Khaleegy into their Oriental when appropriate.

But I'm too close to the piece to know whether it's a valuable part of our performance repertoire. I can't watch it objectively. Is it fun to watch? This audience liked it, but it was the finale of the show and they were already pretty enthused.

Please tell me what you think of the *choreography* I don't want my students' execution discussed here since they're not present. Thank you!

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDhGexQUCls]YouTube - Hips Afire! Bellydancers: Rakasni Ya Habibi[/ame]

My first thought is that when the dancers in the middle and back lines were doing their portions, I often felt like I couldn't see which hindered my enjoyment of the performance a bit. It was a very cute choreography overall and I liked how you went between everyone doing the same thing vs. working in opposition.

As someone who is still finding her way creating group choreographies, you may want to take some or all of this with a grain of salt.

First of all kudos to you for challenging your students with not only a complex oriental piece, but one that's nearly 6 minutes long! I am doing the first oriental piece with my student troupe (just under 4 minutes, thank the DOYC), and it's definitely been a whole new world for both them and me. .w.:

I really liked how you did the three lines - right now I have 12 troupe members, and the 2 lines are really getting loooooong. I can see what mahsati is saying though - sometimes it is difficult to see the people in the very back line from time to time.

I thought you had a lovely balance of solos, small groups and the whole group performing at different times. When the first soloist came out, I was thinking it was just going to be all the dancers taking turns soloing (which, for personal reasons is not my cup of tea for group numbers), but was happily surprised to see it go in a different direction.

Sometimes I thought that the other dancers had to stand in place for a wee bit long while the others did their thing. I occasionally found myself looking at them rather than the ones who were dancing, wondering if they would start losing energy. That said, I think the majority of the time they did a fabulous job of keeping their frame and posture while waiting their turn.

My two cents? I think the choreography itself is great! I agree its hard to see all the gals in a few places. However I think some of that may be angle of the camera and some of it may be simply the "herd" mentality that I see a LOT with all kinds of dance performances.

I'm working with my classes right now on a big recital performance and I've noticed both things going on with my gals. As I walk the room depending on where I'm standing I visually "loose" some gals depending on where I'm standing. It's not that their spacing is bad, its just visual angle. It's something I try to keep in mind when doing group choreographies, walk the room and see where gals will end up behind someone and see if it's something that can be fixed or if fixing it makes the visual worse from the angle I expect the bulk of the audience to be seeing the piece from.

I would bet everyone has seen the "herd" mentality going on. Go to a kids recital and watch the teachers get the kids all lined up, spaced just right then they walk off stage and the kids immeadiately move into a big group. It's the safety in numbers/"herd" feeling. If I'm close the the people next to me the "lion" can't get me. Just because we're grown ups doesn't mean we outgrow that feeling...lol. Especially with adults who may never have performed on stage before. There's not much we can do about it other than keep building up confidence for on stage/performing and to remind them every time we see gals starting to close in on each other to move their spacing back out.

I do like the choreography, definately enjoyed watching it and I know you asked for no critique of your students but I'll add I think they did a lovely performance with it!

I think yes it is a valuable part of your repertoire. It will only get better the more they perform it. It's really nice already, a fun and interesting choreography and a wonderful piece of music.