Thread: Benefits of Choreography-Based Seminars

I happen to be a person who prefers videos and seminars that focus on technique, drills, etc. What are the benefits, do you think, of taking a choreography-based workshop? I know I am not the best at remembering workshop choreo, unless I write it down, but there usually isn't time for writing it all down.

If you remember some of the combos, I can see this being helpful. Any other opinions?

Also, when it comes to learning combos, is it one of those things where you have to dance it over and over again to get it into your muscle memory? Because I rarely pull out combos I have learned from other dancers while I am improving, and improv is mostly what I do. I would have to actually think about what I was going to do next to remember to throw a workshop combo in, and I don't like to think when I dance, because, well, then you look like you are thinking about what you will do next.

I think learning about a particular instructor's interpretation of music is a very valuable part of learning choreography in a workshop. That's honestly what interests me most about choreography, whether it's in a workshop or a DVD.

My preference is also technique workshops, but I do think you can get something from choreography based workshops. I've been thinking a lot about what people posted a while back in a thread on how to get the most from workshops--several bhuzzers recommended limited your workshop attendance to only a few instructors who you really want to learn from. That way, you really get to learn their style and technique.

This has been my new approach lately. For example, Jillina is my all-time favorite dancer. I'd follow her to the moon, if I had to! She just taught a choreography based workshop here in Boston last weekend. While I don't see myself dancing the choreography, I do see myself using elements and flavors from it. How she responds physically to certain themes in the music, for example.

I think this gets easier when you follow a core set of teachers, but it can also be useful for workshops from teachers you've never taken before. I went to one Yousry weeklong, and I still use that music. I don't dance his choreography to it, but when I dance to that music, I think of him and my performance is certainly flavored with his interpretation of the music.

i hear you. i don't retain much from these seminars either in terms of choreography. i do get to experience a teaching style, i might remember a new way to put moves together, i get to see what the teacher was going for with the music. i don't bother writing it down but i think sometimes i'm surprised how i'll add in something a i learned during an improv. i also mostly improv and i think it helps to have gone to these choreography workshops.
i'm not making much sense. i need to finish eating my lunch.

hopefully the teacher is giving you technique along with the combos! as badriya says, it's great to see how they interpret the music. also I think it's good to 'try on' moves that aren't familiar or wouldn't come naturally to you - great way to expand your vocabulary.

I've rarely kept an entire choreography that I've learned in a workshop - too much to remember! and you do have to practice right away to really learn it and I don't usually have time. BUT I do enter a choreo workshop with the intent to bring home 2 or maybe 3 new combos from it that I can add to my vocabulary. you don't need to remember the whole dance to bring some good stuff home.

What I take from a choreography workshop is how that teacher interprets the music, new ideas for moves (as in a technique workshop, only now paired with a style of music), and sometimes whole combos. Ways of putting moves together into combos. For example, where someone might throw in a turn or direction change. How arms go with hip moves. Basically I analyze the choreography and use it for my own improvisation.

Originally Posted by gotraqs

I happen to be a person who prefers videos and seminars that focus on technique, drills, etc. What are the benefits, do you think, of taking a choreography-based workshop? I know I am not the best at remembering workshop choreo, unless I write it down, but there usually isn't time for writing it all down.

I think the great benefit of learning choreography, or at least combinations, from a master teacher is that it allows one to learn how that dancer pieces movements together to create a coherent interpretation of the music.

Also, when it comes to learning combos, is it one of those things where you have to dance it over and over again to get it into your muscle memory? Because I rarely pull out combos I have learned from other dancers while I am improving, and improv is mostly what I do. I would have to actually think about what I was going to do next to remember to throw a workshop combo in, and I don't like to think when I dance, because, well, then you look like you are thinking about what you will do next

Like learning any new skill, repetition of combos is key to getting them in one's head/body.

But regarding thinking and dancing...speaking for myself, I think it's important to be able to think AND feel while dancing. Being good at choreography can establish a foundation for being good at improvisation. When I was newer to bellydance, I improvised a lot, and looking back, I wish I had been more choreographed, because at that point I had NO clue about how to sequence movements and interpret music. I went through a long phase of working from choreography, and only recently have I gotten back to being more improvisational in my dancing. I feel my dancing is worlds better now, because choreography helped me train my brain and my body to operate together in interpreting the music, if that makes any sense.

Nisaa

I never memorize/perform a specific choreo, though I have taken combinations and put them into my own dance, sometimes just a little thing like a way of initiating a 3-step-turn with a litte hip thrust, for instance. Nothing elaborate, but little things I absorb. I also hope to absorb an instructor's way of hearing and moving to the music, some new steps for a particular rhythm, etc.

Honestly, I could learn all these things soooo much better if the instructors would focus on technique more and teach just bits of choreography that illustrate the technique/musical interpretation (maybe 32 counts or something).

There's nothing like flowing along through a Sharif choreo to get that Yousry/Nourhan feeling though. I think if I go to 7 or 8 more of their workshops, I might be able to sail through one. LOL!

Originally Posted by nisaasaintlouis

.... When I was newer to bellydance, I improvised a lot, and looking back, I wish I had been more choreographed, because at that point I had NO clue about how to sequence movements and interpret music. I went through a long phase of working from choreography, and only recently have I gotten back to being more improvisational in my dancing. I feel my dancing is worlds better now, because choreography helped me train my brain and my body to operate together in interpreting the music, if that makes any sense.

Nisaa

Wow, Nisaa, I could have written that post word for word. But I think I may be letting myself "off the leash" a litte too soon, I still need to roughly structure a little more.

I kind of dislike most choreography-based workshops that I've attended. The primary exception that comes to mind is Raqia Hassan - I'd happily go to one of HERS!!!

About the only times I find a choreography workshop valuable are when:

1) The workshop is teaching a style that's unfamiliar to me, and I would find the choreography a useful tool for retaining the technique that goes into that style

2) The choreography is intended to be a tool that the instructor then uses to layer another skill on top of. In other words, the class isn't about teaching you the choreo, the class is about using the choreo as a common set of steps that everyone "knows" so that the instructor can use it as a springboard to teach some other skill. So, I'd like it if an instructor created a simple choreo that I wouldn't have to think about it too much and then said, "I put this move here because the music is doing ___," or, "One technique that's good to use when creating your own choreo is ____, so I've put it here because ____," or, "Ok, now that you know these simple steps, let's add some stage presence skills to it. As you go through the steps, I want you to ____." If the class were taught with the choreo NOT being the primary goal, but instead some other skill is the primary goal and the purpose of the choreo is simply to be a tool for introducing/drilling that skill, then I'd be fine learning a choreo.

One BIG think I feel that I get from choreo workshops are Transitions. I really think people take their importance, and the skill involved in incorporating them into a routine, for granted. It's very easy to get stuck in a rut with how you segue from one move or body-stance into another, so I like to experience what others have come up with.

i hate choreography workshops. I can never remember them,even during the workshop and i don't like to recreate other peoples interpretation of the music. like wise other people combos are other peoples and aren't me. i like technique, steps and I can put things together myself that i like that fit the piece of music I'm working on. That way i can be me when i dance which i feel is important.I'm seen too many people be a copy of someone else and I don't feel it ever really comes off.Better be a first class you then a second rate copy of someone else.

Depends what you mean by "choreography based workshop" - if we are talking about a 3-4 minute choreography in a 90 minute workshop - I'm not even going to turn up. If there is plenty of time to repeat and repeat and some interesting transitions, style or combinations - I'll go. Why?

seeing new ways to put things together - "moves", arms, transitions
musical interpretation
a reason for drilling
a shorthand way of remembering a teacher's style (or a folkloric style)

What I don't like is when all of the above is watered down to present a "choreography". I much preferred Aida Nour's classes when she would dance to a piece then next time do something slightly different - or forget entirely what she did before and present a new interpretation. In this way I could learn a range of approaches.

The last intensive I went to, the choreographies were less inspiring - far too pat and formulaic. I used them though - to teach new technique to my students. ,r:;

i do appreciate when a teacher shows you several ways to do a choreography. Lotus Niraja did that at the last BOCA Fest. she has a way to do the choreography for the company, a way for a soloist, and a way for her to do it apart from how the back up dancers do it.
It was great to see and really changed the way I think about choreography.

The only time I really enjoy a choreography-based workshop is when someone is teaching HOW to choreograph. So few instructors teach musical phrasing or what to even listen for...let alone how to "map" out a song. I had one ballroom coach who was brilliant at breaking down music...and I applied almost everything I learned from her into my own bellydancing. Different genre, I know, but useful nonetheless. I'd like to see more instructors have a better understanding of the music we dance to.

are choreographies being taught because teachers think students want them?

From my point of view I struggle to remember choreographies, even the ones I've written..l;, & my brain starts to wander after about 1.40 anyways.
I recently took a 2 hour workshop twice just to get the routine straight in my head, it isn't exactly as taught but I don't want it to be, it needs room for my interpretation and the way I move.
I now don't worry about it too much because I think something else may be going on. I think of them as drills and a combo class. We are having technique drilled whether we notice it or not because we're repeating it over & over in a choreography.

Originally Posted by straightleftknee

are choreographies being taught because teachers think students want them?

Yep. Best intensive I ever attended was with Denise Enan in 1998 (Brisbane Winter Warmup). She shared a huge amount of knowledge about Egyptian folk over the 8 days (even distinguishing between different styles of, for example, bedouin); she danced a lot in her own beledi style with us following and presented a few short semi-choreographed pieces in different styles. For years myself and two other dancers nagged the organizer to get her back. But she was passed over year after year because several very vocal dancers had complained there wasn't enough choreography for them to take back and use. And I understand each year the feedback from the BWW was the same: choreography - good, more subtle stuff or cultural background - boring.

Fortunately we had better luck with Cassandra and she added Denise to Oasis in 2004. Denise won over so many dancers, Maria felt safe in bringing her back to Brisbane. And she was great - but, guess what, she shifted her teaching style to give more choreography - sad.

Originally Posted by straightleftknee

are choreographies being taught because teachers think students want them?

Yes. I know a well-known teacher who always INSISTS on teaching a choreography as her workshop topic even if that's not what the sponsor wants. Reason: she tried teaching some technique classes (which, by the way, she does an EXCELLENT job of teaching), and received complaints afterward that people were disappointed about not learning a choreography they could go off and perform.

I sometimes receive workshop inquiries in which people specifically ask me to teach a choreography. In fact, I have one of those workshops booked for early December. The sponsors want me to teach a choreography their troupe can then go off and perform.

Originally Posted by kashmir

And I understand each year the feedback from the BWW was the same: choreography - good, more subtle stuff or cultural background - boring.

that is so true. So many dancers are not interested in the information, they only want to perform in something sparkly. This is why sadly so many classes don't include any background information and students don't even know where the dances they are doing come from. it's so sad. I would prefer an advanced technique workshop with lots of information instead of a cute choreography that i will never perform anyway.

Originally Posted by rakgirl

that is so true. So many dancers are not interested in the information, they only want to perform in something sparkly. This is why sadly so many classes don't include any background information and students don't even know where the dances they are doing come from. it's so sad. I would prefer an advanced technique workshop with lots of information instead of a cute choreography that i will never perform anyway.

i feel the same way.
i sponsor workshops and I tried many times bringing people that would give a lot of cultural info. comments i got after would be : "she talked too much we didnt learn choreography" ... the talking was about ethnographical studies to help us undertsand the dance not just disorganized talking.
I tought it might be a language issue also since many are not fluent in english here, but now i gave up and schedule 1 day technique 1 day choreography when i have a guest teacher.

From choreography workshops i, like others have mentioned, get how another dancer interprets the music, and i come back home with many combos in my head.
I will also try combos that challenge me, i dont travel much on stage so i will try hard to remember all of the traveling combos learned in a choreography so i can integrate them in my improv later on.

i think only once i did use a choreography learned in a workshop for my students. i it modified a little for my students ( also because i couldnt remeber the whole thing). It was a chance for them to learn a different style of choreography from mine , I explained the it was from Jillina but i adapted some more difficult combos to their level. They loved it, the music wasnt something that inspired me so i couldnt have made a choreography in that style myself, they had a great time performing it at the show.
Jillina has a great way of teaching choreography , drilling the combos so in the end you get a lot out of the workshop even if you dont care about the choreography.

yeah so how can we get people together who want the cultural stuff? is there a real audience for this besides 3 people?

Originally Posted by rakgirl

yeah so how can we get people together who want the cultural stuff? is there a real audience for this besides 3 people?

Well, there is at least SOME audience - we got a terrific does of wonderful cultural stuff at April's Int'l Belly Dance Conference of Canada sponsored by Yasmina Ramzy.

Here in Iowa City, Maleeha and I both have a passion for the cultural stuff, so whenever we sponsor a workshop we try to incorporate some sort of cultural element to go with it. For example, this weekend we're having a workshop on The Essence of Flamenco featuring Mariano Parra from New York, so tomorrow night we're having a panel discussion on Spanish Dance Through the Centuries, which will feature Mariano himself, 2 Spanish professors, Maleeha (who has a master's of fine arts degree in dance), and me (rabble-rouser at large) as the panelists. Our focus will be to address the ties between the Roma (Gypsies), Arabic dance, and flamenco, but we'll talk about some other Spanish dance topics too. We'll show video clips of Romany dance from multiple locations (Rajasthan, Lebanon, etc.) and discuss what those clips illustrate.

Crap. And here's me, getting ready to teach my first *real* workshop this weekend and it's all technique, not a lick of choreography. ..l;,

Oh, well, hope they like it! I'll try not to bother them with any boring talking. ..l;,

what are the details of your workshop Lauren?

Originally Posted by rakgirl

yeah so how can we get people together who want the cultural stuff? is there a real audience for this besides 3 people?

Count me in that group too! I think there is an audience for this, just perhaps not a large of one as for a "BDSS"-type of workshop. At least I hope so!! I am hosting (hostessing?) my first workshop next year and it is definitely of the cultural variety!

Originally Posted by rakgirl

yeah so how can we get people together who want the cultural stuff? is there a real audience for this besides 3 people?

True the audience is limited - but does exist. More to the point, real dancers need it to fully express the dance (we aren't talking newbies here - I assure you, dancing 9-5 for a week doesn't draw many inexperienced dancers!). As an example, a friend whose style was very much orientale used some of the Bedouin information we learnt in her oriental interpretation of the Badawist on Amany's CD. Okay, so I may have bee one of the few who picked up the reference - but it made her performance richer.

Originally Posted by rakgirl

what are the details of your workshop Lauren?

I'm teaching pure technique with a strong emphasis on shimmying. A variety of shimmies (piston, Egyptian, pelvic, Earthquake, etc), texturing shimmies to match the music (esp. drum solos) and layering. Also adding variety/musicality to different movements and traveling steps. Then a brief segment on silk veil moves.

I'm really looking forward to it, and I think the workshop participants will appreciate what I'm doing. Hopefully they won't be sorry I'm not teaching a choreo!

I think the most important thing you come away with in a choreo-based workshop is the deep appreciation of the song. After a few hours working on a master instructor's choreography, you can take the song and improv to it because it's been broken down by someone else's brain and re-applyed to your body. To quote carolynn, choreography is not how you dance the music, it's how you learn the music!

Other things that come from choreography workshops are combinations, new moves, teacher 'essence'. Ahhhh. :)

I like the cultural stuff. I've known of two workshops where there was a lot of cultural info and people did complain about talking, not dancing. But at one of them, Yasmina Ramzy's - she would demonstrate the folkloric genre, and then we would get up and dance along to "feel" it. I think people want to move in a workshop but that doesn't mean you can't both move *and* listen. I wouldn't mind just sitting down & listening especially at the end of 2 days of 4 hour workshops or something.

The BD conference is a great event for that reason you can get tons of info from the presentations and discussions going on everyday on the second floor. although i have to confess i couldnt seem to get out of that dance room at the last confrence, all the teachers were so great i just took all the dance classes and missed all the lectures
will attend some lectures in 2008 conference.

Originally Posted by *Shira*

Well, there is at least SOME audience - we got a terrific does of wonderful cultural stuff at April's Int'l Belly Dance Conference of Canada sponsored by Yasmina Ramzy.

Here in Iowa City, Maleeha and I both have a passion for the cultural stuff, so whenever we sponsor a workshop we try to incorporate some sort of cultural element to go with it. For example, this weekend we're having a workshop on The Essence of Flamenco featuring Mariano Parra from New York, so tomorrow night we're having a panel discussion on Spanish Dance Through the Centuries, which will feature Mariano himself, 2 Spanish professors, Maleeha (who has a master's of fine arts degree in dance), and me (rabble-rouser at large) as the panelists. Our focus will be to address the ties between the Roma (Gypsies), Arabic dance, and flamenco, but we'll talk about some other Spanish dance topics too. We'll show video clips of Romany dance from multiple locations (Rajasthan, Lebanon, etc.) and discuss what those clips illustrate.