Thread: What's your gig set for different crowds?

There's lots of individual threads on what music/set to use for different crowds, but I thought it'd be handy to list the standard sets we use for different occasions. So what do you do differently for weddings, 21st birthdays, 'Western' vs other audiences, restaurant vs party, etc? I'll get the ball ( or bead) rolling...

Wedding - 20 mins
1. Modern Egyptian style entrance like 'Saher El Sharq Etneen' with veil to start
2. A prop - maybe a saidi cane dance, or sword for a non M-E audience
3. Short taxim
4. Drum solo
5. Short Finale
6. Modern M.E. pop to get people up dancing/go round tables

21st birthday party - 15 mins
1. Techno opening - something like the techno 'Alf Layla Wa Layla'; usually with flashy veil to start
2. Sword - so effective for getting overly-enthusiastic young men to step back!
3. Drum solo

Old folks home - 2 x 10 mins
Set 1: Egyptian opening with veil to start, possibly ending with a short drum solo; cabaret costume
Set 2: 'Folk' set wearing stripey gelabaya: 'Tahtil Shibbak' followed by cane dance

wow, what a thread to come across, 1 hour & 45 minutes before I'm set to do go do an hawaiian lua in a retirement home. i'm sitting here in a grass skirt ready to leave in 30 minutes. i'll post both my sets for an upcoming (part) bellydancing performance and also today's performance:

Hawaiian Luau (today):

1.) Opening: Waikiki Beach (The Chipz).....dance with uli ulis from Honolulu
2.) Lovely Hula Hands: give out leis to the crowd
3.) Blue Hawaii (Elvis Presley)
4.) Pua I'liahu (short narrative on meaning of song and lyrics followed by the dance)
5.) Hawaiian War Chant by the Venturas...Sword dance
6.) Pearly Shells (Connie Francis) Shell dance
7.) Audience Participation time - "Tiny Bubbles" "Little Grass Hut" & "Hukilau Song" (demos etc.)
8.) Birthday Tributes: "Birthday Song" by Sesame Street
9.) Closing: "Prayer Dance" (Celine Dion & Andrea Bocelli)

It's for a retirement home, and I'm doing the program el solo.

Program for an out-of-town solo gig coming up: 45 minutes - part hawaiian luau, then costume change to bellydancing. Gig includes much of the above, bellydancing program as follows:

1.) Opening: "Tales of the Sahara" veil dance and play zills halfway thru, which the audience never really sees until the veil is dropped
2.) "Ojas Asi" (Shakira) Sword dance
3.) "I Put A Spell On You" ... veil dance
4.) "Serenity" (Godsmack) includes a short opening with the castanets for the beat...and also the closing
5.) "Egyptian Nile Music"....some pharonic etc.
6.) Zill Solo - no music.

time to go...
showtime.

Crystallia,

Your Hawaiian set sounds intersting - how long does that usually go for? I'm often asked by old aged care homes to perform for an hour, and they get insensed when I suggest 20 mins is more appropriate for bellydance. They don't want to wheel all those chairs and beds out for just 20 mins! I've thought about talking about bellydance, but it's hard to do after you've just exhausted yourself with a spectacular opening set. I like your ideas about audience participation. Can you explain more? Maybe I could get the old ducks doing some lovely arm-work.

My standard 20 minute set:

1- Entrance of the Stars - Wings, then ditch the wings and use my zills (my zills stay on the entire set)
2- Te Mavra Matia Su (greek song) - veil
3- Random 7 minute song from Amira Mor cd - audience participation
4 - Aahat (sp? from BDSS cd) - sword
5 - Rakiya's tabla - drum solo
6 - Some pop song (ie: Habibi Ya Albi, El Kalam Ala Meen, etc) - get the crowd up to dance and exit.

If I'm doing a 30 minute set, I add Jemileh (slow improv, not quite taksim but similar) after #3, and then another pop song or cane after that.

For nursing homes, I do a 40 minute set, so I'll do the same for the 30 minute, but do another pop AND cane (instead of either/or). And I usually add a song where I go out and give them bead necklaces to keep. They love that, I just need to make sure I have enough or they get angry!

I don't change the format of my shows for different crowds, just the songs (ie: if it's an arabic group, I'll swap out my Greek veil song for something more appropriate, if it's an Indian party, I'll use an Indian pop song at the end, etc). For an American audience, they get the standard set.

Keeping in mind that nearly all of my gigs are for the GP:

BellyGram - Approx. 10 minutes
1. Upbeat entrance song like Entrance of the Stars, Harem, Habibi Ya Eini cover, etc. I enter with veil but discard quickly.

2. If it's a birthday party, I use an Arabic pop version of the Happy Birthday song. If not, I use plain old Arabic pop like Hakim, Saad, Nancy Arjam, etc. Most of this song is spent getting the GOH or other guests up to dance.

Full Set - approx. 20-25 minutes
1. Modern Egyptian Orchestral piece with veil entrance (Saher el Sharq Etneen, Taxim Baladi, some of Amir's stuff from Millenium or Songs of Glory)

2. Prop dance - the client gets to pick veil, sword or cane. For veil I also use Jameliah a lot, for sword Nagim El Kanooun by Cairo Orchestra, and for cane Hoss Hoss from Leyali El Sharq

3. Traditional ME song, either Egyptian (Taht Il Shibaak), Turkish (Geceler) or Lebanese (traditional version of Habbi Ya Eini)

4. Drum solo

5. Pop song for audience participation (similar to 2nd BellyGram song)

6. Very short exit piece (under 1 minute) to take a bow and leave the room

I'd love to elaborate jewelbellydance, because the performance I did a few days ago, went great! I'm doing a 45 minute show in London July 3 for a retirement home and will be opening with 20 minutes of bellydancing then I change into a grass skirt, come back and turn it into an Hawaiian Luau, another 25 minutes or so. Usually my luaus go 45 minutes, with 3 songs of audience or "staff" participation like tiny bubbles, little grass hut, hukilau song. If you can get even one soul up on the floor, others will follow. Last show, I got one young staff member up, gave her a grass skirt, showed her a few quick moves, then let her dance to tiny bubbles, grass hut and hukliau while I went to the back of the room and watched - the spotlight was on her and the audience liked that. Hey, I figure, if you can get someone else to dance for you....something must be going right.

At the London event, I'll bring a limbo bar and do an audience participation to Limbo Rock. I'll let that song run a few times, then go into a Happy Birthday Song by Sesame, for the recreational director, it's his birthday. In that particular song, there's what sounds like split bamboo stick playing, so it'll fit right in with the luau theme. I've got some of those bamboo sticks to play with, lol. As for getting winded and not crashing inbetween routines, I take a few sips of gatorade and a couple deep breaths after every song, then move along. Gatorade has electrolytes in it, much better than drinking water. It's a dancer's fuel. Luckily, I seem to be able to zip thru any program, I just do the audience participation thing, talk to them, move around the room, do some one on one's, pace myself that way. The luau set includes an Hawaiian Sword Dance to a fast moving beat. But last performance a few days ago, I dunno whether it was mind over matter, but I'm usually exhausted after the Hawaiian War Chant Sword Dance - it's not your regular bellydancing sword either, it's got a 26 inch non-curved blade and the moves are physically demanding. But for some reason after this last performance I found a way internally thru breathing and also in my mind to slow down even the fastest movements. I know that doesn't make sense, I can't explain it properly, but the mind over matter combination really works. Now the fast dances don't intimidate me - I'm not up there thinking, "geez, what am I going to feel like after this is done? Good thing I'm in a retirement home, cuz if they have to wheel me out, this is the best place to be!" Now when the fast stuff is done, I'm still going and going and going.... geez eh? Is something wrong with me or what?? It's usually later that night, that I feel the exhaustion of the day's events - a sort of delayed reaction like a plane that's running out of fuel and coming in for a landing but the pilot has to circle the airport a few times 'til they can find a place for him to park his engines. Crash, on the bed. Flop. Out. zzzzzzzzz

Originally Posted by jewelbellydance

I'm often asked by old aged care homes to perform for an hour, and they get insensed when I suggest 20 mins is more appropriate for bellydance. They don't want to wheel all those chairs and beds out for just 20 mins!

I just did my first retirement home today. The lady that runs the place is Egyptian, and she had a film go for about 30 minutes before I danced a 25 min set. Then they had mezza and continued the film (on Tut, pyramids, Egyptian artifacts, etc) so the folks could filter out when they were ready.

Burned two sets before leaving the house; the set I used was

1. first 10 minutes of Tahia's song/Casino
2. Beledi Alwad
3. Saidi cocktail (first time freestylin' with a cane, 7 minutes whoohoo!!)
4. drum solo
5. Tuta :)

Which is much longer than the usual song or song-and-drum I usually do for restaurants & showcases.

Crystallia, how fun!! Thanks for sharing...you've got some serious stamina, woman!

Christallia,

Thanks for the elaborating. I guess I find it hard to step out of the 'bellydancer as glamorous otherworldly performer' thing and start talking and interacting with people in a more workshoppy way. I will put some more thought into how to do this, though, because the aged care facilities seem to be wanting it.

And maybe I should bring out my inner diva - I just think, who the hell wants to see me dance for longer than 20 mins? Won't they get bored???

Loved this thread - ended up using one of the recommendations (Naghm Al Kanoun) for the sword segment of my show - perfect length!

This is what I did for a bellygram for non-middle-easterners(not Americans either, however)
1.) open with the first 4 minutes of "The Soul of Cairo" with veil.
2.) Naghm Al Kanoun for sword.
3.) El Enab as a party song (after all, they don't know how naughty it is and it's one of the catchiest songs out there)
4.) The drum solo on the wings of Isis bellydance party cd (2:23 min)
5.) Happy Birthday by Walid Toufic - during which I got people to sing happy birthday! I also sang to the music since you could barely hear it. Then I realized that most people would rather pay me _not_ to sing. Oh well!

I am considering taking singing lessons (a friend of mine teaches them), as I often end up singing to the music when I dance. and once the music cut out while I was doing so so there I was singing El Hantour acapella.