Thread: Spinoff: To dance or not to dance, that's the question

Me neither..and thats after a $75 investment..but hey..fair's fair... I was warned.

Honest to God, this is why I dont listen to any type of music other than my dance music anymore. Just for the sheer pleasure of it. I havent for the last 8 years. I have totally lost touch with my own culture's music. I must say..I dont really miss it. A Cold Play concert 6 years ago could very well be my last Western musical memory.

I played improv blues harp (harmonica) with a pretty good blues band for a few years. I feel I am as musical as the next guy. To me this dance is -as Nasila says -all about the music. If you are not willing to put in your time studying...and listening to...the music (just cause you love it) then what are you doing here???

Originally Posted by anala

If you are not willing to put in your time studying...and listening to...the music (just cause you love it) then what are you doing here???

Amen.

Regarding the terms 'classic' or 'traditional' (or, from another thread, 'old school') to mean 'not tribal:'

The objection to that is that those terms imply something older, vs. something new and growing. As if there USED to be this Middle Eastern Bellydance form, and now there is this newer version.

But Middle Eastern bellydance is evolving right now, today. New Oriental pieces are being composed and recorded. Dancers like Randa and Orit are innovating and stretching the boundaries of the form. As I write this, a dancer in Cairo is creating a new step, movement, or combination to surprise and delight her audience at her next show.

We don't normally use terms like 'classic' or 'old school' or 'traditional' to refer to living, breathing, growing art forms that are occurring in the present moment.

I realize there's a vacuum where the word 'cabaret' used to be, and people don't know how to quickly make reference to the non-tribal community, including Raks Sharki, Turkish Oryental, Lebanese, and American Cabaret (or whatever).

But Traditional or Classic or Old School create a very, very wrong impression. We need something else. (when this came up on another thread, someone suggested 'bellydance' which made me laugh at the time, but I'm starting to agree. I like the argument that when modern dance grew out of ballet, they didn't call it 'ballet' and insist that the 'traditional' version find a new name for itself.)

To be fair, I did say I really only use that (traditional = folk and sparkly - I'd use classic the same way too) in my head - I fully understand that they are living breathing dances!..l;,

I completely agree about hearing music differently.

Re: the storytelling - I agree that um...non-folkloric? bellydance (of both sparkly and earthy) tends to not have a narrative. And that the urge to tell a story may be creeping in in some places. Maybe I'm not sure what I disagreed with (can I be on the wishy-washy bus?) anymore!

I think the term tribal is undergoing a similar identity crisis as the term bellydance, and since I consider tribal (and the variations) more of a subset of bellydance overall, this could be interesting.

I may have to bring flashcards next time I go to a workshop, heh. ..l;,

I can understand how not only Middle Easterners can hear the music differently. I find that even us Westerners hear it differently. Case in point.

A friend and I were choreography a song together for a duet. She would suggest a movement to an accent or sub set of the melody. I would look at her strangely and perplexed cause I did not hear how it fit with the song. It took about five minutes of intense listening with her guidance for me to Identify what she was hearing. Then I got it, When I told her what I heard in that piece of music it took about five minutes of intense listening by her with my guidance for her to recognize what I was hearing.

I wish we could have continued working together. She was the opposite of me and I her. I thought it was a good fit, but life's circumstance got in the way.....,f::

What I've started telling my students is "Listen to the music on as many different players as you can, in as many different settings as you can. Because that too makes a difference in what you hear.

I hear different things in the music when I listen to it on my ipod than when I hear it in the car. I find this utterly fascinating.