Thread: folk, tribal, ats, fusion, gothic....can someone help define pleaseeeeeeeeeeee

(cont'd)

Gothic Bellydance aside - when would we say Tribal Fusion really came into being? ATS comes out of the 1990's, especially with the release of the FCBD VHS tapes, from 1992-1998, and Tribal Fest started in 2000. I remember seeing Rachel Brice perform a solo at Summer Caravan in July 2002 before BDSS, before the Indigo, before there was even the SF Dance Company. At this timeframe, we're looking at Urban Tribal (with Mardi Love costuming and Melodia, as they were both part of that group, and that's where RB got her costuming from), Ultra Gypsy pushing boundaries at the same time they were working with Melia de Felice and Tunisian Dance, and Frederique with her troupe Romani (around 2001) that became BellyGroove later on. I was at Tribal Fest 2 (2002), the first Tribal Cafe (I want to say 2003), and other events, and I don't think we really see what we know now as Tribal Fusion until much later. Instead you had Sharon Moore's Tribal InFusion (which Sharon can talk about herself), which I think was a clear sign of carefully considered fusion from ATS. ATS with other elements brought in, that was early Tribal/Tribal Fusion. But I think most of those folks would agree, that was MUCH different then what we see now, post BDSS/Indigo.

Originally Posted by rosehips

(cont'd)

Gothic Bellydance aside - when would we say Tribal Fusion really came into being? ATS comes out of the 1990's, especially with the release of the FCBD VHS tapes, from 1992-1998, and Tribal Fest started in 2000. I remember seeing Rachel Brice perform a solo at Summer Caravan in July 2002 before BDSS, before the Indigo, before there was even the SF Dance Company. At this timeframe, we're looking at Urban Tribal (with Mardi Love costuming and Melodia, as they were both part of that group, and that's where RB got her costuming from), Ultra Gypsy pushing boundaries at the same time they were working with Melia de Felice and Tunisian Dance, and Frederique with her troupe Romani (around 2001) that became BellyGroove later on. I was at Tribal Fest 2 (2002), the first Tribal Cafe (I want to say 2003), and other events, and I don't think we really see what we know now as Tribal Fusion until much later. Instead you had Sharon Moore's Tribal InFusion (which Sharon can talk about herself), which I think was a clear sign of carefully considered fusion from ATS. ATS with other elements brought in, that was early Tribal/Tribal Fusion. But I think most of those folks would agree, that was MUCH different then what we see now, post BDSS/Indigo.

You have got to be kidding me. This is obviously written by someone looking back on a history construct instead of being in it. As a member of Ultra Gypsy 2000-2003 and who danced at all these things you are talking about, most certainly a lot of the styling and music had started to evolve around this time. Gothic club music? done in 2000 maybe before. Robots farting sound design pieces with pseudo bondage? done 2000 at Desert Dance festival. Crazy "goth" styling acting out a story? Done in 2002 at Fire Arts Festival and later. And that is just UG, I'm not reciting what Fred, Heather Stants, and others were doing. The phenomena that is very different that took off with the Indigo is the Balkin craze, which actually came out the Balkin music that Zoe and Mira would dance to in Aywah! (they were dancing to this in the late 90's. And actually members of the house band for Ultra Gypsy's restaurant gig night later became brass menazeri, so UG was dancing to that stuff too in 2001 or so. No I don't agree that it is MUCH different, myabe just more dissemenated and now has a shiney new label.

Originally Posted by rosehips

(cont'd)

I was at Tribal Fest 2 (2002), the first Tribal Cafe (I want to say 2003), and other events, and I don't think we really see what we know now as Tribal Fusion until much later. Instead you had Sharon Moore's Tribal InFusion (which Sharon can talk about herself), which I think was a clear sign of carefully considered fusion from ATS.

Actually that's Sharon Moore *and* Renee Drellishak's inFusion Tribal Bellydance. (which was then Raqs al Hamra and included two other lovely ladies, but I digress.) And yes, we were very definitely blending Gypsy Caravan-format tribal with American cabaret, doing improv to Gypsy Caravan and Solace songs, and full-on choreographies to Amr Diab! We thought "tribal fusion" captured that idea, but it was later applied to Rachel Brice's style as it looked in the early aughts and now that's what people imagine when you say "tribal fusion". We still do choreographies from time to time, though we primarily focus on group improv, and for quite a while there we were doing a lot of bhangra-inspired improv, but I wouldn't call us "Indian fusion". At this point I suppose we fall into the larger ITS umbrella.

Originally Posted by jetgirl

You have got to be kidding me. This is obviously written by someone looking back on a history construct instead of being in it. As a member of Ultra Gypsy 2000-2003 and who danced at all these things you are talking about, most certainly a lot of the styling and music had started to evolve around this time. Gothic club music? done in 2000 maybe before. Robots farting sound design pieces with pseudo bondage? done 2000 at Desert Dance festival. Crazy "goth" styling acting out a story? Done in 2002 at Fire Arts Festival and later. And that is just UG, I'm not reciting what Fred, Heather Stants, and others were doing. The phenomena that is very different that took off with the Indigo is the Balkin craze, which actually came out the Balkin music that Zoe and Mira would dance to in Aywah! (they were dancing to this in the late 90's. And actually members of the house band for Ultra Gypsy's restaurant gig night later became brass menazeri, so UG was dancing to that stuff too in 2001 or so. No I don't agree that it is MUCH different, myabe just more dissemenated and now has a shiney new label.

Sorry again, I'm not kidding you, but thanks for the respect. I was there too, living in the Bay Area. I was attending, viewing, and participating in these events as well. Frankly, I don't see anything you wrote that conflicts with what I wrote, we're talking about the same thing. The time frame is correct, and we're looking at the roots of change, but it wasn't until around TF5 that you really started to see the change going from a few innovators in a land of ATS, to a lot of Tribal Fusion and some ATS. (Which was also the year of the first GBD workshop at TF). Was it (Tribal Fusion) a genre in 2000? No, it was developing. Is it a genre now? Could be. Is it organized? Frak no.

BTW, Ultra Gypsy is documented in the GBD Resource - exactly what you cited here: Envizion: Images & Beyond - one of the first images collected and given to the Resource. There's also images of Urban Tribal that Heather submitted to me, and a picture of Haruspicy, which if you remember, was Amy Sigil and Shawna Rei before Unmata existed.

Originally Posted by Rya_of_Indiana

Oh noes! Okay, while I agree that a lot of people tend to dress in black and then do the same shtick they would do in any other costume, I have to disagree on Gothic Belly Dance as a whole.
When I first started getting into, I must confess that in a different costume and with different music, you wouldn't have been able to tell that it was a gothic performance. Since then, I've worked my ass off (as have other GBD's) to define their own style. Which, I must add, definately includes dancing.

Exhibit A:

Exhibit B:

You know, I watched the first video with the sound turned off, and I really didn't see anything there that I would say was somehow unique to gothic bellydance, aside from one pose with the hands by the face that looked kind of Indian. [Or perhaps that was supposed to be the "before" example?]

As for the second, while Asharah dances a tribal fusion style, aside from her choice of industrial music, I wouldn't call what she does particularly gothic, and the last time I spoke with her about this (last August) she didn't either, in fact she was a little baffled by why people call her a gothic bellydancer. I think there's a notion that if you are expressing anger or aggression in your dance that = gothic, but I don't think that's necessarily true.

Originally Posted by ReneeD

Actually that's Sharon Moore *and* Renee Drellishak's inFusion Tribal Bellydance. (which was then Raqs al Hamra and included two other lovely ladies, but I digress.) And yes, we were very definitely blending Gypsy Caravan-format tribal with American cabaret, doing improv to Gypsy Caravan and Solace songs, and full-on choreographies to Amr Diab! We thought "tribal fusion" captured that idea, but it was later applied to Rachel Brice's style as it looked in the early aughts and now that's what people imagine when you say "tribal fusion". We still do choreographies from time to time, though we primarily focus on group improv, and for quite a while there we were doing a lot of bhangra-inspired improv, but I wouldn't call us "Indian fusion". At this point I suppose we fall into the larger ITS umbrella.

Mea culpa Renee, and thank you for providing the info!

Originally Posted by ReneeD

You know, I watched the first video with the sound turned off, and I really didn't see anything there that I would say was somehow unique to gothic bellydance, aside from one pose with the hands by the face that looked kind of Indian. [Or perhaps that was supposed to be the "before" example?]

As for the second, while Asharah dances a tribal fusion style, aside from her choice of industrial music, I wouldn't call what she does particularly gothic, and the last time I spoke with her about this (last August) she didn't either, in fact she was a little baffled by why people call her a gothic bellydancer. I think there's a notion that if you are expressing anger or aggression in your dance that = gothic, but I don't think that's necessarily true.

Let me see if I can explain this the way it is in my head. lol And I mean that with no added sarcasm.
The way I see gothic belly dance as being it's own dance form is taking from this and that style genre and fusing it with Gothic attitude, subtilties of gothic dance and sub-culture. While in general, it shares many attributes with different styles ie Tribal Fusion, I think the small things such as hand movement and even placement along with attitude of course take it from being Tribal Fusion to Gothic. Although, that is obviously my opinion. And if Asharah disagrees, it was her performance afterall. Who am I to tell her what she's dancing? ..g.:

As for Taletha's video, definately not a before. I would give you a point by point, but that would just take too long. ..l;, Basically, I think it shares many elements with different genres of belly dance but isn't quite any of them. If not Gothic, it would be just a Fusion dance. As it's not quite cabaret, and it's definately not Tribal. Following that train of thought, if Gothic is not it's own dance style and is just Fusion, would that also apply to Tribal Fusion or any Cabaret Fusions? In each, they are clearly using Tribal or Cabaret as their inspiration. All they've done is tweaked it little. One could even say that all Rachel Brice performs is drum solos slowed waaay down. Most of her moves, after all, are traditionally Cabaret. They're just tweaked a little.

As with all things, we'll each have our own opinions. And in the long run, it really doesn't matter what we call each style as it's all dance. We do it for the love of it and not the labels.

Hi ladies... Asharah here. (not Ashara or Ashtara or Asherah).

In regards to my not considering myself a "gothic" bellydancer. I don't dance to music that is typically played in goth clubs. I mostly dance to various forms of underground electronica - experimental, dark ambient, IDM, glitch, breakcore, noisecore, experimental dub, and dubstep, just to name a few genres. There is some crossover in club scenes between the goth clubs and the underground electronica clubs, but I consider them to be different. I could be wrong in that regard, but when I and Maduro went to a noise festival in Germany last October, it wasn't like the goth clubs here in the US. Sure, there were a lot of people in black with crazy hair and tattoos... but wearing black and having dreadlocks doesn't make one goth.

I also just don't want people to pigeon-hole me into the gothic genre, or expect me to only dance to dark music and wear "gothic" costuming. My Tribal Fest 8 performance was not to gothic music - that was breakcore and grindcore. Maybe part of the misunderstanding of what I do is that people don't know what kind of music I'm dancing to, and they automatically attribute it to being "gothic" because they don't know any better.

I am much more versatile than people seem to think I am, but I keep getting labeled as gothic, which I'm not even sure I am. I am a tribal fusion dancer, maybe, and if not that than just belly dance fusion. I try VERY freaking hard to be a BELLY DANCER first.

oops!

Originally Posted by kiaroskuro

Hi ladies... Asharah here. (not Ashara or Ashtara or Asherah).

I am much more versatile than people seem to think I am, but I keep getting labeled as gothic, which I'm not even sure I am. I am a tribal fusion dancer, maybe, and if not that than just belly dance fusion. I try VERY freaking hard to be a BELLY DANCER first.

Hey Asharah! Thanks for chiming in. I didn't want to put words in your mouth but was definitely remembering the conversation we had about that at the Level III.

I was thinking more about this over the weekend and thought that if the music you dance to defines your style of dance, then would the fact that you are teaching a workshop about and have danced to prog rock make you a "progressive bellydancer?" And then I thought that would actually define you quite well! ..g.: (Not that I would dream of trying to define you...)

Renee - well, my car license plates do say "PROG RQS". (get it... prog rock... prog raqs... uh... bad pun!) LOL! I love the term "progressive bellydance", actually.... :)

Chiming in a little late, but this thread has locked my interest. I think that there is a huge misunderstanding of the word gothic and perhaps there always will be, it is mostly underground afterall (unless the Twilight franchise is bringing back the vampire fad which may bring them back to the gothside, mwahaha). Not everybody wants to shock you, it's just the ones that do that get the most attention.

I'm in the begininning stages of (hopefully) starting up a gothic oriental bellydance troupe. Yup, I said it, ::ducks:: Most of the music that is inspiring me at the moment is probably not what you would expect from the goth genre (if you are not familiar with it). Most of it is not even angry, not that there is anything wrong with anger, there is definitely music for that, but the music I've personally been drawn to lately is very deep and introspective. Some of it is even happy, sometimes with, and sometimes without that little twist of mischief. Hehe.

I feel like the goth cuture has always had more of an open mind and thus able to try new things without fear of being kicked off the popular bus. There is a bunch of goth music that has Middle Eastern and world music influence. I could not perform sequined oriental with this music, and it wouldn't work for tribal either, but it neeeeds to be danced to, it told me so.

So long story short, I'm going to use the G-word though it may pidgeonhole me. I'm already thinking about the nightmare I'm going to face if I get the troupe on their feet and ready to perform. It's hard enough to get gigs here in the South as a bellydancer, add the word gothic to it, and well... I'm not going to say it's doomed... it's the journey that I look forward to anyway.

Beautifully said, Sidonia!

Originally Posted by Rya_of_Indiana

The way I see gothic belly dance as being it's own dance form is taking from this and that style genre and fusing it with Gothic attitude, subtilties of gothic dance and sub-culture. While in general, it shares many attributes with different styles ie Tribal Fusion, I think the small things such as hand movement and even placement along with attitude of course take it from being Tribal Fusion to Gothic.

You just described Gothic Fusion. Not Gothic Bellydance as its own separate, distinct genre of dance movement and technique.

I, too, watched both referenced videos with the sound off; and not taking the costume into consideration, the first looked like cabaret with a few little bits and bobs of fusion elements. For instance, the high kick near the beginning was very jazzy, but doesn't make it "jazz fusion" to have included that one element.

The second one looked like what is commonly known as "tribal fusion" these days. I didn't see much of anything I don't see other dancers do under that umbrella just to different music and in different costumes.

I have to be honest and say that I have never yet seen a gothic bellydance performance that wasn't just a moody, black/chains/lace-costumed bellydance fusion performance done to music you would hear at the clubs. A lot of what I see termed gothic, rightly or wrongly, is some "I'm gonna kill you"-glaring RB-ish styled fusion dancer dancing to some industrial/gothic music. But even the more textured and developed "gothic" performances, to me, were simply a fusion of gothic costume and music with regular bellydance.

I frequented many gothic and industrial clubs in my day; and like Asharah, I can report that usually the same club played both either on different nights or had blended nights, so there was lots of overlap in the crowds which attended and enjoyed the music and mood/atmosphere created by that culture. I never was a "career goth" or otherwise, but I at least passingly know what I am looking at and hearing when it comes to dance and music of these genres, and I just can't say I see it as its own separate bellydance style. A fusion, an overlay, a flavor, a theme, a blending, an inspiration, an element, even a passionate creative expression surely; but not its own style, whole and complete.

Does that mean that workshops in the topic are of no use? Of course not! Clearly there is a lot of interest out there in connecting with someone who appreciates both bellydance and gothic aesthetics and stylings and wants to understand better how to blend them. And any workshop which delivers that would be money well spent to someone seeking that inspiration. But as it's own genre, as if it were its own separate movement vocabulary or technique, I would not really understand. I wonder what watching a workshop with the sound off would reveal...similar to what a performance does, I expect.

Originally Posted by kiaroskuro

Hi ladies... Asharah here. (not Ashara or Ashtara or Asherah).

I am much more versatile than people seem to think I am, but I keep getting labeled as gothic, which I'm not even sure I am. I am a tribal fusion dancer, maybe, and if not that than just belly dance fusion. I try VERY freaking hard to be a BELLY DANCER first.

I wrote your name wrong, sorry! All due to fast typing. I even have your video, which I like very much BTW. And is your avatar a play on chiaroscuro? Anyway, thought I'd point my thread out http://www.bhuz.com/forum/rest-belly...tml#post395240

Originally Posted by kiaroskuro

I am much more versatile than people seem to think I am, but I keep getting labeled as gothic, which I'm not even sure I am. I am a tribal fusion dancer, maybe, and if not that than just belly dance fusion. I try VERY freaking hard to be a BELLY DANCER first.

Trust me, I meant no disrespect in labeling that performance Gothic. But I did think it was one of the best videos in showing a performance that was brilliant technically and powerful to watch. One that was not quite Tribal Fusion and definately not Cabaret. It was not my intention to label you as a "one trick pony" as I'm a big fan of your dancing. ..g.:

Originally Posted by Lauren_

A) Usually referred to as Tribal Fusion

B) ATS or moving toward being called ITS, but right now those terms are interchangeable (there's a huge thread on the subject, started by Shira, probably in the styles board)

Just an aside, and this might have been mentioned before; but in my understanding ATS and ITS are NOT interchangeable.

From what I understand, ATS is only applied to FCBD movement vocabulary, kind of like a copyright; and you have to be either certified or study with a teacher certified in FCBD ATS to call yourself ATS (American Tribal Style), this left people that still wanted to do group improv stuff, but did not want to follow that specific style, and wanted to create their own combinations and performance style, with the name ITS (Improvisational Tribal Style). When we teach our classes, we bill them as ITS, since we are not certified in, or teach in the Fat Chance Belly Dance format.

Again, this is from my understanding. (Used the words "style" and "understanding" a whole lot!)