Thread: Complexity and Complicated-ness: needed?

I was browsing through old Tribe posts over the weekend and found a few threads that had a similar complaint: bellydancers today are lacking in complexity.

(Admittedly these were MOSTLY Tribal and fusion dancers, and maybe there are different rules, but I wondered about the comments.)

Comments like:

• Nobody layers anything anymore. It's all simple hips.
• Why walk when you can shimmy walk? That's just being lazy.
• This is a really complicated choreography. Don't say you don't like it until you know how complicated it is to perform.

So I haz a few questions:

1. In your mind, what is "complexity" for our dance?
2. Do we have enough of it, too much of it, or not enough of it? (in general)
3. Is the trend moving towards more or less complexity, or do you not see it moving at all?
4. Yousry Sharif, Suhaila, Karen Barbee, Randa -- these names have been mentioned in threads on complicated dancing. In your mind, do they exhibit the same KIND of complexity, or are they representing different schools of thought?

I'm interested in comments on "complexity" or complicated-ness in our dance, so feel free to add them, even if you don't answer the specific questions.

Hmm... I would disagree with the idea that belly dance needs to be "complex." I do think the dance needs to be "rich."

Why walk when you could shimmy walk? Because sometimes a regal walk can better capture the emotion of the moment and the music. It's all hips? Well, that really is the root, the foundation of this dance, isn't it? Don't say you don't like it until you know how complicated it is to perform? Uhh...the performance is for your audience; it doesn't matter how difficult it was for you to learn it if the audience doesn't enjoy it.

I think this dance, at its heart, is simple. That doesn't mean it isn't rich in expression or difficult to learn. But to me, the best dancers wow not with the complicated moves they perform but with the nuances and emotion they bring to the simple ones.

I agree with Genevieve, but we disagree on words a bit- I link richness & complexity in my brain, but I know 'complex' has baggage! I don't like seeing a dance become overworked, but you can have a very laid back, relaxed style while still offering a lot of complexity. watching a really 'with it' dancer listen to the music, pour out emotion, prepare and do a single hip drop can be enthralling- the complexity is in the delivery, in coordinating with the music to perfection, in the poise & pure gall it takes to do that. on the other end of the spectrum is the dancer who never stops shimmying, dances too fast, throws in trick after trick & doesn't listen to the music. I think most should fall somewhere in between- I like layering & tricks, but not at the *expense* of musicality- I think musicality and heart are undervalued & really can't be faked. I also think that there will always be those whose personal preferences are not for the style that *I* appreciate, which is more laid back.

Originally Posted by Lara L

I watching a really 'with it' dancer listen to the music, pour out emotion, prepare and do a single hip drop can be enthralling- the complexity is in the delivery, in coordinating with the music to perfection, in the poise & pure gall it takes to do that. on the other end of the spectrum is the dancer who never stops shimmying, dances too fast, throws in trick after trick & doesn't listen to the music. I think most should fall somewhere in between- I like layering & tricks, but not at the *expense* of musicality- I think musicality and heart are undervalued & really can't be faked. I also think that there will always be those whose personal preferences are not for the style that *I* appreciate, which is more laid back.

Totally agree!

Do you think there are different rules/expectations for Tribal and/or fusion dancers?

I think complexity, like simplicity, can be taken too far.

It all comes down to the music.

If the music is simple, our moves should be simple. If the music is more complex, it may be appropriate to interpret it with complexity.

I've seen dancers I thought were beating the music to death by overdoing the layering. Doing a lot of complex layering is sort of the dance equivalent of playing an instrument as loudly as possible, all the time.

But we don't belly dance to Sousa marches, we belly dance to music that ebbs and flows in its energy levels. As the music rises and falls in its energy levels, so should our interpretation. If the music is building to a climax, then one option for interpreting that growing energy with our bodies could be to increase the complexity of our movement.

Originally Posted by *Shira*

But we don't belly dance to Sousa marches, we belly dance to music that ebbs and flows in its energy levels. As the music rises and falls in its energy levels, so should our interpretation. If the music is building to a climax, then one option for interpreting that growing energy with our bodies could be to increase the complexity of our movement.

Good description!

This thread... is gonna be good!!

Originally Posted by aziyade

Do you think there are different rules/expectations for Tribal and/or fusion dancers?

I honestly think the same thing applies- Mira Betz does amazing, beautiful layering, but it is still relaxed and elegant- not what I would call complicated. Kick your butt difficult (love her workshops!) but she touches on some of those same dramatic skills, beyond the difficult layering she teaches. She knows how to use the spaces- the physical silences, if you will. different styles have a different aesthetic, surely- some of them rely heavily on the pop & lock, keep it moving idea- but I think the dancers I have seen, who I consider more mature in their dance style, whatever that dance style may be, follow some of those same 'rules.' They listen to the music, & yes, they have energy and can be very athletic, but don't over dance the music.

over dancing the music is not a pitfall limited to tribal/ATS/ITS either- Lord knows I've done enough of it in my day!

This is all, of course without seeing the original threads on tribe & knowing specifically what they miss or think is lacking! It might be better to ask the folks in the original conversation!

Originally Posted by aziyade

In your mind, what is "complexity" for our dance?

Doing more than you need to. Hitting ever beat. Doing moves that require an extraordinary amount of technical practice.

Do we have enough of it, too much of it, or not enough of it? (in general)

Western students tend to have either too little (choreographies are mindlessly repetitive and unimaginative), or too much (see first answer). It is a difficult balance to strike. I don't believe a lot of garden-variety teachers have found it for themselves, so how can they teach others to find it?

Is the trend moving towards more or less complexity, or do you not see it moving at all?

I think it is moving toward more elaborate sequences of movements and away from simplicity. Students want to feel they are getting something for their lesson time, getting impressive goals to accomplish, being taught by teachers who are capable of things they are not. The easiest way to do this is to make things harder than they have to be. Students feel they are cheated when a teacher tells them to use what they already know, and to do less, not more.

Yousry Sharif, Suhaila, Karen Barbee, Randa -- these names have been mentioned in threads on complicated dancing. In your mind, do they exhibit the same KIND of complexity, or are they representing different schools of thought?

Suhaila has brought some of the let's-make-this-difficult attitude into the dance with her drills. I would say Yousry is more "challenging" than "complicated." I haven't studied with Karen or Randa, but they aren't the first two who come to mind for me regarding "complicatedness."

To me, being complicated is taking something that should look relaxed and simple, and figuring out a way to do it that takes a tremendous amount of practice before it comes easily to you, as opposed to just doing something easier off the bat. Ava Fleming told us she worked on a particular shimmy for six months before she started to feel comfortable with it. (If you are a professional dancer, and it took you half a year, how long does it take an ordinary untrained Egyptian to learn this move? Five years?) Aziza had a combination in her drum solo that everyone was floundering on. (Usually a workshop has a few dancers who get the tough stuff on their first try, but not this time.) I understand the value of setting a difficult goal for yourself, and I realize that the more accomplished you are as a dancer, the harder you have to push yourself on those goals, but why make things tough on principle? There was nothing so fabulous about Ava's shimmy that couldn't have been accomplished with a different one, nothing irreplaceable about Aziza's drum solo combination. They felt like they were difficult just so everybody would leave the workshop feeling like they learned something they couldn't already do.

[Just a few more lines...]

The problem is, once you have reached a certain core mastery of the technique, being good becomes about mastering other things--connecting to the music, emoting, forming a bond with the audience. Those things are personal. A teacher can guide you to the answers you need, but they can't teach them in a canned lesson to fifty people at once. There's no market for a workshop teacher to tell you to "feel more" and "ruminate on what this song means in your life" and "be more honest and vulnerable on stage."

Originally Posted by GenevieveOfAtlanta

Hmm... I would disagree with the idea that belly dance needs to be "complex." I do think the dance needs to be "rich."

Why walk when you could shimmy walk? Because sometimes a regal walk can better capture the emotion of the moment and the music. It's all hips? Well, that really is the root, the foundation of this dance, isn't it? Don't say you don't like it until you know how complicated it is to perform? Uhh...the performance is for your audience; it doesn't matter how difficult it was for you to learn it if the audience doesn't enjoy it.

I think this dance, at its heart, is simple. That doesn't mean it isn't rich in expression or difficult to learn. But to me, the best dancers wow not with the complicated moves they perform but with the nuances and emotion they bring to the simple ones.

Spot on.

Also, if there is no shimmy in the music why on earth shimmy walk?

Originally Posted by Afrit09

Spot on.

Also, if there is no shimmy in the music why on earth shimmy walk?

I also totally agree here - that is with Genevieve and for once, with Afrit ..g.:

complexity is well, it depends what flows and what doesn't. If you work complexity into your dance it's rather wrong.

But if the dancer has variety and originality and is able to express many nuances, that is great!

Simple is always the best and be simple and spot on is maybe the most difficult of all.

Originally Posted by Tourbeau

The problem is, once you have reached a certain core mastery of the technique, being good becomes about mastering other things--connecting to the music, emoting, forming a bond with the audience. Those things are personal. A teacher can guide you to the answers you need, but they can't teach them in a canned lesson to fifty people at once. There's no market for a workshop teacher to tell you to "feel more" and "ruminate on what this song means in your life" and "be more honest and vulnerable on stage."

In re this and your above quote - interesting and important ideas I think.

I'm going to be looking at some specific points in people's responses in a little bit, but something I once heard (and I can't remember from whom) is sticking in my head:

What we choose to acknowledge (and ignore) in the music says a lot about us as a dancer and an artist.

I listen to a lot of music and some of the really RICH and luxurious instrumental pieces have so much "complexity" to them -- I could never physically illustrate EVERYTHING that I hear, even if I had the technical ability to do so. But I also feel like I don't HEAR absolutely everything in the music every individual time I listen to it. For me this is the good kind of complexity, I think: Being able to choose to illustrate, at that moment, a few special elements from all that's going on in the music.

just a thought. more later. :) I appreciate all the responses so far!

Originally Posted by aziyade

I'm going to be looking at some specific points in people's responses in a little bit, but something I once heard (and I can't remember from whom) is sticking in my head:

What we choose to acknowledge (and ignore) in the music says a lot about us as a dancer and an artist.

I listen to a lot of music and some of the really RICH and luxurious instrumental pieces have so much "complexity" to them -- I could never physically illustrate EVERYTHING that I hear, even if I had the technical ability to do so. But I also feel like I don't HEAR absolutely everything in the music every individual time I listen to it. For me this is the good kind of complexity, I think: Being able to choose to illustrate, at that moment, a few special elements from all that's going on in the music.

just a thought. more later. :) I appreciate all the responses so far!

The icing isn't supposed to BE the cake. it isn't supposed to overwhelm the cake, neither should it be underwhelming & detract from the cake. it is supposed to compliment & complete the cake so you say 'ah, now that's a cake' when the whole thing is together. I like cake.

What a very awesome series of questions. I'm loving all of the responses.

I'm in the process of creating a solo, and what's been amazing for me to discover is that it's so simple, in terms of technique. There isn't a layer in sight, no complicated footwork. The music doesn't call for anything complicated, and my solo is about a deeply personal experience. I'm definitely not coming from a "look at what I can do" perspective.

It is exhausting to watch a dancer try to fit a million and one things. Heck, when I was very immature in my dance it was exhausting to do it. I hate that feeling. I want to be able to appreciate a dancer's ability to emote, to express whatever she is feeling in the music. I think that adds complexity more than every little hit she can make to the music.

Do you think there are different rules/expectations for Tribal and/or fusion dancers?

Definitely not. In fact, I wish more fusion dancers didn't make their pieces so complicated. I know that I can't really watch a lot of fusion pieces anymore, and I think that plays a big part in it. It's all so very "look at what I can do" instead of "what can I give to my audience".

Nevertheless - what about complexity that simply flows from a dancer's personal style, experience and feeling - from within and/or for the music?

I don't think one can generalize that "simplicity is always best" because a) that just isn't true - also b) there is a difference between the appearance of simplicity which emerges from unity and control - from an idea perhaps - and just - well - simpleness.

I don't think one necessarily needs layers but they are an integral part of the dance and it's a key means of expressing the music - of course how/when one introduces various movements is very personal. So I don't think one should go around claiming that so and so's dance is TOO COMPLICATED, right? It's just his/her way of dancing, so?

There's room for everybody.

One thing about art - it totally defies rules.

Also, arguing for more complexity: there are the elements of hands, head, facial expression and arms that are often neglected, as well as footwork. These movements are often quite complicated, they are done in conjunction with various hip and other core body movements, and simply saying, well I don't need to do that because I'm opting for "simplicity," well that is a bit of a cop out isn't it and so is just walking.

Dancers who simply do hip hip walk walk, oh I guess I'll do a hip drop, heaven forbid I should perspire; walk walk and call it a day already...well...

..g.:

Originally Posted by Elibelinde

Nevertheless - what about complexity that simply flows from a dancer's personal style, experience and feeling - from within and/or for the music?
<snip>
One thing about art - it totally defies rules.

The music, yes. But the dancer has to dance within the style. Good dancers don't "hit every beat" - but when they do tehy are on the beat. They don't beat the music to bits. They have to consider the genre - and the audience. You need texture and space for the audience to breath. You don't get this with wham wham wham fiddle fiddle fiddle all the time.

Maybe some people's personal style just isn't belly dance (or salsa or highland or ...) If they cannot adapt to dance the style then either they need to try harder or try a different dance.

"Art" might defy the rules (my friend who teaches Fine Art may disagree) - but is belly dance art? I always think of it as a folkloric dance - with lots of rules which gives form and satisfaction when danced within and still made relevant to the dancer.

Complexitity is within a movement, and is already there in the music.

A perfect example, is a club dancer who looks like they are doing nothing.. but try and copy that movement and see how far you get.

I used this clip in another thread but look at this again.

Check out what she is doing at 1.57. Dandesh is a prime example of the complexity of Egyptian dance made to look like she is taking a rest.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wXEmnnTNAs]YouTube - Dandesh performing her El Raksat Routine[/ame]

Originally Posted by caroline_afifi

Dandesh is a prime example of the complexity of Egyptian dance made to look like she is taking a rest.

Verrry subtle. If I wanted a good laugh, I'd go try to duplicate it in a mirror right now. :)

I think that's why after studying bellydance in general for 4 years, I've fallen in love with Egyptian style. I think that relaxed look is absolutely priceless- it looks so elegant versus the cram-every-technical-thing-in-and-make-it-look-difficult school of thought. Who wants to look like their inner monologue says, "See how hard this is?"

Of course, the tough part is to look relaxed, not sloppy.

Originally Posted by Elibelinde

*snip*
Nevertheless - what about complexity that simply flows from a dancer's personal style, experience and feeling - from within and/or for the music?
...Also, arguing for more complexity: there are the elements of hands, head, facial expression and arms that are often neglected, as well as footwork. ..g.:

I *usually* think us western dancers tend to overthink and overcomplicate, even in trying to simplify -how's that for a conumdrum..g.:
However, I agree with E's above statement in that adding a subtle "complex" dimension of "hands, head, facial expression and arms"...brings a beautiful personal style & feeling to dance. That's the hard part - to incorporate for yourself, to learn and/or teach.

One dancer's "complex" looking style looks great and not "busy" - someone emulating that can look insincere unintentionally; s'he is "working" at it; it's not flowing from a natural response to the music. It's that dancing "over" the music, not from or within it.
As dancers I think it's our lifelong goal to keep exploring the music/movement/body/essence [art, spirit, connection, whatever]; and this can change and manifest as we grow and time goes by.
I will say that one mark of busy-ness in Middle Eastern style dance that I dislike is the look of too many turns, and too much arm movement.

Originally Posted by Elibelinde

Nevertheless - what about complexity that simply flows from a dancer's personal style, experience and feeling - from within and/or for the music?

If the complexity arises from the person's artistic integrity, then that is fine. Some people are naturally deeper and/or physically more capable than others. Unfortunately, I think complexity usually comes from elsewhere: fear that audiences will be bored if there aren't enough bells and whistles, inability of the student to be comfortable/confident with less (nervous overload), poor training (lack of basic stagecraft and choreographic theory), desperation to impress, etc.

I don't think one can generalize that "simplicity is always best"...

Yes, it is possible to be too elementary or lacking in the stage presence to succeed with simplicity. It's also possible to be so educationally misled and/or conceited that you can't tell the difference between elegant sparsity of movement and boring your audience to tears. Still, I am more concerned about the student who thinks progress is defined by being able to dance a whole routine with a shimmy layered on it and a prop balanced on her head while standing on a drum and playing zills, than the student who is working in the "Less is more, so how can I make the most of the least?" direction.

So I don't think one should go around claiming that so and so's dance is TOO COMPLICATED, right? It's just his/her way of dancing, so?

This is a dangerous road to go down, because lots of people have "ways of dancing" that are ill informed, inauthentic, and/or dreadful to watch. Just because it's "MY ART" doesn't guarantee it's good or entertaining. Besides, people can disagree on matters of taste.

...simply saying, well I don't need to do that because I'm opting for "simplicity," well that is a bit of a cop out isn't it and so is just walking.

Nobody is saying that simple is always easy. In the hands of a master, simple is disciplined and multifaceted. I see this thread being about trying to wrestle away the notion that complexity is always superior, as in convincing students that just because it is an impressive physical feat to spend a hundred hours mastering some elaborate combination of pops, locks, shimmies, hand flicks, and eye winks, it won't automatically make your dancing good. Proper technique and presentation require hard work, and spending time on the superficially complicated takes focus away from what makes the dance truly artistic, because it elevates the mechanical.

It's interesting that dancers can do this fancy stuff, but so what? What does it say when a dancer spends hundreds of hours mastering a trick that takes a few seconds to watch and barely gets noticed, or that is used so much that it loses its impact (e.g., overshimmying everything)?

Originally Posted by caroline_afifi

Complexitity is within a movement, and is already there in the music.

A perfect example, is a club dancer who looks like they are doing nothing.. but try and copy that movement and see how far you get.

I agree with Caroline. I think that (in Egyptian style) the forgner dancers don't use the muscles like the dancers used to do before. Using all the inner muscles with all the softness and control gives so much extra feeling and stuff without actually looking anything hard/difficult/overdone etc. But at the same time it so difficult to do if the dancer is not used to use proper mucles and lacks the control of them.
I think that in the end it just comes to the muscle work. Egyptians do it differently.

Originally Posted by LiesaB.

However, I agree with E's above statement in that adding a subtle "complex" dimension of "hands, head, facial expression and arms"...brings a beautiful personal style & feeling to dance. That's the hard part - to incorporate for yourself, to learn and/or teach.

Yes!

Is complexity needed in belly dance? I think it depends on what you consider "complexity" to be.

In my opinion, we should not make things harder on ourselves just as a matter of principle. What comes to mind when I say this are things like:
1. Developing a technique for a move that takes years and is much more exhausting than another technique for the same move that does not look very different.
2. Layering complicated movements, doing backbends, doing floorwork, or anything else that looks very impressive when the music does not call for it in any way, shape or form.

This doesn't mean that "less is more" is always right or that we should go for total simplicity. Some moves are hard and take a long time to achieve no matter what technique you are using. Layering is an integral part of our dance and impressive tricks can have a place in it, too, if you wish to perform them.

There are also a lot of elements of our dance that are complex, but look very simple, and without them the dance just looks like a series of basic isolations done one after the other.
Here I am referring to things like variation in arm placement and graceful transitions, weight changes, head positioning, facial expression, lines and posture, floor patterns, directional changes, etc, etc, etc.
You need all these elements in order to be an all-around great dancer, and all these things together make for a complex dance. I wouldn't necessarily use the word "complex" to describe it, but definitely dynamic, which in my view is not "simple."

True simplicity is going up on the stage, facing the audience in one direction, placing your arms out to your sides and doing n hip drops followed by n hip circles followed by n undulations followed by n chest lifts and so on and so forth. Way too many dancers do this, and it's so boring to watch.

Originally Posted by outi

I think that in the end it just comes to the muscle work. Egyptians do it differently.

This is very interesting in arriving at the heart of the matter for me.

The example I use in class is to ask students to raise their hands over their heads using only their skeletons. Now while we all know that is impossible as muscles are used to do this, they will usually have no feeling in their arms as they just raise the hands over their heads. I ask them to do it again as they provide muscular resistance to the movement and ask them to talk about the difference in the visual quality of the movement as well as the internal feelings that accompany this resistance. Then I ask them to provide this same quality to the internal movements of the abdominal muscles. Over time, many understand what I am driving at, but some don't. Applying this method creates a tension and release to the dance makes the most simple of movements seem somehow different and more complex without the need to make them busy or complicated.

Does this make sense in the context of what Outi said?

Shira wrote:
If the music is more complex, it may be appropriate to interpret it with complexity. ... and ... I've seen dancers I thought were beating the music to death by overdoing the layering.

You know I've actually heard Egyptian instructors (and not just the big-name Americans) say something like "Work on technique so you can keep the beat with your feet, and then the melody with your hips and the vocals with your upper body."

When I hear that, my brain immediately translates it into: Must be able to layer traveling steps with hipwork and upper body or torso movements. And that itself translates into "hone the skill to move various body parts independently" -- and I'm thinking that's probably not AT ALL what the instructor was imagining. But if I'm hearing this, I'm sure other students are hearing the same thing and maybe they aren't asking themselves "is this REALLY what he/she was saying?"


Tourbeau wrote, in response to "what is complexity":
Doing moves that require an extraordinary amount of technical practice. and It is a difficult balance to strike. I don't believe a lot of garden-variety teachers have found it for themselves, so how can they teach others to find it?

This is troublesome for me, because in my experience, barrel turns require an extraordinary amount of technical practice. ..g.: It IS a balance and I'm with you in wondering how to know if I personally have it, or if I'm conveying it to my students.

and Students feel they are cheated when a teacher tells them to use what they already know, and to do less, not more.

Yes, I already had one student who made a big deal about this. She kept wanting me to teach her "more advanced moves" (I think because she liked the idea of advancing through some kind of rank system). I used to argue with her that we didn't really have "advanced moves" but she didn't believe me.

and I would say Yousry is more "challenging" than "complicated." I haven't studied with Karen or Randa, but they aren't the first two who come to mind for me regarding "complicatedness."

Care to elaborate? I think it would really add to the thread!

To me, being complicated is taking something that should look relaxed and simple, and figuring out a way to do it that takes a tremendous amount of practice before it comes easily to you, as opposed to just doing something easier off the bat.

This makes TOTAL and COMPLETE sense to me. But I am waiting for someone to disagree, to see the opposite argument. ?

Originally Posted by yameyameyame

impressive tricks can have a place in it, too, if you wish to perform them.

If you want to put a really fantastic trick into your act that took an insane amount of practice to master, then you also need the stagecraft training so that you can frame it in a way that the audience will appreciate it. Not showcasing it properly (not placing it in your set in a way that builds up to it to give it the attention it deserves) undermines your work. Unless you are auditioning for a TV talent show and you only have 30 seconds to take your best shot before you get gonged/buzzed/strong-armed by security guys off the stage, don't start with your top material and work down, and don't make your whole piece your finale.

Elibelinde wrote:
Nevertheless - what about complexity that simply flows from a dancer's personal style, experience and feeling - from within and/or for the music?

Right -- I'm actually reminded of Dina, who did a performance in Dallas that I disected, and it was actually really RICH or complex, but it came across as not so VISUALLY complicated, but rather just completely "with" the music.

I was watching Ranya's Oriental dvd last night thinking "this choreography is pretty complicated, but it looks deceptively simple." I think that's important, but I'm not sure how to articulate it better. :/

there is a difference between the appearance of simplicity which emerges from unity and control - from an idea perhaps - and just - well - simpleness.

Yes, and this is something I wondered about on the "Is bellydance boring" thread, because we're so used to hearing about Egyptian style is so relaxed and simple, and that translates into some dancers' brains as "Be practically comatose when you dance." Lifeless is not simplicity. Insipid choreography that doesn't respond to the music isn't simplicity.

there are the elements of hands, head, facial expression and arms that are often neglected,

Now see to me, that's the DANCING part of dancing. I can "mark" the choreography, or just sort of walk through it, with even choreographed facial expressions and specific angles of the head -- but that's not putting your heart into it and DANCING it. To me, the above is not a layer of complexity, but it's what you bring to a choreography in order to PERFORM it.


Caroline, the clip you link to, and the part you mention is what I think of when I think "Egyptian bellydance." Internal movement. Golden age feeling.


LiesaB wrote:
One dancer's "complex" looking style looks great and not "busy" - someone emulating that can look insincere unintentionally; she is "working" at it; it's not flowing from a natural response to the music. It's that dancing "over" the music, not from or within it.

BUSY! Yes, that's the word I was looking for. I think the dancers I admire, even when doing complicated choreographies, never look busy.

So is this a question of editing? Do you think Over-complication and over-dancing can be "fixed" by editing out the "busy" elements?

Tourbeau wrote:
Proper technique and presentation require hard work, and spending time on the superficially complicated takes focus away from what makes the dance truly artistic, because it elevates the mechanical.

Ah but how to know (as both a teacher and a student) where is the line between richness and superficial complicated-ness ? That's a struggle I have.

yameyameyame wrote:
This doesn't mean that "less is more" is always right or that we should go for total simplicity. Some moves are hard and take a long time to achieve no matter what technique you are using. Layering is an integral part of our dance and impressive tricks can have a place in it, too, if you wish to perform them.

When I was a baby dancer, I saw an Atlanta area dancer do this thing that I thought was just THE coolest -- she was walking across the stage in a kind of grapevine walk, while doing "umi" pelvic circles. I went home and immediately got discouraged because I not only couldn't do the rotations that fast, but I couldn't even walk with them, let alone walk in a complicated pattern. When I started studying with Suhaila, this was one of the things we started practicing right off the bat -- walking with pelvic circles. And now it's one of my favorite things to do :)

So part of me wonders -- is it "worth it" to spend time practicing technically complicated stuff or not? For me, in this one instance, it was -- but we only have so many hours of practice time, and as students we REALLY need to find a balance between maintaining good technique and getting the tricky stuff. As teachers, when do we say, "Look, Ava's little shimmy is a neat trick, and practice it if you want, but spend the majority of your practice on the stuff I want you to practice" - ?

Also, when is a tricky move not a "trick" but rather a legitimate part of the technique? I mean, layered shimmies are part of Egyptian technique. We can't just let ourselves or our students say "Oh this is hard, so I don't want to practice it." Where's the line between NECESSARY and UNNECESSARY complexity then?

Just realized I keep asking this same question on different threads, and I apologize for that. We had almost this same discussion on the It's just a folk dance thread. Obviously it's still something I'm thinking about, so I appreciate the tolerance from ya'll and the willingness to continue to play along!