Thread: Taking Tribal workshops as a solo Oriental dancer - ?

I'm an Oriental gal, but have started taking a more serious interest in learning Tribal (ATS style, maybe TF down the road) and POSSIBLY incorporating it into how I dance.

Who on Bhuz does both?

I'm coming at this from the standpoint of a solo artist, and probably will not actually be dancing with a group (which I know, kind of defeats the whole "tribal" point). What can I hope to get out of taking Tribal workshops or working with Tribal DVDs, if I'm a solo performer? From an Oriental standpoint, what's the best thing I can focus on in those workshops? What should I hope to "take home" as an Oriental dancer?

Thank you in advance!

I am not an ATS dancer, but I have attended quite a few ATS workshops and will likely continue to do so. The style doesn't call to me in the same ways as the Orientale ones do, so it's a different experience for me in workshops. One of the things I really like abut ATS workshops is the very quick move into working in pairs/groups. For me, this means an instant study group during the workshop and really cements the students together. The entire experience is much more communal to me than non-tribal workshops. Unless studying a social dance (debke, khaleegy, etc.), I tend to be very focused in workshops on the teacher and on personally incorporating the information and movements being taught. I guess a good way to explain it is that I treat most orientale workshops as an independent learning experience, but ATS workshops as a communal learning experience. YMMV

One of the things I have really enjoyed from ATS workshops (other than learning the basic combinations) was the ingenious use of formation, torque, and directional shifts to make a much larger variety available for performance than just the individual combos. I am a person who loves variations and permutations on a theme, so seeing all of the different ways to work within the structure by changing one or two variables is fascinating. Another thing I have enjoyed is how some of the group improv structure echoes the basic Ghawazee formations and other more traditional group dances. With my first troupe, we did a lot of orientale-style group improv (common before ATS came to my area), so it was interesting to see how a structured improv system approached the limitations we faced in group improv.

The only thing that drives me crazy sometimes in ATS workshops is that I find it very difficult to turn off the part of me that connects to the music in an orientale way. Unless the music used is a simple drum or steady song, I very much want to go outside of the boundaries of ATS to interpret it. I just haven't been able to develop the tribal ear for music, but I can see that others do. :)

Originally Posted by aziyade

Who on Bhuz does both?

what can I hope to get out of taking Tribal workshops or working with Tribal DVDs, if I'm a solo performer? From an Oriental standpoint, what's the best thing I can focus on in those workshops? What should I hope to "take home" as an Oriental dancer?

I do both Egyptian and ATS (although I'm starting to work with BSBD format more and more these days), plus TF with a very strong Salimpour base.

What you can hope to get depends largely on how open you are to the stuff you will learn, I guess. If you go in with the idea that you will try to adapt what you learn to your Orientale base, you may have a rougher go of it than if you just forget what you have learned so far and embrace the whole enchilada.

I would suggest to focus on the technique and movement vocabulary aspect, at first. (I don't know how much training you've had already, so YMMV). It *will* feel different. Just the arms will seem like a lot to deal with at first because it is a very different feel. Or at least, that's how it felt to me.

As you progress, once you have the technique/movement vocabulary in your body, you will probably find yourself starting to get into the feel of Tribal more, esp. when you do choreography workshops. That's a really fun stage of the process.

What you can take home? It's like you get even more fun tools in your tool box. Like the Fisher-Price ad: "Oh, the possibilities!"

It can be overwhelming at times, though. I won't lie, it is not easy to learn a different style when the basic movements are essentially the same. But breaking out of habits and learning to power your moves in a different way yields results that go beyond just the learning of two styles. I feel it adds exponentially to your dancer toolkit, more than the sum of the parts if you will.

I did both for a while and even performed with two student troupes--one Oriental and one Tribal Fusion--for a couple of years.

I found there was more of a focus on straight-up drilling technique in the Tribal classes, although this may have been more due to differences in instructors than to the difference in styles.

I found that it did hone my improv skills to some degree (although I still far prefer doing group cued improv to solo improv). But when you're leading a group, you not only have to think about what to do next, but you have to think of it far enough in advance to cue it, and you want to try to make it fit the music at the same time. (So, you also need to be prepared to abandon a combo if the music demands it, and to do so in a deliberate way that looks like "I meant to do that".) In other words, I think it's easier to "fake it" when you're dancing solo and something doesn't work, if that makes sense.

In tribal class, we worked on the "down" far more than we do in oriental, as a rule. It's not that these moves are foreign to oriental, but they are more common in tribal, and I got more comfortable with them. We also drilled layering a lot, so it can help with that and with layering in different ways.

It helped me to be more responsive to different and sometimes unexpected situations. For example, we would do flocking exercises, in which we would all move like a school of fish or a flock of birds, taking our cues from whomever we would see in our peripheral vision. I think this can help in using peripheral vision to be aware of surroundings and respond quickly to what's going on. Group improv can do the same, I think, because even though the combinations are set, the leader could screw up or sometimes be a bit of what my instructor called "a loose canon" (usually referring to herself *g*), so you learn to be ready for anything and to respond to it quickly and smoothly. I could see this being helpful in, say, restaurant dancing, when the unexpected might occur.

I don't think any of these concepts are exclusive to tribal, but I do think tribal classes might often focus on them a little more, whereas Oriental classes might have a different focus.

I'm thinking that "tools for doing solo performances" aren't the only benefit to consider when thinking about whether to sample ATS.

I think a bit of ATS knowledge could be nice for when you go to a hafla or other event where there's recreational ATS being done.

If you create and teach group pieces for your students to perform, there's a LOT that can be learned from spending some time exploring ATS. How to cultivate precise, unified technique. How to use formations effectively. How to develop relationship/bonds among group members so that the audience senses an esprit do corps rather than a vibe of a clump of soloists who all learned the same choreography. How to project a mood/attitude ("that tribal feeling") rather than having frozen smiles. And so on.... Admittedly, not every ATS teacher/workshop will impart these skills, but these are things that could be learned from the right class.

The ATS format often feels psychologically different to the participants as compared to doing a memorized Oriental group choreography. It's hard to explain, I think you need to do it to understand it. For example, it can create a certain flavor of tarab/zone/trance if you have the right people doing it together, and you have the right music, and the right audience.... In any event, I think there's value to exploring ATS to get a sense of this.

I wouldn't say I do both, but I've had a bit of formal training in ATS and TF. The first thing that comes to mind is how fish out of water it feels to switch sides. Tribal dancers live in a tribal world, and if you don't, everything seems a bit foreign. It's sort of like living in the US and going to a shopping mall in Canada--conceptually identical, but culturally still different. I'm not saying it's wrong, just a bit more pronounced than if you imagine what it would be like to suddenly be dropped into an oriental troupe's rehearsal a thousand miles away. They're doing everything a little differently than you learned, they're referencing things with different terminology, they're talking about people you're not familiar with, they've got this common history together that you're not part of, and so on.

I was surprised by how many unfamiliar faces I saw on the tribal side. Not traveling in tribal circles meant I was not aware of how many tribal dancers were in my area but not interacting with the oriental side of the local community. I didn't observe any overt us-versus-them hostility, though. It was more or less the same experience as attending a workshop out of town. Some people go out of their way to be welcoming to an unfamiliar face and some don't. I'm sure both of these points would be familiar to tribal dancers who experiment on the oriental side, too.

The biggest take away for me was that because of the difference in posture, muscular engagement, and energy, it made me think of what I was already doing in a different light. I didn't learn a lot that made me think, "I'm definitely going to incorporate this into my regular dancing," but I'd still say the occasional cross-training experience is worthwhile.

I take regular classes in oriental, ITS and tribal fusion.

They're all with the same teacher, so my situation is probably a little different to other people's, but they definitely give me very different skills and experiences.

The ITS class are intermediate to advanced and perform together, so I learn a lot about stage craft and positioning, as well as stuff like improv skills and how to follow cues. It's probably the most mentally challenging for me because I have real trouble remembering movement sequences without a particular piece of music pinned to them. I have pages and pages of diagrams and pictures to try and staple the combos into my brain.

Tribal fusion classes are very much about body conditioning- we spend probably two thirds of each class training and preparing our bodies before we ever touch on technique or drilling. Those classes are multi-media, so we get filmed as we're drilling, and can track our development. This is probably the most interactive of our classes as there is no choreography or group dancing involved, so we get to play around with things and work on developing our own personal style.

Originally Posted by mahsati

I am not an ATS dancer, but I have attended quite a few ATS workshops and will likely continue to do so. The style doesn't call to me in the same ways as the Orientale ones do, so it's a different experience for me in workshops.

I think you and I have similar feelings about this. I always used to think it was something I just sort of needed to know in order to be a well-rounded dancer and teacher. Now I'm more interested in exploring what it might do for me personally.

One of the things I really like abut ATS workshops is the very quick move into working in pairs/groups. For me, this means an instant study group during the workshop and really cements the students together. The entire experience is much more communal to me than non-tribal workshops. Unless studying a social dance (debke, khaleegy, etc.), I tend to be very focused in workshops on the teacher and on personally incorporating the information and movements being taught. I guess a good way to explain it is that I treat most orientale workshops as an independent learning experience, but ATS workshops as a communal learning experience. YMMV

This is very cool. I don't know that I've had that communal learning experience, and I love the idea. Most workshops I'm either focused on myself, or making sure any students I brought with me are doing okay.

One of the things I have really enjoyed from ATS workshops (other than learning the basic combinations) was the ingenious use of formation, torque, and directional shifts to make a much larger variety available for performance than just the individual combos. I am a person who loves variations and permutations on a theme, so seeing all of the different ways to work within the structure by changing one or two variables is fascinating.

Awesome! That's one of the primary things I was thinking about, or hoping to get out of it -- some ideas for group blocking especially.

The only thing that drives me crazy sometimes in ATS workshops is that I find it very difficult to turn off the part of me that connects to the music in an orientale way. Unless the music used is a simple drum or steady song, I very much want to go outside of the boundaries of ATS to interpret it. I just haven't been able to develop the tribal ear for music, but I can see that others do. :)

Yeah, I can see that. I'm used to drilling to basic drum rhythms and doing Salimpour-style improv to sort of basic drum music, but I do worry about going all Oriental on the melodic music. lol.

I'm not able to take weekly classes in Tribal, just workshops. I think that's probably an important thing to mention. I'm "open" to learning anything new. As of this time, I haven't yet developed the love for the Tribal aesthetic that I have for Oriental, but actually I'm kind of hoping that a workshop or two will inspire a new love for me. :) It would be so fun to have that "new student crazy enthusiasm" again, the kind you get when you're introduced to something and know that you have to know everything about it RIGHT NOW! Lol. :)

I am an oriental style dancer and regularly infuste ATS into my dance. I am really happy that you have decided to learn about it and have an open mind. Many dancers won't, but it is all belly dance and there is so much to offer by learnign tribal.

ok so I have taken formal training and a several workshops every year in tribal. What I find that can be easily incorporated into oriental style are the hightened muscular approaches to the isolations and it is a perfect fit to oriental music where the music gets darker and slower, or if you want to show off some really cool variety on a drum solo or solo section in an oriental piece.

It can be integrated very seamlessly and adds more awesomeness to the vocabulary bank. In almost all my videos I end up incorporating some moments of tribal whether it be spins, turns, abdominals, or weight throws. Have fun with it, with time you will "feel" it and see the move as just another move in the tool box with how comfortable it will feel :)

At the end of the day it is all belly dance :)

I used to study both tribal fusion (or world fusion) and some ATS along with Oriental (separate classes, of course). I haven't in about 3 years or so.

Frankly, at the time, I really just loved all those styles and didn't have a clear vision of how I'd use one to enhance the other.

In retrospect, what I got out of studying tribal/world fusion was strengthening and better control over my movements. My teacher was a huge fan of playing around with speed and range of movement, so we'd often drill the slowest mayas ever or make them very small. This may have just been my particular teacher, but she also was very much into emphasizing the breakdown of movements; going back to mayas again, we'd do those very syncopated (it was like a hip slide, down, and then in) and then more blended. I gained some interesting perspectives on our movements.

The other big benefit for me was we had a lot of conversations about dance and fusion; she put considerable thought into making her dance blended and its own form, rather than here's the belly dance piece followed by the next dance form.

I haven't taken any tribal since I decided to focus on Oriental, but I imagine I would treat tribal workshops how I would any workshop really: a chance to try to understand how someone else hears the music, what drives their technique, and see what I really love and will use.