Thread: Cutting off our noses to spite our face

Tina 'Habibi' Tattood1, I've never forgotten what you said about "Housewifeah" being our bread & butter. I *know* that's true as a teacher, and if I were to dance in a local restaurant, it would be my hobbyist students who would fill the seats. But you're right, only a VERY few of these stick around for years. Most want to try it, pick up a few moves, have some giggles, and then they go on to scrapbooking or some other hobby they want to try out -- and they won't want to be pros at that either. Most people just want to have fun!

(that's why my studio teaches 5 beginner classes, two level II classes, but only one level III -- and only 10 students in the Repertory class!) So we have to constantly be marketing.

I've only ever had three students express an interest in going pro in about 6 years of teaching! One moved away, the other two aren't ready to consider it. But then, there's no visible work in my immediate area, so that may be helping me out.

Originally Posted by tattood1

trouble is you tell the "truth" (which i do) & you do not maintain students or maintain them for long. teachers who dangle a possible pro career with a dose of goddess whoo whoo ta boot seem to be the most successful. of course the only one making money is teacher selling glitter dot /tissue lame' cossie for essentially student shows on off nights at her restaurants.

i will state again if people (yes even bhuzzers do this) didn't sneer at house wife, hobby bders in their glitter dot/ tissue lame' cossies maybe people would feel the pressure to be a pro of some sort. tina

I agree 100% with Tina. While I try to talk about the responsibilities/requirements for a dancer who wants to be paid for her efforts, I also try to stress that the most fun of all is dancing for yourself (and for your family and personal friends). If the people out there looking to try something new ever quit looking to belly dance classes as that something new and different, most of us teaching classes today will be out of luck. I treasure my just-trying-this-out beginner students, because they make it possible for me to afford the time I spend on my advanced students and to advance my own experience/knowledge in the dance form.

As far as costuming goes, I am forever telling students they do not need to purchase high-end costumes, but can make perfectly lovely costumes themselves which will suffice for the venues where my troupe performs. Many (and among those many are often those that boo-hoo about not having money for classes and seminars) will purchase the costumes because "I don't have time to make my own" or "I can't sew." To those students I've been known to say "obviously I don't charge enough for classes if you feel comfortable spending that much on a costume for a student recital . . ."

OHMIGOSH!

I'm all over this thread!

Very early on I make it very clear in my classes that everybody can enjoy the dance, and have a great time in a social-dance setting, but only a relatively small number of people will be professional calibre. I discuss the "hobbist/professional" who, although perfectly capable of professional work, chooses to dance at festivals and for friends and family rather than pursue paid gigs. I discuss venues appropriate for student dancers and even let on that not every student should be dancing even at certain student-friendly events. Student recital? Fine. Big festival that draws hundreds or thousands? Maybe not.

The underlying theme is that we who learn the dance really need to respect it for what it is when not a social dance: a performance art worthy of (and requiring) intense, committed study.

When a session is concluding, I often repeat this mantra; folks who weren't sure what I was talking about at the beginning of the session usually end up with a good understanding.

After all, there is a little bit more to this thing than shakin' your booty in somebody's face!

Deborah

Tinah,

I think you can be a hobbyist with good taste - they aren't mutually exclusive. I'm a hobbyist (not a housewife since I'm not married) and I like to think have enough taste to dress that way and dance tastefully though the skill level is still developing.

i think an eman for the co. fair isn't "taste" it's over kill. tina

I just want to see good professional dancing--the brand of costume is irrelevant and really not my business. Watching a D-Level professional at an A-Level event is what is hard to swallow.

agreed..tina

I think the rising popularity has so many good points though, they outnumber the bad...think of the greater ease of costume buying and increased selection (because there are so many others also buying costumes), think of those women who are travelling the entire world teaching to new areas. Bellydance is exploding in Asia right now and because of that a lot of dancers are getting paid to come here and teach workshops. Think of all the teaching materials-dvds, books, cds that are increasingly available now. I have a lot of romantic ideas about the 'golden era' but to be honest I'm much more excited about being a dancer right now.

i try to do all the right things
- talk to my students about performing ethics/business side of things, when i feel they need that talk
- profide student levell performance ops for my intermediates
- discourage students to go out there on their own too soon
- be demanding of my students for student gigs
- not send students out there myself who are not ready
- talk sternly to my troupe members about what to charge for their private gigs and threaten to kick them out if they undercharge
- have advanced classes that are Advanced
- kick my students to workshops

but still, i know i have students who take the 20$ private gigs. not even in my troupe, just intermediate students. what do i do???
i also have even beginner level students who i know are performing semi for free WAY before they should do so. or can't wait for their first gig, started to dance because of it and delude themselves into thinking they are almost ready.
what do i do???

Artemisia

Who said anything about Eman? I was reacting to the statement of "housewife in glitterdot lame."

I don't own an Eman - L Rose and a $90 gelabiya from bellydancewithk is what I have. Expense has little to do with taste. It's about appropriateness.

Originally Posted by tattood1

i think an eman for the co. fair isn't "taste" it's over kill. tina

"Who said anything about Eman? (...) Expense has little to do with taste. It's about appropriateness"

i agree, it is doable to dress a troupe relatively cheap and still have them look good! mine don't wear "real" costumes either. but yes, some of them need a little educating and guidance. belittling, maybe, but it's my name as a teacher out there too, and i want them to look good especially so people dont make fun of them!

but

de gustibus...

Taste is relative, though. I think the longer you do this and the more you're exposed to more up to date professional costuming, the smaller your bank balance becomes, but I also believe there are people out there who *like* the glitterdot, tissue lame look. They like it because it appeals to their inner Barbie-lover. They like it *because* it's tacky. Look at Anne Soffee's rainbow bedleh. She didn't choose it because it was the classiest, she chose it because it was the tackiest thing she'd ever seen. For a lot of people this dance is about fantasy and dressups - dressups as in when you're eight. That doesn't make me like glitterdot any better, but I do recognise that some people do.

I was just posting on my blog a topic inpsired by the "how did you start bellydancing" topic, and it got me thinking about this topic.

When I look at the chain of events of my beginning bellydance career, through the eyes of a now-seasoned and more aware professional bellydancer, I am amazed at how fast I was out there getting paid to perform.

I would say that I first started seriously taking bellydance classes in January of 2003, and my first paid performance was March of 2003. I had been bellydancing for a whopping 2 months.

But, this was not because I was an eager bellybunny who couldn't wait to get out there in her sparkly costume and strut her stuff. This is because I was led to believe - by my teacher who has a small empire built on bellydance, which includes her "company" of about 30 girls ready to perform on a moment's notice - that all you needed to be a good bellydancer was the ability to DANCE and a professional costume.

Basically, the way it worked in my old company was that, if the director saw that you were obviously a trained dancer (and most of her students were, since the class was at a very prestigious dance school in NYC) she pushed you to buy a costume from her. Once you bought the costume, you were guaranteed at least enough jobs to pay the costume back. Granted, newbies only went out on the sucky jobs that required you to hang out at a party for 6 hours and suffer through many costume changes and group performances. If you proved yourself on those jobs, you were able to move up the ranks and start getting your own solos, which would be a normal job to most of us - 20 minute bellydance show.

I had my first solo in March of 2004. I had been performing with groups and duos and trios for a year by that time.

I think that teachers like this are partly to blame for the boom and oversaturation of bellydancers in our market. By pushing students to perform who have only been bellydancing for 2 months, it's no wonder many students think all they need is a costume and they are good to go.

it's about budget & convience & YES i'm one that thinks a bder can look too tasteful & sterile. tina

Taste is definitely subjective.

But more important than costuming is taste exercised in dance. You know spread out legs as a stance and gyrations that are less BD and more solicitation and so on.

My point was only that you don't have to be a professional to show good taste and want to learn to dance well.

Originally Posted by outi

I can't understand, why in our dance form dancers become "professionals" very quickly. If we compare for other forms: ballet, show, jazz etc. The real professional start practising in early ages, continue practising for years, for hours per day, everyday of the week. In oriental dance after a couple years of dancing, a couple hours a week, dancers will think of themselves as professional level. We (dancers) have made something wrong with our advertising. Everyone CAN dance, but everyone can't ever be professional level dancer - not even advanced. Some just are not able and the rest will need so much work. Other issue I have with "dancing should always be fun". Yes, in hobbyist level and classes, but with professionals - no. I can't imagine ballet dancer insisting to have fun classes. Teaching oriental and ballet is different, same goes with children and adults, and the old ballet ways are horrible. BUT it seems that we have made it students constitutional right to have fun in our classes. Learning is sometimes hard - that's the fact.

Same goes with all the fusion. Good fusion is GREAT! But with saying everything should be possible, we encourage all kinds of attempts without any artistic view or background in the other form of dance/art. Fusion is more harder, because the dancer has to know about BOTH dance/art form almost equally.

Dance level and customs of course is different in every country or place.

Edited to add:
This was more for Dani's post.
Zumarrad, you really hit the nail.

Thank you thank you thank you thank you, for posting this. I can't tell you how many times I've said these exact words.

I think a big part of the reason that we don't expect BDers to train for as long before performing as, say, ballet or jazz does, is that very, very few parents are signing their little ones up for belly dance classes. I recently performed in a student show that featured a children's belly dance group, and they were simply adorable, but they are a tiny minority. As one of the moms told me, "her dad just doesn't get it. He says 'this is fine for adults, but not for children!'" When I started taking BD at 16, I was the youngest person in the class by at least a decade.

Meanwhile, ladies over a certain age (the exact figure depends on the creep-factor of the restaurant/club/venue owner) are widely known to not have as good a chance at getting pro gigs. So what you have is a small window. Say the average pro ballerina, modern dancer or jazz dancer starts taking classes at 3 or 4, and starts dancing professionally somewhere between 18 and 22. That's at least 14 years of training. Whereas the average belly dancer seems to start in her 20's or 30's, and by the time she's had a few years of classes she's hearing horror stories about restaurants that fire you as soon as you sprout your first gray hair.

I also agree with I-can't-remember-who who said that we need to be letting people know that *WATCHING* belly dance is cool. I think that the Goth community is starting to get that message... now for the rest of the world.

Another problem with the ballerina / belly dan cer compartision is that most people who take ballet (Jazz, modern) classes never expect to dancer professionally. And those who do have a structure from which to build from, steps to take, etc in order to understand their ability. Belly dance, while it may have had a training ground at one time, no longer really does.

And many teachers do not talk about performance standards, training standards, 5 or 7 part sets. With no one talking about what is supposed to happen, no resources, how is someone who has decided that they are capible of performing supposed to know that they aren't? Hafla's and student showcases may be, as has been said previously, a great opportunity for students to get the perfromance bug satisfied and keeping them out of restaurants, etc.

{{{HUGS}}}

ETA: One quick thing to add: Balenchine said that it took 5 - 7 years to train a ballerina. The Russians said 8 - 10.

{{{HUGS}}}

Originally Posted by tahiradancer

....

And many teachers do not talk about performance standards, training standards, 5 or 7 part sets. With no one talking about what is supposed to happen, no resources, how is someone who has decided that they are capible of performing supposed to know that they aren't? Hafla's and student showcases may be, as has been said previously, a great opportunity for students to get the perfromance bug satisfied and keeping them out of restaurants, etc.

{{{HUGS}}}

ETA: One quick thing to add: Balenchine said that it took 5 - 7 years to train a ballerina. The Russians said 8 - 10.

{{{HUGS}}}

I agree that many teachers don't talk about standards...I think it's usually because they themselves don't know them.
I DO however feel that there is information out there. Not all that you need, but a WHOLE lot - even just starting with Shira's site. When people claim they "didn't know"- I have to wonder how much time and thought they've really looked into it- as many of the basics (such as undercutting) are the subject of numerous articles online.

Belly dance, while it may have had a training ground at one time, no longer really does.

I have to disagree here - there's clearly more training ground out there now than there was in the past. If we look at when schools were set up specifically to turn out professional BDers in the 60s, we can't be looking at a period of much longer than five or maybe 10 years maximum when it was the "done thing". (I wish Morocco would come along and enlighten us on this.) Sure, people like Jamila and Bert Balladine were teaching earlier than that and continued to do so, but how many of those students, other than during the Arabic nightclub boom period, were planning on careers as belly dancers? Today we have people who are definitely teaching the dance in a formal, structured manner, who've created their own systems. That's been going on for *less than 50 years* as I understand it.

And that is *only* in the West. In the ME my understanding is that pro dancers learned at their mummies' knees, just like everyone else, and if they were talented and wanted or needed to dance professionally, then they might work with other dancers one on one, and also study other dance forms. Belly dancing isn't like, say, classical Indian or classical Japanese or classical Thai dance - there is no lengthy tradition of teaching how to do it. That's because it's considered a minor art at best and a folk dance at its core.

::grumbles:: Not everyone that takes a bellydance class should expect to be professional one day either....it's the emergence of wannabe bellies and Shakira enthusiasts that have given people the idea that they can.

/end cattiness

<3

Originally Posted by mish_mish

I am seriously dying for a local hafla scene. It's pretty dead here in that respect. There are not a lot of "safe" places for students to dance and get performance experience. I am seriously considering doing something, but I just don't know if I can handle the financial strain of it.

hey mish it doesn't have to be a financial strain. you can check with local community centers, churches, and dance studios with a big enough space and you can probably get a very low rate if you talk to the right people. we had a great hafla in washington that is at a yacht club. you can do it anywhere there's enough space, you don't need tables and chairs. people can bring pillows, and vendors can bring their own tables. most vendors have tables and racks.

you can charge a $5 or so entry fee, and charge for vending. haflas bring in a lot of supporters, and vendors love haflas because of the number of dancers that are guaranteed to be there. if i were you, i'd go for it. if you don't have something in your area/community that you need, and you're motivated, you should fill the void because you're probably not the only one craving it. find another dancer or two to help you out with promoting, and running the show. pair up a workshop during the day if possible, though most instructors want a guarantee. some will be willing to do just a split, especially if they're more local or already in the area.

i guess this should have been a whole new thread, sorry to go off on such a long tangent. i'm still reading all the posts about the dancer pay, and oversaturation. need to let all that settle in. there are some really great posts on this thread!!!

I have lots of opportunities for my students to perform - at festivals, at dance studio's open houses, at student nights. They are billed as "STUDENTS"
I've seen p-l-e-n-t-y of troupes billed as troupes, when they are obviously students.
I have one student who has been with me who is talented, smart, etc., etc. I have helped her along to go professional. I've spoken to her about all the ethics involved, and she is awesome. She understands and acts appropriately, no undercutting, no running around without a cover up, etc., etc. I am truly proud of her!
I also have some students who asked to be in my company, and I explained in class that it is professional, audition only, they understood....
they just want to perform, and my students are happy doing the three or so things a year to perform for their friends/family/boyfriends, etc.
I've told them about other teachers in town who have "troupes" that are students, and they are welcome to go to them. So far, no one has left for the other teachers, but it is okay if they do.....
I don't hide info from my students, and they respect me for it.

We're having rates talks in the DC Baltimore area.
It has occurred to me that when belly dance is in SO many venues (as it is here)- it makes it less of a "special show" for each restaurant that has it and more of a "oh, they have a belly dancer, too" thing.
If ALL the restaurants can afford to have the same form of entertainment and choose to do so, they are diluting the appeal of the "specialness" of it. Over-saturation.
If the rates are such that a venue has to REALLY want it, and it compensates the dancer well for her time- fewer venues will have it and those venues will really benefit from having it. There would end up being fewer 6 month wonders out there representing the art, too.