22 Things Good Dancers Do Differently

 A dancer blog post has been making the rounds lately and has excellent advice. Here are just a sampling of the gems:

7. Strive to constantly make new discoveries about dancing (rather than waiting to be spoon fed the answers). This is a crucial part of developing your unique perspective and voice. Don’t be a dance robot.
8. Seek out instructors/mentors they mesh with and who push them.
9. Practice the shit out of everything. Does this one need explaining? Of course you’ll need to do high-quality practice, not mindless practice.
10. Disregard their inner critics’ harsh thoughts. Your inner critic is just a little child trying to distract you from doing worthwhile things. Hit the ignore button.

Read the whole article here:
http://rebeccabrightly.com/good-dancers-differently/

Do More With Less - The Power in Simplicity

I have been thinking a lot lately about the phenomenon in the bellydance world of favoring volume over quality. Teachers are pushing students through levels (Six weeks in the beginner level? Welcome to intermediate!) or constantly introducing new concepts in lieu of polishing current skills (because they are bored themselves? are afraid of not being relevant?); and in turn instilling in their students the perceived higher value of lots and lots of movement and variety above the value of honing a manageable set of skills before adding on new things. I am seeing a lack of emphasis on repetition, control, discipline, and intention over flash. In doing so, we undermine a strong work ethic and diminish a sense of pride in the fundamental elements of Good Dance.

At the risk of sounding curmudgeonly and over-dramatic, at the center of it all I think we are failing as a community to nurture a mindful generation of dancers. What we need to make our mantra in this day and age of "sensory overload and on-demand streaming video constantly pumping overwhelming amounts of data into our skulls in a world which honors style-over-substance" is this powerful idea: "Do more with less."

The Five P's of (Bellydance) Hooping!

Shea Brock is a hooper extraordinaire, and wrote a great blog post about "The Five P's of Hooping". Everything about it could be easily translated into bellydance. (Note: I take exception to the "Pass It On", only inasmuch as I think students should go to qualified teachers to learn good technique--students should not teach students, as it perpetuates bad habits. Jamming together for outside of class time, however, can be a great way to get in some extra practice!) Here are a couple snippets from the post, and then the link to the full post is at the bottom of this post. (Pst, the photo to the right is local Seattle bellydancer, Leslie Rosen, who is also a fab hooper and circus arts goddess!)

"1. Practice. I tell my hoopers all the time that hooping is probably 10% talent and 90% repetition. There are very few people I have come across who pick up every move or trick without any problems. You might not land it the first five or fifty tries, but then you will suddenly nail it. Your flow will get smoother the more you hoop. I know it’s hard to believe, but even the pros were clunky and awkward when they began...

2. Patience. It breaks my heart when I see someone pick up a hoop, spin it once and when it falls, storm off declaring “See I can’t hoop!” Learning to hoop is a process. It is a process you are not going to get all at once. You’re not going to learn every trick right away, and most things you’re not going to get on the first try..."


http://www.hooping.org/2012/07/the-5-ps-of-hooping-for-newbies/

Fear of Group Improv - It Gets Better

Recently in class a student asked me how long it took me to feel proficient at tribal group improvisation.  I told her it would be wildly different from person-to-person, depending on previous dance/movement experience, mind-body connection, home practice, etc.  But most important of all? Showing up. Which leads me to a little anecdote about my baby dancer days...

My introduction to tribal style bellydance (live, not the FatChance® videos I had watched avidly) was via Paulette Rees-Denis of Gypsy Caravan.  Up here in Seattle, a gal was hosting monthly workshops with Paulette, where we would get a blissful two or three hours of dancey goodness every 30 days (I was still taking my Am Cab classes weekly, but tribal was my calling!).  I looked forward to it every month. You bellydance whippersnappers growing up in the community today don't know what it was like back then--no tribal for as far as the eye could see. Most people had no idea what it was, and there were only a handful of VHS tapes on the market which taught the basics. We walked uphill both ways in the snow... well, anyway...

Do What You Love...

LifeHacker is a great blog with much wisdom tucked within. I loved this one and thought you might, too.

http://lifehacker.com/5890679/forget-self+improvement

"You can spend your life fretting about how healthy, interesting, or successful you are. In fact, a whole industry depends upon this, and is eager to help you make plans to change.

On the other hand, you might consider simply finding what you love, and letting the rest take care of itself."

What a concept, right?

Your Dance Bag

The first night of every Level 1 class, I do a brief orientation with the students.  We go over simple studio layout (where's the bathroom, water fountain...), etiquette (being on time, no shoes in the studio, etc), how the session will go (that we run in 6-week repeats, finger cymbals week 3...), and I briefly touch on the idea of having a dance bag.  For Level 1 dancers, the bag is super simple--your finger cymbals, water bottle, and notebook.

As your dance world grows, so does your bag!  A little secret: I love bags. Not purses, BAGS. I love shopping for bags, assessing all their internal organizational pockets for their purpose...it goes right along with my love of office supplies and closet organizers, I suppose. I love everything to have its little "home". But I digress...

So once you have progressed past Level 1, what are some other common items to find in your dance bag?  Here is a checklist of potential things to keep in your dance bag at all times:

Wise advice: Let It Go

Gibson Pearl posted this today, and I thought it was beautiful.

This is something I found long ago...I modified it a touch. Maybe it's something you need to hear right now. Maybe you know someone who needs to hear it. In any case...

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There are people who can walk away from you. And hear me when I tell you this:

When people can walk away from you, let them walk.

Your dance vocabulary...

I recently watched Bahaia's "Combinography" video. To be perfectly honest, I wasn't a huge fan of the content overall, but this one line was so well articulated, I had to share it with you!

"Your dance is a way of expressing yourself. Would you like your dance to be more like a poem or an encyclopedia?
While there's a lot of knowledge in an encyclopedia, it might not be as expressive as a poem. A poem takes only a few words. So your dance could take only a few steps and still express more about you than all of the steps you know which could fill an encyclopedia."

Yes! I often remind my students that one really meaningfully executed move, done with intention and passion, can be far more enthralling than the same move done three or four times with nothing behind it.

Be a poem! Thanks, Bahaia!

Teachers - by T. Thorn Coyle

T. Thorn Coyle posted this over on her Facebook and I enjoyed it so much that, with her permission, I wanted to share it here with you all. Don't know who Thorn is? Why, she is one of the original members of FatChance (pictured right with Paulette, at the Ancient Echoes Retreat), and while she doesn't dance much these days, she is a big part of the tribal family tree.

Read other thoughts by Thorn HERE

At the gym this morning, my body, mind, and emotions felt engaged. My breath was working and energy was flowing. My muscles strained and my heart pumped. I felt really good. There were some things that just felt strong in the workout, and other things I could barely do today, but did them anyway, as I was able to sense the ways in which they were helping me to grow more powerful.

Sound familiar? Yes. It is the same with any practice: the stretching, the engagement, the feeling good, and the feeling at the edge of our comfort zone.

My workouts last week were nothing like this. I was doing things by rote, and because I felt I should. My mind and emotions were not very engaged, though I made attempts at being present and aware, and at moving energy, because I have enough other training to do so. The contrast with this morning was huge. Last week, I had to try to harness and move energy, this week, the energy just moved, and I could concentrate on controlling where it went, and on moving my body in a more finely tuned fashion. It felt great.

What made the difference? I got a teacher.

Costuming for tribal dancers

This summer my students performed in a neighborhood parade, and some newer students had to invest in their first dance costuming to participate. One student asked some great questions, and I wanted to share my thoughts with her, with you!

Q. "How do you manage the colors and patterns and stuff? Do you go for the same color, or complimentary colors? How do you keep things looking put together and elegant and fun instead of looking busy and tacky? I mean, I don't want to buy a nice hip scarf only to find down the road that it clashes with everything!"

Teaching/learning to take criticism...

Criticism really is a double-edged sword. It can be so hard to hear, and so difficult to parse into something motivating. Yet as performers, it is part of our job to do just that. From an early age I studied theater and dance, and it was always parroted in my ear to "get a thick skin". The implication was that we eventually develop some kind of emotional armor where criticism just bounces off and we ignore it. But that is not a productive or wise way to approach criticism, because critique can be a tool to bettering ourselves. Shutting it out is counter-productive on every level. A better approach is to learn how to let the constructive information in, and leave the emotional reaction at the gates.

"Constructive criticism is criticism kindly meant that has a goal of improving some area of another person’s life or work. Often constructive criticism refers specifically to the critique of someone else’s written or artistic work, in perhaps a teacher/student setting, that would allow that person to further improve the work or to improve their approach to future endeavors." (Wisegeek.com )

Ah if only all criticism were "kindly meant"! But for now, let's focus our energies on these kinds of criticisms: honestly constructive critiques from our mentors, close peers, family, and friends.

Clay pots...

We shape clay into a pot,
but it is the emptiness inside
that holds whatever we want.
~The Tao Te Ching

In essence, we must become a shape ready to hold what we want. Build the structure of your daily existence that prepares you for the life you want most.

What do you want most?

Make it impossible to say "no"...

I tried to link this directly, but for some reason the link was completely jacked and wouldn't show me the essay on its own. I didn't want to link you just to the blog and then make you scroll to look for the article in question, so I have posted it here in its entirety. But please stop by the original poster's blog at http://tipsfromthehip.blogspot.com/ and express your appreciation if you like the essay.

In the article below, really like the idea of framing new ideas in such a way that it is not a black and white "fail/succeed". As a teacher, my instincts are often to give my students all these up-front provisos and caveats and warnings when they are trying something new, to try and help them understand that it may be difficult and to encourage them to not to be frustrated by the attempt should they not "get it" right away. But really, aren't I just setting up an expectation for frustration or failure by planting that seed at the outset? Would it be better to practice the "Daughers of Rhea Way", and simply say "try it"? Read on and let me know what you think...

Tying it all together: soft addictions

Jonathan Fields from Awake at the Wheel posts again about social media replacing actual living, which ties nicely into both my recent post on that very topic AND the soft addictions post from less than a day ago:

"People keep talking about what a huge time sink social media can become…

But, I’ve noticed something else happening with increasing frequency. It seems like more and more bloggers and social media regulars are actually living their lives through social media, rather than living extraordinary lives outside of social media and blogging, then tapping it as a means to share their experiences with a like-minded community online."

Read more at http://www.jonathanfields.com/blog/into-the-social-media-abyss/

Soft Addictions

Thanks to Andrea Wagnon for linking me up to this over on Facebook!
http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=52408

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Do mindless activity and bad habits have a hold on you? Get the tow truck, you're in a rut.

By Jeanie Lerche Davis
WebMD Feature
Published Feb. 18, 2004

Downtime is America's favorite pastime. We zone out via television, the Internet, shopping, parties, movies, hanging out, and working out. Sure, some are bad habits; some are "therapy." Most are escapes from a gerbil-wheel life.

That's when it hits you: Is this all there is?

Teaching dancers ethics and responsibility...

This topic has come out of a discussion that is being bandied about on one of our local discussion groups here in Washington. One of the many micro-topics within it had to do with the idea that dance need not be specifically a performance art. That it is in fact many things to many people, and not all of these people are interested in performing. I agree with that, and elaborated...

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I remember from when I first started teaching, it was really really important to me to make sure my students understood that this dance could be just for them if they wanted, and that no one was pushed or expected to perform it. I know for me, while I have always been a performer (lifetime background in theater, music, gymnastics, and Western dance forms), there were non-performance facets to this dance that were so important to me! Particularly being a tribal group improvisational dancer, this dance is so fun as a modern folk dance, which can be a social group dance at any gathering where the other dancers know the movements and cues. I have always loved dancing by the fire among fellow dancers, just jamming, not putting on a show for anyone! When I host open dance parties, I am trying to foster that free spirit of joy and sharing among other dancers, which has nothing to do with performance in the least.

I would add this food for thought, and would love to hear other teachers' take on it:

Developing your dance...

I was tracking linkbacks and blog followers this morning and through a series of clicks I ran across a post by dancer Heather Sara from Newfoundland. She was writing about solo'ing, but more generally about how to bring her dance to a new level of polish and professionalism. I really appreciated her thoughts on it from the perspective of one doing solos or choreography, and have included a cut of a portion of this detailed blog post herein. The full post is at the link.

By Heather Sara:
"I read a snippet from an interview with Zoe Jakes recently and all of the things she said really stuck with me:

'Develop yourself as a soloist. Find your own creative voice and practice, practice, practice. Also, Find ways to get comfortable onstage, do haflas and renaissance faires. Make your own costumes, or at least have a heavy creative hand in the process. And try your hardest to not lose sight of why you are dancing, getting too wrapped up in a goal can sometimes make you forget to enjoy the process.'

Art Is A Verb, Not A Noun

http://www.artadvice.com/advice/article20.php

"Most people don't realize how much courage it takes for an artist to show their work to people. Courage, as defined by Mark Twain, is not the lack of fear, but rather being able to move forward in spite of it. In my previous article, If You Are Addicted, I introduce the notion that there is a difference between making art and making a painting (sculpture, photography, or whatever your medium is)...

As I define it, art is the activity that occurs in the space that exists between my eyeballs and that object you have created. It is the interaction between the collective experiences in my brain, as I process the way you have chosen to express the collective experiences in your brain. It is only when this exchange takes place, that your work becomes art. It is when you share your creation with the outside world that you truly become an artist. "

Harlan Ellison tells it straight up!!!

OMG I LOVE THIS!

Several folks on my Twitter feed linked to this, and I adore adore adore it. It is SO true for all aspects of art and work. We deserve to be be paid, people! And if we don't all stand up and say "I deserve money for my hard work," we won't get it!

Know Your Venue:

Know Your Venue
A fantastic article by Seattle's own Laura Rose on considerations one must take into account when planning a performance.