GETTING THE MOST OUT OF DANCE CLASSES: APPROACHING LEARNING WITH INTENTION

The chorus at the London Palladium, 1950's

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 Most of us attend dance classes and workshops regularly, and many of us also teach them.  It goes without saying that for dancers, being a perpetual student- no matter what your level- expanding your horizons and pushing your physical boundaries is what it’s all about!  We take classes for a variety of reasons: to improve our technique, to learn a certain choreography or a new style, to hone aspects of a dance genre that we already perform, because we get a chance to study with a local or visiting master, or just because we need to move.

 Because dance presents a challenge that is mental as well as physical, we can never truly stop learning.  And of course, if you want to push yourself, you should take as many classes as possible.  But that’s not always the case.  Sometimes, entering the studio for class with a specific intention in mind will help you grow even more as a dancer. Taking classes to consciously improve on your weaker areas will ultimately make you a stronger dancer.

Sometimes I’ve spoken with dance instructors who are hesitant to take workshops alongside their students, for fear of looking bad.  While that might be a somewhat valid consideration, the main point is that nobody should feel bad about learning!  It’s also a terrific way to set a model for your students, showing them that there is no limit to improving themselves. This is especially true if they’re at that “advanced intermediate” stage where they think they know it all; you know, that little peak that occurs before they find out that there will never be enough hours…or years…or decades to learn everything?  Learning humility and being open to challenges are as much a part of dancing as the movements themselves!

The way I see it, there are many and varied reasons for taking classes, but if you define your purpose for going to a particular class, you’ll get a lot more out of it.

Here’s the way I break down my own needs and what I want to accomplish by taking certain classes:

Technique Maintenance And Improvement

 There are no boundaries for improving your technique- there’s always something new to learn. Longtime professionals and famous dancers take classes often, if not daily, for this reason alone. Just look at any ballet company-everyday classes are mandatory. Did Mikhail Baryshnikov and Suzanne Farrell ever skip a day at the barre? Probably not. Did Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire slack off on rehearsing cause they had better things to do? Doubtful. Though great dance technique is not strictly Use It Or Lose It, the more you actually use it, the better it will be!

No matter what level dancer you are, the experience of being in a class solely to hone your technique will make you a better dancer. While practicing or rehearsing on our own, we strive and sweat and get things done. But knowing that  in class, you are  performing under the watchful eye of an instructor is different- it pushes us to  focus and work a little harder…and to accept corrections or make little tweaks in execution that we might not have noticed on our own.

Learning And Inspiration

 Nothing gets a dancer’s brain synapses firing like learning a new style. We want it all, and we want it now! Many studies have proven that dancing of any kind helps to increase cognitive abilities in people of all ages…and most of them have shown that dancing was the only physical activity that actually staves off Alzheimer’s!

 Aside from that, learning a new type of dance or being inspired by another dancer’s interpretation is thrilling.  The movement differentiation that comes with studying a new dance form is a welcome challenge and is usually lots of fun.  If you’re used to soloing, try a partner dance like tango, swing or square dancing.  If you’re trained in classical ballet, test-drive some street dancing.

 Even if you’re studying a genre you’re already familiar with, seeing how another dancer-the one you’re learning from- moves will motivate you to look at your own technique in a whole new way. Often, breaking out of our own personal boxes and becoming an eager newbie once again will stimulate our creativity and encourage us to excel both in class and in our own familiar genre of dance.

Improving Retention And Sharpening Motor Skills

Some of us prefer choreography to improvisation or vice-versa, but for right now, that’s a moot point. Taking a choreography class (or learning a choreography for a show) is a terrific way to think on your feet, improve your cognitive abilities and aid your retention skills. For many of us, memorizing  choreographed sequences or intricate combinations is a bit of a downfall, but the good news is that with time and practice, you get better at it. This occurs because your brain is actually learning this process through repetition.  Once you’ve mastered this type of study- even unconsciously- it makes it much easier for your brain to apply this skill in the future.

 Another plus is that every time you learn a choreography that someone else has written, you’re opened up to a whole new way of seeing and hearing things. Even in a dance genre you’re quite familiar with, musicality  (and personal style) is a highly individual thing, there’s not any right or wrong. It’s stimulating to see that everyone hears the music-and interprets the phrases-differently. While you might think of hitting accents at a certain point in a musical composition, another dancer might slide right through them and save the dynamic rhythmic references for elsewhere.  At first this might be maddening, because we've learned to rely on own instincts, but ultimately it’s refreshing. When you become used to these little  “surprises” by working with a number of new choreographies, it opens up a world of new possibilities, by breaking down any conscious or unconscious preconceived notions you have about dancing. Even if you never plan on performing the piece you’re learning, it helps you to grow as an artist.

 Advancing Performance Abilities

 As I said before, everyone hears music differently, but they also feel, respond to and interpret it in their own individual ways. This can be an incredible learning experience for you, too. By witnessing someone else emoting to a composition, whether it’s a set gesture done as part of choreography or just a fleeting, genuine moment of emotion, it can be quite illuminating.

If you’re learning or enhancing an ethnic dance genre, such as belly dance, flamenco or samba, watching your instructor respond to the music itself- or lyrics that are sung in a foreign language-is invaluable. The classes you take to improve your performance skills don’t even have to be movement-oriented. I always recommend acting classes or workshops to my students, because they get you in tune with accessing your emotions and will help you to build confidence for your non-verbal performances in dance. 

Last but not least, the more familiar and comfortable you become with  your own dancing, the easier it will be to let the music move you and let your unique feelings shine through…and that is  the key to what makes a good dancer a great dancer.

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Get a signed copy of The Belly Dance Handbook: A Companion For The Serious Dancer here: www.princessfarhana.com

Photo and graphics by Maharet Hughes

  To get a Tarot card reading from me or to check out what I do when I’m not dancing, click here: http://www.pleasantgehman.com/

TIPS FOR MIND-BENDING BELLY FLUTTERS

Photo by Maharet Hughes

The question I  probably get asked most frequently is how I get my abdominal flutters so strong, even, sustained and large enough to see from the back of the room- no matter what size the venue is. First of all, my flutters do not come from an ability to move my abdominal muscles in and out quickly.  I could definitely do that… but if I was engaging my abs by pulling them in and out super-fast, then I wouldn’t be able to layer belly rolls with my flutters, a movement that I call the  “flundulation”.

I’m going to share a few tips to my super-human flutters with you.  With a little ok, a lot- of practice, you’ll be able to achieve mind-bending flutters yourself.

The main secret for  "alien belly",wild-looking flutters is to keep your  abdominal muscles soft and relaxed, while your skeleton remains in standard dance posture- pelvis neutral with the tailbone tucked slightly towards the floor, ribcage lifted, and shoulders back and down. This sounds a lot easier than it actually is!

 Think about it: our abdominal muscles are constantly engaged, whether we’re conscious of it or not.  When enter in performance, our abs are always engaged- we’ve been trained to do that!  When we walk into a party or social gathering, we automatically pull up into a regal posture, without even thinking about it. Trying on a costume or an item in a store’s dressing room, we immediately suck in our stomachs. 

Letting our bellies remain relaxed is completely conditioned out of us by society, so it might take you a while to get the hang of keeping your skeleton engaged and your abdominal muscles soft. When I was training to do this- and I taught myself, no one showed me- I’d place my hands on my sides, actually hooking my fingers just under my top ribs, so I could really feel my ribcage staying lifted as I let my belly go soft.  It looks kinda dorky, but try it- it works!

After you’ve gotten comfortable with that, it’s time to discover your diaphragm, which is the place of initiation for all my flutters.  The diaphragm, the large, major muscle that controls our breathing, is strong and kinda dome-shaped, sitting in the lower middle of your torso. Though we’re usually not aware of it, the diaphragm contracts rhythmically as we breathe as we breathe in and out. But if you concentrate, you can control the diaphragm- like when you breathe in deeply, holding your breath before diving into water. Think of your diaphragm as an inflatable ball. It fills up as you inhale and deflates when you exhale.   So you can feel it in motion, place your hand on your diaphragm and breath slowly and deeply.

 Once you’ve located your diaphragm and felt it moving naturally, try it a few times with conscious control, breathing in and out slowly and deeply as you keep your skeleton lifted and your abdominal muscles soft and un-engaged.  Now, try exhaling sharply, cutting the diaphragm’s muscle movement off. You’ve done this correctly if you feel a little clutch or catch.  Repeat this a few times, allowing yourself a couple of moments of regular breathing in between so you don’t get all light-headed and dizzy.

 A word to the wise: while many people advocate catching your breath and “cutting it off” at the throat, I don’t advocate this practice. Not only are the little “catches” you make while doing that visible to the audience, the movements also can cause the tendons in the neck to pop out and look sort of stringy and ugly…even on younger dancers! 

Instead, try to visualize that little clutch or catch staying  just at the top of your ribs, directly under your cleavage…or, if you're a guy, directly under and between your man-candy pectoral muscles.

 Remember, the diaphragm is one of the strongest muscles in our body; it’s in constant use as we breathe. If you repeat these practice movements even just a few times a day, the strength in your diaphragm will build up at lightening speed…and soon, you will have a flutter that the audience can see from the back of the room!

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 If you liked finding out a bit about abdominal technique here, then you’ll LOVE my instructional DVD, “ABS-olutely Fabulous”- it’s packed with info on flutters, belly rolls, and undulations!  Get it here:

http://www.princessfarhana.com/shop.htm

SMALL FRY: DANCING FOR CHILDREN

 In the past month, I’ve gotten two of the best tips I’ve ever received in over two decades of belly dancing.  They  weren’t  crisp hundred dollar bills,  large bouquets of flowers or earrings made of 14 karat gold… though I’ve been lucky enough to get all of those and more. One of the tips was a grubby Sponge Bob  pencil eraser, tucked into my belt by a five year old boy. The other was a small piece of pita bread offered by a toddler, who was imitating  the  behavior of the adults around him.

Children are the best audiences ever- they’re my  favorite audience!

 Throughout my career, I’ve danced for thousands of kids.  I often joke that most of my biggest fans are the smallest people- kids under the age of  ten- but it’s true! When I tell people I love dancing for kids, sometimes they look at me oddly… for a couple of reasons.

First is that in addition to performing straight-ahead Egyptian-style belly dance, within the belly dance community, I have become known for  my fusion performances, and some of them have been considered very controversial.  But I never  perform anything other than  family-style show unless I know for sure that there will not be children present.

Second, outside of the  belly dance world, many well-educated people still  fall prey to the usual  stereotypes, marginalizing our art as either a seductive ritual or cheesy novelty.  Whether male or female, I can literally see their  “civilian” brains  going into over-drive, conjuring up  images straight out of a  Sinbad or James Bond movie.  They imagine me doing “The Dance Of The Seven Veils” in shadowy, smoke-filled hashish den while leering villains in ornate turbans throw solid gold coins, making plans to carry me away on their flying carpets to a life of slavery in an exotic harem…yeah, right!

I explain something that probably doesn’t need to be clarified here: in  Middle Eastern and North African cultures, the movements of belly dancing are performed by non-professionals as a an integral part of weddings, family gatherings and baby christenings, and women’s parties. When they hear I, like most belly dancers, usually do shows for families, including children, their jaws drop a few inches.

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Since I am still  the featured performer in  the same restaurant that gave me my very first job  almost twenty-five years ago, I not only dance for children on a regular basis, but I’ve have had the extraordinary privilege and pleasure of seeing a good portion of my audience grow up, go to college, get married and have their own kids! It’s impossible to estimate the amount of autographs I’ve signed on paper napkins, and for years my refrigerator has been plastered with primitive crayon portraits  and misspelled fan letters painstakingly written in block letters.

Children are the world’s most pure and unsullied audience, and that goes for every kind of performing art.  They don’t need any sort of suspension of disbelief to be moved by a belly dance show, they are happy enough with a swirling pastiche of dancing women, sparkly costumes, loud music and excitement. Children simply  don’t have the pre-conceived notions that adults do, they  just love being entertained. They know nothing of sexualized stereotypes or judgments that have to do with weight, age, racial  or cultural  prejudice.  They let out wild squeals of unbridled joy the moment a dancer appears.  Not only that, because of their candor, kids will often left you know exactly what they’re thinking.

Due to  “truth factor” in relations with kiddies, sometimes the biggest obstacle for me when I’m interacting with or performing for the small set is to stop myself from bursting into laughter because of their totally logical yet completely innocent observations!  As the Sixties-era television host Art Linkletter used to declare, “Kids say the darndest things”.  Thanks to Walt Disney, I’ve been called Princess Jasmine more times than I can count, but some of the exchanges I’ve had left me laughing for days.

I remember a seven-year-old girl who visited me in my dressing room after a show one night. While she played with my finger cymbals, she very regretfully told me that she could never be a belly dancer because she didn’t have “those round things or those black things”.

  I told her that those “round things” were called finger cymbals and explained that anyone, even she, could have them because they were a belly dance accoutrement that anyone could purchase.

“ But I still don’t have those black things,” she sighed forlornly, shaking her head.

“What black things do you mean?” I asked, utterly confused.

 Rolling her eyes as though I was the stupidest person on earth, she pointed directly to my false eyelashes. When I told her that they were fake, just a part of my stage make-up, and explained how they were applied, she leaned in very close to me, cocked her head

towards the dining room and whispered conspiratorially,

“Everybody out there thinks they’re real!”

 Standing costumed in a hallway just after a show, a little charmer of about five gave the once-over to my sword partner Samra and me and observed,

 “You guys look just like genies… but with legs!”

It took us a moment to realize that she meant legs…. as opposed to the smoke rising from a magic lamp!

 Another time, a little boy ( the nephew of another dancer I worked with frequently) burst into our dressing room to visit us before we went on. Unaccustomed to seeing his aunt in costume, he  stared at our Egyptian finery with his mouth hanging open in shock and exclaimed,

 “Hey, where’d you guys get the all the diamonds?”

 And speaking of being an aunt, I discovered that my baby niece Olivia  had definitely gotten the belly dance gene.

 When she was a toddler, her vocabulary only consisted of an only few words…or so we thought. One night she shocked our entire family with her first full sentence.  As I walked into the room, she cheerfully greeted from her high chair with:

“Hi Auntie-big earrings!”

 Visiting Disneyland when she was three, we almost got kicked off  “ It’s A Small World.” As our boat floated by the Middle Eastern countries, she jumped to her feet, scrambled on top of the bench, pointed at a veiled mannequin and screamed,

“It’s my Auntie!”

 As if on cure, the ride ground to a halt, the music cut out, and a booming voice came over the loudspeaker,

“THE CHILD MUST SIT DOWN!”

 Olivia’s obsession with the dance continued to grow as she did. We’re  talkin’ about a little girl who got elaborate hand made mini-costumes for every birthday…but somehow, it just wasn’t enough.   We were spending   a cool spring afternoon together, about to go to her favorite park.  As I went to another room to get our jackets, she pouted obstinately,

“I DON’T WANNA GO TO THE SWINGS!”

   I was about to placate her the way one normally would with a four year old, but   almost had a heart attack as I re-entered the room.  She stood in the middle of the living room, completely naked… except for one of my rhinestone tiaras sitting askew on her head. Her play clothes lay in a heap at her feet.  In each hand, she held an unsheathed sword- my full-sized, heavy, sharp scimitars. They were bigger than she was, and she swung them around dangerously.

“I just wanna stay here and play dress up with you!” she whimpered.

Feeling my face drain of color, I cajoled, 

“ Ok, sure honey! Whatever you want! Can you put the swords down for Auntie? “

Once, at a wedding, a little girl of about nine  asked if I was really and truly a princess.

 “Why of course I am,” I answered, not wanting to wreck the illusion.

Growing skeptical, hands on hips, she asked me to prove it.

I knew what would verify my claim. Unbelievably, the California DMV allowed me to pose for my driver’s license photo while wearing a large  rhinestone tiara. When I whipped this out of my wallet as “proof” of my royal lineage, she gasped sharply, her eyes widening as she meekly asked,

“ Do you live in a real castle? Can I visit you?”

 Backpedaling quickly, told her that when I was “visiting” California, I lived in a regular house, just like everybody else.

 Far and away one of my most cherished memories is of Timmy, a Canadian four- year- old whom I met while he was in LA with his family, visiting relatives. Timmy fell in love with me at first sight. He swooned as he watched me pass by in costume, and scrawled illegible love notes to me on placemats, which he sent to my dressing room via a very patient waiter.

When I came out to dance, his eyes bugged out of his head. He grabbed fistfuls of his own hair, held a hand over his mouth as if to stifle a scream, and bounced uncontrollably in his seat. He snatched dollars from his mom and ardently stuffed them into my belt, and when he ran out of his own money, he picked it up off the floor as well as personally soliciting it from diners at other tables, much to their amusement.

 Later in the evening, his apologetic mom asked if I would dance once more, as he’d been pestering her throughout the entire meal, asking if I would perform again.

 Of course, I obliged. When the music started, his excited squeals could be heard throughout the entire restaurant.  Making my entrance, I decided to make him feel special by draping my veil around his tiny shoulders. The moment I did this, he let out an earth-shattering shriek that could probably be heard down the block and then he yelled,

“MOMMY! THE LADY LET ME HOLD HER BLANKET!

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 Purchase a signed copy of “The Belly Dance Handbook”  by Princess Farhana   here:

http://www.princessfarhana.com/shop.htm

Photo & design by Maharet Hughes/ Graphic Vibe LA