There´s a lot of talk about technique, style, expression, feeling, knowing "your craft" and the whole luggage of a Dancer´s wagon. There´s also some hidden - forgotten or unnoticed - issues that REALLY do wonders when it comes to the final result of a performance.
Forget about the Invisible Technique (all the students who have studied with me for a while KNOW*
what I´m talking about) and the love making between music and your body. Those are all great but I still see another pearls floating - like the tiniest stars - in this endless galaxy of Oriental Dance world.
Moods and dresses: here they are.
*The MOOD of each song is a very IMPORTANT - and ignored - issue when it comes to performing on stage. In Egypt, my musicians know - with no need for any request from my side - that I need a couple of minutes to GET in the MOOD of each song. They give me that time - simply because they are experienced musicians used to work with professional dancers for decades and also because they are egyptians and moody themselves. They KNOW what I´m talking about.
The mood required to dance an Om Kolthoum piece is not the same as the mood required for a "shaaby" tableau; the mood for Abdel Halim Hafez cannot be the same as the mood for a "baladi" improvisation and so on.
There´s a kind of spontaneous acting process in this whole matter. Like a GOOD actor, a dancer has to let her-himself dig into the character, context, MOOD of each song - and egyptian music offers a LOT of moods, styles, contexts. It´s almost like allowing the spirit of the people you´re representing enter your body and speak through it during the dance.Ignoring the MOOD differences between each style, song and specific moment cuts a LOT of quality, authenticity, variety and Magic* to your performance.
* The DRESSES: I know it´s a temptation we all fall once we start to study Oriental Dance. The bling, the sparkle, the embroideries and the fancy dresses that, frequently, reach an "haute couture" level of beauty and complexity...Oh, I know...
Yet, as time and experience go by, I see I started to search for SIMPLICITY, LIGHTNESS, COMFORT and COHERENCE much more than beautiful and impressive dresses that make me look like a Christmas tree and take the attention of my audience.
I noticed I started to search for dresses that FEEL GOOD on the body - much more than LOOKING good on the body. Dresses that are easy to put on and off (important point when you´re doing entire 1h or 1,30h shows with two or three cloth´s changes), light and not painful (as many dresses I bought and remained, abandoned, in the closet).
Dresses that allow your dance to come through as the most important thing of the perfomance - not taking all the attention of your audience for themselves (in detriment of your dance and talent).
Dresses that are suited for each style - also helping you to express the specific mood, feeling, character and musical universe of each style and song. Wearing a "gallabeya" while dancing a classical piece is not the most appropriate or intelligent thing to do because it does not show all the details of movements existent in this style and it´s also out of its universe.
Dancing a Saiidi with an over exposed dress is also not a cool thing to do: you may as well end up showing your panties and more* (not the kind of memory you want your audience to retain - in case you´re an artist).
If I could, I would dance naked- I found out that is the natural "clothing" for Dance. The body is totally free and the FOCUS is on the DANCER - not on the DRESS.
I know it´s easier to just look beautiful and let the dress take part of the responsability for your success but I find it useless, somehow.
The BIG challenge is not to focus on looking great but on DANCING GREAT - in a way that turns any dress (even the most beautiful in the world) into a bonus of the performance, NOT the performance in itself.
No comments:
Post a Comment