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Oct. 26th, 2004 11:19 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alonewiththemoonAs posted last night, I was inexplicably anxious about going to class last night, and then it turned out that class was very good. I had a complete "AH-HA!!!" moment with some technique that I've been having trouble with, and then after one of our improv sessions Amira Jamal said to me "So you already knew that song and knew a choreography to it?" Me: "er, no, I was just doing stuff." That made me feel pretty darn good.
It is a little odd being in her class right now, because there's some community tension that is spilling over into the class. Not tension between people per se, but styles. There's a distinctive American style of belly dance that incorporates influences from several different sources--Turkish, Greek, Armenian, Lebanese, "gyspy," etc. Basically an amalgam of styles practiced by people who came to the US since WWII, with some American showmanship thrown in for good measure. It tends to be flashy and showy with lots of energy. More recently in the US, there has been an increased focus on Egyptian style belly dance, which is a little more introspective, internally-driven (muscularly speaking) and tightly controlled. It's a bit more about effectively embodying the music than about being an entertainer. I personally prefer dancing in the more Egyptian style (as interpreted here in the US--I don't claim to be especially authentic or anything), but I enjoy watching all of it and I don't think any one style is more or less valid as an artform than any other. However, there are a lot of divas out there who feel that whatever they do has to be the absolute best, and so they denigrate the other style. American style dancers are told that their dancing is made-up and inauthentic and meaningless, and Egyptian style dancers are told that their dancing is boring and too restrained and tradition-bound. Naturally noses get out of joint, because who likes to be told any of those things about an art form that you may have dedicated years of your life to? So Amira Jamal, while she is teaching Egyptian style so that her students will be able to get work in the Arab clubs, seems pretty hyper sensitive about the issue. She's often putting down Egyptian style even as she's teaching it, saying things like if the audience isn't bored, then you aren't doing it right or people who dance Egyptian style are really just afraid to dance on stage so they do this style that doesn't require them to move around much. It's often very hard not to take it personally. I recognize that she's largely trying to protect her students from feeling like the American style that they have been learning is inferior, and I know that insulting people in the room is the last thing on her mind--she's an excellent teacher. But still, sometimes I find myself just gritting my teeth to get through it all, and I'm sure that was a big part of my anxiety last night before class.
Busy dance schedule coming up--Za-Beth's holiday hafli Dec. 5 (two numbers by Sarab), Amira Jamal's recital Dec. 11 (I'm doing a solo and at least one group number), the return of Kabarett 16-Bit sometime in Dec or Jan, and then ManRay in Jan. Dance dance dance!
It is a little odd being in her class right now, because there's some community tension that is spilling over into the class. Not tension between people per se, but styles. There's a distinctive American style of belly dance that incorporates influences from several different sources--Turkish, Greek, Armenian, Lebanese, "gyspy," etc. Basically an amalgam of styles practiced by people who came to the US since WWII, with some American showmanship thrown in for good measure. It tends to be flashy and showy with lots of energy. More recently in the US, there has been an increased focus on Egyptian style belly dance, which is a little more introspective, internally-driven (muscularly speaking) and tightly controlled. It's a bit more about effectively embodying the music than about being an entertainer. I personally prefer dancing in the more Egyptian style (as interpreted here in the US--I don't claim to be especially authentic or anything), but I enjoy watching all of it and I don't think any one style is more or less valid as an artform than any other. However, there are a lot of divas out there who feel that whatever they do has to be the absolute best, and so they denigrate the other style. American style dancers are told that their dancing is made-up and inauthentic and meaningless, and Egyptian style dancers are told that their dancing is boring and too restrained and tradition-bound. Naturally noses get out of joint, because who likes to be told any of those things about an art form that you may have dedicated years of your life to? So Amira Jamal, while she is teaching Egyptian style so that her students will be able to get work in the Arab clubs, seems pretty hyper sensitive about the issue. She's often putting down Egyptian style even as she's teaching it, saying things like if the audience isn't bored, then you aren't doing it right or people who dance Egyptian style are really just afraid to dance on stage so they do this style that doesn't require them to move around much. It's often very hard not to take it personally. I recognize that she's largely trying to protect her students from feeling like the American style that they have been learning is inferior, and I know that insulting people in the room is the last thing on her mind--she's an excellent teacher. But still, sometimes I find myself just gritting my teeth to get through it all, and I'm sure that was a big part of my anxiety last night before class.
Busy dance schedule coming up--Za-Beth's holiday hafli Dec. 5 (two numbers by Sarab), Amira Jamal's recital Dec. 11 (I'm doing a solo and at least one group number), the return of Kabarett 16-Bit sometime in Dec or Jan, and then ManRay in Jan. Dance dance dance!
