Sometimes you just need an idea. Whether it’s something fresh to motivate you for a personal practice session, planning a class or something to spark a solution for a section of choreography. Those are good times to think out of the box. Having a few prompts on hand can help you get started. Let’s look at one and some ways you can use it. Prompt: Choose a shape and see how many ways you can express it. We […]
Does your brain get it? Anyone who’s been in a class or workshop with me has probably heard me say this when checking in with students. Once I’ve presented and broken down a combo or section of choreography, I ask if their brain gets it before we move on. So what exactly do I mean by that? In short, your body takes orders from your brain when dancing so if your brain doesn’t fully understand the instructions […]
Let’s begin at the end this time. Have you ever set to working on a bellydance choreography and found that you competely lost track of time? Ideas are coming, you’re jumping forward and backward in the music as you find the movement that is the perfect fit of musicality and style. Ahhh… flow is a wondrous thing. The “flow” state, as described by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in his TED talk, is that lost-in-the-work feeling you get […]
At a bellydance event, I recently overheard one dancer remark to another that she thought that the performer they were watching had “bad musicality”. Putting aside questionable politeness, was does that mean anyway? We have discussed musicality in the Daily Bellydance Quickies many times and in many ways. Loosely defined, it is the ability to illustrate the music with movement. It can include larger elements such as instrument sound textures down to the tiny details of accents and […]
Bellydance puts a lot of focus on the hips and torso, but like a house with a beautiful second floor balcony, it needs a strong first floor to support it. We may not be as hard on our feet as ballet dancers, but we depend on the muscles and ligaments of our lower legs and feet to help us glide gracefully, turn safely and transfer weight smoothly. Some basic understanding of the structure and musculature of […]