Introduction
Most folks joining a bellydance class in the US start out learning isolations, steps, and movements. We may be lucky enough to have a teacher who makes us aware of different rhythms, or even luckier to have a teacher who grew up in MENAHT culture and shares this context. But at the introductory level, most classes in the US focus on coordination and combinations, and frustratingly few areas of the country have MENAHT teachers offering classes.
Technique is a great start! The trouble comes when students get the impression that technique is all there is to this dance. Worse yet, many teachers do not trust their students to be willing to learn more than choreographies. In the end, students miss out on some of the best things this dance has to offer!
If this has been your education so far, you might wonder, what else is there to learn? Simply put, all the fun stuff! It is fun to do a hip circle, and it feels good. But you know what's even more fun?
To feel the buzz of the music moving your hips.
To turn off your inner critic and let the present moment fill your brain as you improvise.
To learn or revel in, depending on your background, the cultural aesthetic values and way of seeing and valuing art that raqs sharki is embedded in and shaped by.
To connect with classmates.
To connect with people across continents as you are moved by a variety of music in Arabic, Turkish, Greek, Persian, and more languages, and full of many different cultural contexts.
To communicate something beyond words with your audience.
To develop confidence in your choices, and trust in your instincts.
None of that has much to do with technique.....
My Process
When I first started teaching, I had a tendency to "info dump", I would want to tell students everything I knew, partially out of excitement for the material and partially from a fear that they might not stick around long enough for me to make sure they knew important things. That fear turned into a self fulfilling prophesy, as students would get overwhelmed and looked for simpler hobbies. So I sat myself down and broke up what should be taught at each level of dance.
To do this, I started with the professional level, and worked my way down. I made a list of skills and knowledge a good representative of the art and an entertaining performer would need. That included things like putting together an entertaining set, but also knowing what is appropriate to perform for clients from a variety of cultures and the ability to give soundbites if interviewed about the dance. That told me what sort of content master classes would have in them.
Then I asked "what does someone need to already know in order for it to be reasonable for them to learn this?" The answer to that question became what needed to be taught in advanced classes. Then I looked at that list and asked the same question. That answer became what needed to be taught in intermediate classes. Repeat for beginner and I had to look at the list and ask: "is it too big a leap to go from what most folks come into their first class with, to learning these things?" The answer was a giant YES! So I added an introductory level. That framework created a level system intended for organizing my classes.
The names of each level aren't important. What is important is how things build. You can think of this in terms of technique, sure. It would be setting students up for frustration and failure to ask them to layer a shimmy over a traveling hip circle without teaching each of those components on their own and giving them time to integrate the moves into their muscle memory. But we also build from "hey, it would be fun to dance like Shakira" to "let me tell you about the role of Turkish Kocheks' refusal to pay taxes in bringing the Awalim back to Cairo!" and from "oh, I couldn't wear that, I just came because Ana asked me to go with her" to "honey, you KNOW I look better in bedlah!"
How Did We Get Here?
That bolded list above all sounds so worth it! So why do some classes never get past technique? Well, back in ye olden-times (for the US, read 50s - 70s) dancers learned on the job, by watching each other and imitating later (with their own flair added, of course) and by sitting in with the band as part of the percussion section. In the 70s, some schools started to open, but they didn't have the same sort of technique focus most modern classes do. A few things came together to change this. One major influence was the fitness trend that took over after 9/11. Throughout the 80s and 90s MENAHT owned nightclubs had been struggling with changing entertainment behaviors (more people preferring TV to a night out) and an aging diaspora clientele. After 9/11, most of the surviving nightclubs couldn't make ends meet in the face of the tide of anti-Arab bigotry. This lead lots of dancers (not all) to teaching and to minimizing the cultural context of the dance to stay afloat. When you do the same move over and over*, like in a fitness focused class, posture and alignment become more important in order to avoid repetitive motion injuries. (*Compare that to learning to dance by simply being a child and imitating your older relatives at parties.)
There is also the very legitimate impact of dancers who spent years dancing long shows every night without the benefit of technique study, often doing Turkish drops on the regular and dancing with the fashionable leaned back posture, in some cases without understanding the muscular support needed to do so safely. Many dancers found they needed to retire due to back aches or adjust their posture and technique to something more ergonomic and supported.
Many of that first generation of dancers came from other performing disciplines. Some used their training in ballet, theatre, or vaudeville, to inform how they taught. Those backgrounds and fitness class formats provided a template for teaching technique. But that magic of learning the cultures, through emersion with the band, the guests, and the families that owned and patronized the old clubs? That was gone.
Maybe a few teachers took it for granted, probably a few had not paid much attention, but the vast majority of teachers in the early 2000s simply feared that many of their students would not be willing to learn an Arabic dance, and feared those students who came in for a fun workout or asking to be taught to "Shake it like Shakira" would desert if asked to be brave enough for improvisation and open enough to really connect to cultural artistic values. (And don't even get me started on the respectability politics in the of the 2000s US raqs community.)
But, if we let that fear guide our lesson plans, we short-change our Euro-American students, alienate our MENAHT students, and neglect and the roots of the dance all at the same time.
Pedagogy Matters
Traditionally, raqs sharki is learned like a native language: through cultural participation from a young age. For example, if you grow up in a home where Arabic is spoken, you'll pick up the language; otherwise, you'll probably need classes. Something like ballet is more like learning Latin: a dead language. Everyone who learns it must do so through classes. (See Rachael Borek's blog for more on this analogy: tinyurl.com/4ewmtc55)
Because raqs sharki is a living "language", it cannot, and should not, be codified like ballet.
Instead of codifying exactly what and how to teach raqs sharki, let's focus on stacking skills. In a language class, skills build as you study, starting with a base of vocabulary. Advanced classes don't break down phonemes or teach you how to say hello, they assume you know these things and focus on new material. Likewise, introductory classes do not read complex poetry, they recognize a beginning learner does not have the tools to do this, yet.
Teachers should consider what "sub skills" go into an exercise, and teach those first. Their job is to put metaphorical rungs on the ladder, students stand on the skills from earlier classes to reach for the skills in more advanced ones.
It's up to students to climb that ladder.
For many reasons, I teach a mixed level class. Partially to consolidate students and afford studio space, to prevent myself from burning out when I also have a day job, hobbies, and a disability that requires me to get more rest than the average person. More importantly, it does more to build community and is more natural for students at different levels to learn together. In some situations it makes sense to separate classes by level, particularly if you want advanced students to focus on the bleeding edge of their growth into performers. For your average recreational class, the level concept can be used to layer difficulty and focus for different students to do the same exercises in different ways.
For example, a teacher might pick a movement with a general texture that matches the instrument playing in a taxeem they put on. A new student might focus on building the coordination to create variations in their movement while passively absorbing musical experience and a more advanced student might do the same activity with a focus on applying their existing control to interpreting and matching the taxeem.
So, if we're not breaking up levels by how hard the technique is, how do we organize that metaphorical learning ladder for our students?
Level 1: Foundations. For introductory students the goal is to establish basic cultural context, develop control of the body, familiarity with foundational movements, and to experience transitions with "practice sentence" combinations. Introduce movement recall with structured improvisation exercises, finding the pulse of the beat, the 1 in a rhythm cycle, and maybe teach them some simple finger cymbal patterns and sounds so that students have the tools for the next steps. Don't forget hafla time for everyone to dance together in class! Students don't need to wait for recitals to enjoy dancing under their own agency.
Level 2: Musicality. Raqs sharki is the music translated into movement. As students develop a base of movement vocabulary, it's time for them to learn what the music is telling them to do. Use the movement vocabulary to help them form associations with different instruments, which might be different from yours. Build on "finding the 1" to learn beginner rhythms and how to dance to them, play with veils, and deepen their cultural knowledge. This applies to non-native dancers who have a lot of context to learn, but also to MENAHT students who might have grown up experiencing one part of that acronym but now have the chance to make connections to the other regions that contributed to raqs sharki. Students continue to refine their movement quality and repertoire as well.
Level 3: Seasoning. For students who already have the skills to translate the music into movement, it's time to create their own dances and get feedback. This can be a great thing for newer classmates to see, since it lets them learn how to give constructive artistic feedback by hearing their teacher guide classmates at this level, they also have the chance to build up their friends and become inspired to grow into creating their own choreographies or improvised pieces for stage, if they should like to. It's expected that students will need practice to create "fluency". This is a good time to explore props and other styles they find interesting. If they haven't already, they should be learning more folk dance and folklore.
Level 4: Professional Performance. By now, students can recognize what style different songs are suited for, can dance with a veil and a balancing prop (or more), are confident with their finger cymbals, and comfortable creating their own dances. Level 4 is about putting all the skills together and practicing stagecraft, but not every dancer has to go pro! It's fine to explore these topics for fun, or get serious with private lessons or gig apprenticeships.
Conclusion
What if we built our classes around musicality, improvisation, and the dance's place in the cultures of origin? What would happen to our students? I have heard an expression attributed to Arabic that goes "technique is the service of expression". As Amity recently reminded me, if we teach our students the tools to express themselves and encourage their inspiration, technique will come. It will always be important to teach dancers how to support their bodies and move in a healthy way, but learning that is a natural outgrowth of learning to really dance.
Think of it this way, if someone starts to learn a new language they must start with a base of vocabulary, but their level of proficiency is not measured by their deftness with pronunciation, ability to turn a tongue twister, or speed at rapping in that language. Their level is measured by their ability to communicate with native speakers! Practicing vocabulary and pronunciation come naturally out of the desire to communicate.
You might be able to do complex steps, layers, and combos; but can you make your own dances? Can you feel the difference between a malfoof and a maksoom? Do you know who the Awalim are? There is a lot more to what level a dancer is besides how tricky their technique is.
A dancer's level is measured by their ability to communicate. The rest are of our skills are simply servants of that goal.
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