First Time Hooper
January 20, 2010 § Leave a comment
I tried hooping a couple weeks ago. One of the other dancers in my troupe brought her new hoops to our Christmas party and taught us a couple tricks. It was really fun. I can see why people get into hoop dancing.
I was surprised to learn that the circular movement we all made with our hips when we hula hooped as kids is unnecessary. You actually just have to shift your weight back and forth with the rotation, which is also what makes the dancing part of hoop dancing easier to work in.
Hooping was a little more violent than I expected. It looks like it would be so gentle, but sometimes you can actually hear the hoop smacking against the hooper if you’re close enough to them. I guess it’s not uncommon for people to get bruises when they’re first learning. I hooped for about 45 minutes and walked away with just a tender spot right above my belly button and a hoop-width bruise on my thigh. I could tell it was really working my core muscles and it was very fun, so I’d say it’s worth the occasional bump or bruise. And as my poi teacher used to say, every time you hit yourself, you learn something.
In a way, hooping is like spinning poi. You have to watch the rotation and initiate other moves/tricks at certain points. I found turning with the hoop to be very easy. I was able to turn within one rotation or within multiple rotations. That was my favorite trick I learned because it really felt like dancing. We learned the lasso which is where you pull the hoop from your waist to overhead, rotating it on your hand. This was pretty challenging. We also learned to change the plane of the waist rotation, leaning forward or back (I can’t remember the names of these). That was fun and not as challenging as the lasso.
I can absolutely see the appeal of the hoop. It’s great exercise, challenging and fun, and of course there’s a high “cool” factor. I don’t plan on pursuing hoop right now, mostly because I lack the free time, but I can see myself getting into it one day.
American Tribal Style!
January 13, 2010 § Leave a comment
I have been watching the Fat Chance Belly Dance DVDs. There are still a couple I don’t have access to (I am borrowing the ones I have right now) but plan on buying those soon. As I watch these, a couple thoughts come to mind.
First of all, my ATS training was far more accurate to the Fat Chance Style than I ever realized. I’m not really sure why I thought it wasn’t. I guess it was because I hadn’t watched the DVDs myself and as my class learned more, my teacher had us add in details. It seemed like we were modifying things when we were usually just refining them.
Second, it’s interesting to me that I have been able to witness some of the more recent evolutions of the dance language. There are moves that were not in the Fat Chance language that I learned or saw from other troupes that have now made their way onto the most recent DVD, Tribal Basics, Vol. 7: Creative Steps & Combinations.
At Tribal Fest 3, my dance troupe learned a new move using a turning double hip bump that hit all four corners of a personal box. I believe the troupe we learned it from called it “The Spider.” The way they presented it, the arms were positioned out to the side when facing the front, and over head when facing the back. We adopted this move into our local ATS language. Several years later, I got a hold of Creative Steps and Combinations and discovered that a variation had found its way into the official dance language, but with different arms and the name “Chico Four Corners.” I really like the new arm positioning and now perform and teach it that way.
Another example is the Double Back. I had seen many other troupes perform versions of this move over the years, but had never done it myself until I watched Creative Steps and Combinations. Now it is one of my favorite moves.
The next thing I noticed when watching the DVDs is that the intention of how the dance information be used seems to have changed over time. On the revised Tribal Basics, Vol. 1, Dance Fundamentals, Fat Chance Belly Dance founder and director, Carolena Nericcio, says the moves included on the DVD are the “Tribal Basics according to Fat Chance Belly Dance.” I generally didn’t notice any implication that using different basic moves or variations of the basic moves would be considered incorrect or would not be true American Tribal Style. Perhaps this is a relatively new idea.
On Tribal Basics, Vol.6: Improvisational Choreography, Carolena talks about ATS.
“The concept of American Tribal Style Belly Dance is interpreted differently all over the world, but the idea that seems to repeat itself over and over is that of dancers enjoying each other, celebrating their bodies, and honoring the music with movement.”
Carolena used to annually teach workshops and guest star in a big show with my old troupe. It was in one of these workshops, around 2003, that I first heard her say that she thought the ATS language should be formalized. She said she thinks it should be like ballet and everyone should have the same form as her, but since it wasn’t that way, it was important that everyone in a single troupe at least use the same form as each other. Perhaps in the beginning, Carolena was not particularly direct about this because she could not have foreseen the explosion of variations her dance form would spawn.
This explosion has also led to the dance form having to be referred to more formally as “American Tribal Style” or “ATS” since the simple term “Tribal” has become all-encompassing to include any variations that have some similarities in stylization, costuming, or the feel or intention of ATS.
Watching these DVDs has been a very good experience for me. It has been a refresher on some of the finer details and I have learned a couple things I either didn’t know before or have forgotten from lack of use (such as a trio having the option of dancing in a diagonal line; I only recall regularly using a triangle).
Also, I can now tell my students what exactly is a classical ATS move and/or cue and what is an addition so they will know what to expect when they venture outside our local ATS community. Dance is a universal language, and American Tribal Style is a fun conversation.
JadeDancer.com 