My First Solo Choreography

Well, I'm doing it -- I've embarked on the project of learning my first solo!

I am adapting it from something I saw on YouTube -- when I finally learn and perform it I will give credit where credit is due, but I don't want to let the cat out of the bag yet. I purchased the CD by mail, and just received it yesterday. It is not Egyptian music, it is a song by Knossos, but I love the song and the original choreography so much I just had to try it.

I need a project right now -- the bellydance studio will be closed for two weeks for the holidays, and I've got to have some way to occupy my time other than just drilling the same moves over and over (don't worry, I will continue drilling, but I want to do something besides that as well).

Learning and practicing the gala choreographies was fun, and I want to continue to develop my transitions and grace by continuing to learn choreographies. So, here goes.

So far, this is what I've accomplished:

• Selected the portions of the five minute choreography I will do, and trimmed out a section of the .mp3 file to shorten the song to four minutes.
• Went through the video one measure at a time and carefully documented every step, arm movement, and head position of the choreography. Changed unrecognized movements to moves and steps that I know.
• "Walked Through" the choreography step by step, and made changes whenever something was awkward in weight transfer or simply beyond my ability to accomplish even with significant practice.
• One section of the original choreography contains sixteen full revolutions of turns in a row -- something I  cannot do without puking my guts out, so I shortened the turns to four each at the beginning and end of the section, and added my own choreography for the measures in between.
• Learned by heart the first minute and a half of the choreography, with much more memorization to come.
• Can execute the steps of the first minute of the choreography up to tempo and with the music, although much more practice and refinement is needed to make it look smooth, confident and graceful.

Not bad for a week's work, eh?

My plan for this project:

1. Finish learning the steps, and perfect all moves and transitions as much as I can.
2. Drill problem moves, especially turns, which are my biggest weakness right now in dancing (I often lose my balance and simply must learn to execute turns consistently).
3. Continue carefully developing strength and flexibility for back bends, of which there are several in the choreography (I actually started this process about a month ago).
4. Continue strengthening my quads, improving my balance, and smoothing out doing mayas and omis while changing levels.
5. Videorecord myself performing the choreography.
6. Make adjustments and continue practicing as needed until it is as good as I can get it on my own.
7. Schedule a private lesson with one of my Instructors to go over the choreography and make needed improvements.
8. Practice, get improvements down pat, and videorecord again.
9. Make any necessary final adjustments.
10. Wait for the next "Cabaret 101" to be announced at the Studio, and sign up to perform (provided I am ready by that time).
11. Perform my first solo in public!

I realize this is a big project at my current level, but I am very excited about undertaking it! I am sure I will learn a lot, and that it will make me a better dancer.

I will celebrate my successes by posting whenever I reach milestones in the process.

One of my instructors advised me to perform as early and as often as possible. I wonder if she knows what a monster she has created!

Videorecording: an Amazing Tool

Last week, two days before the Student Gala, I decided to videorecord myself performing the two choreographies I had learned for the Gala.

Boy, oh boy, do I wish I had done it earlier! In the future, I will start making videorecordings of my routines several weeks before the scheduled performance, so I have time to correct all the problems I see.

This post may sound a bit negative, and I don't mean for it to. In watching myself dance, I saw a lot of things to be proud of. There are a number of things I do well. But of course, those are not the things that need to be fixed. And what jumped out at me, when I watched the videos, was how many things I was dissatisfied with!

My hands -- oh, my hands! My arm positions and movements have come a long way since I started taking lessons, but not until I watched the latest videos of myself did I realize how I am holding my hands most of the time! My fingers are stiff and splayed. One of my teachers last session told me several times in class, "relax your hands." I thought I understood her point then, but I understand it much better now!

Unfortunately, the hand thing was just too much of an ingrained habit to fix two days before the gala. I tried to focus on my hands while practicing the choreographies, but found that during some moves, it caused me to make other mistakes. I ended up deciding to just dance the gala the way I had practiced, and devote some serious effort to improving my hand position afterward!

The other major embarrassment was my "head slide." I thought I was doing it correctly. I had even seen myself in the mirror. But evidently, the mirror lied, because the moved looked awful on the video! I did my best to drill it and improve in time for the show, but I know I still need to work on the move a lot before it will look right. Oh well, I'll just add it to the list of moves I'm drilling lately.

My mayas...where do I start with my mayas? I can do mayas! I've seen myself in the mirror many times. I've even been complimented on doing them well. So why, when I was performing the actual choreographies, were my mayas so bad? Again, I did my best to patch up the problem before the performance, but I know I need work before my mayas will be consistent whether or not I am watching them in a mirror while doing them.

The last nasty surprise was my transitions. Granted, I have come a long way with transitions since I started. But it was in this area that I realized I could have made the most improvements, had I just had the time, and known where the rough spots were!

In terms of getting feedback on my performance, a picture is worth a thousand words. I now suspect that taking videos of myself will prove to be almost as useful in preparing for a performance as getting feedback from my instructors. I know enough about how the moves should look by now to understand when they look wrong, and most of the time, I can see what I need to do differently.

Lesson learned.

There's No Substitute for Lessons!

After dancing with DVDs for a while, I decided to take my first video of myself, "performing" a choreography by Jenna.

When I watched it, I almost gave up dancing forever.

I was doing...most...of the moves...I guess. But I did not look like a dancer! I jerked from movement to movement. My arms were awful. A frown of concentration was fixed on my face throughout.

Yuck!

Well...at that point, I had two options: give up, or move forward. And I'm happy to say, I chose the latter option. I went on the web and found Hannan's Belly Dance Studio in Toronto, and bravely signed up for a course of "Introduction to Belly Dance."

Initially, I thought I might be bored starting at the very bottom level, since I already "knew" many of the moves. Boy, was I wrong! There were major discouragements, but fortunately, those negatives quickly became positives.

Dancing in a studio in front of a huge mirror is of enormous benefit. From the very beginning, I received instant visual feedback on what I looked like. The bad news was, I looked pretty awful. The good news was, I was capable of correcting the problems, and had an Instructor to guide and direct me in doing so!

Due to great feedback from my Instructor, as well as lots of practice at home -- in front of a mirror, for a change -- I made quick work of the Intro level and received approval to advance to the "Beginner" level in a shorter time than was expected.

"Beginner" presented a new set of challenges. I had many bad habits to overcome, the worst of which was to do all my dancing with my knees slightly bent, thus limiting my range of motion. Unfortunately, this is a very common mistake in beginning belly dancers, who don't understand how to move "in and out of their knees" fluidly. Some moves require bent knees. But I quickly learned that whenever possible, it is preferable to dance on straight (not locked) legs. It looks much more beautiful.

I practiced a lot. Boy, did I practice! There were things, at first, that I simply could not make my body do. It was as if I was sending signals from my brain to my muscles, and the signals were getting lost somewhere along the way. But I was patient and persistent, and it began to pay off. By the end of my third series of Beginner level classes, my instructor told me I was doing really, really well and could, again, advance ahead of the usual schedule. I was thrilled!

I have now completed three six-week sessions of the Continuing Beginner level. The minimum recommendation is eight six-week sessions. But this time, I think I have met my match -- it will very likely take all eight sessions and more to get me to a point where I am ready to level up again. I am enjoying it thoroughly, however, and am focused on the journey as well as the destination.

There really, really is no substitute for having a live, experienced teacher there to tell you what you are doing right, and what you are doing wrong. I am extremely open to constructive criticism from my teachers, because every little thing they tell me improves me as a dancer. I hang on my teachers' every word and try to make the most of every minute of every lesson. Then, I take it all home and practice, practice, practice.

A large portion of my practice consists of drilling moves. Whenever possible, I do so before a mirror. I have learned the hard way that it is very easy to "feel" like you are doing a move correctly, when in fact it looks completely wrong.

I dance six days a week for a minimum of an hour. Most of the time, I simply put on some Middle Eastern music and drill moves and short combinations. If something isn't working, I slow it down and keep trying. I have yet to come up against a move that remains impossible after I have attacked it with determination.

Recently I learned two choreographies and performed as part of a group in a Student Gala. Learning the choreographies was great fun and great experience, and added spice to my practice sessions.

It is only in these last few weeks that I have begun to feel as if I am finally becoming a dancer. I can now feel the music and respond to it with a basic level of skill. I actually flow from move to move (most of the time), and the result looks more like art than like an aerobics routine. I know I have a long, long way to go, but I am very encouraged by all I have learned and accomplished so far.

When I watched the first video I ever made of me bellydancing, I almost gave up. But lessons have changed everything. Everything!

I Always Wanted to Dance

From the time I was a young child, I was deeply affected by music, and loved to move my body in expression of it. I would whirl gracelessly around our living room, unaware and unconcerned about how I looked.

I thought dance was beautiful, and I wanted to be able to do it well, so I begged my parents to let me take lessons. Unfortunately, I was already involved in piano lessons, and so was my brother. Since my parents already had their hands full getting us to lessons and motivating us to practice, it is understandable that they didn't take the opportunity to expand my artistic repertoire further.

As a youngster, I was never very coordinated or athletic. I had problems with depth perception, and could neither hit nor catch flying objects. I seemed to lack awareness of where my body was in space. I was always picked last for sports teams, and dreaded P.E. class. By the time I got to Junior High, P.E. was no longer required, which was a huge relief to me.

Walking, on the other hand, was no problem. I have always been an avid walker. In our rural neighbourhood in Colorado, the roads were unpaved and very hilly. Walking was a pleasure for me, as well as a tool that allowed me to settle my feelings and organize my thoughts. So, despite my lack of participation in P.E. classes, I kept pretty good aerobic capacity and leg strength. This, in combination with genetics, kept me from becoming overweight as I matured into adulthood.

In my twenties, I finally became more active. I took up running, and enjoyed it until a chronic injury in my foot forced me to stop. I lifted weights off and on for years. When I was twenty-six, I took up yoga, and it was to change my life.

I began in Iyengar Yoga, but quickly transitioned to Astanga Yoga, and, for the first time in my life, began to gain some real control over my body. With dedicated practice, I became graceful in the flowing movements. My posture also improved dramatically. Until that time, I had never been aware of my habit of slouching. But, habit it was. I had gained my 5' 9" height early enough in life to be uncomfortable about being taller than other kids, especially the boys. Unfortunately, I never outgrew unconsciously trying to make myself shorter and less conspicuous.

Yoga changed all that. For the first time, my spine was straight, my shoulders back, my head held high. Just in making that change, I looked as if I had lost fifteen pounds. It's amazing what good posture will do for a person's appearance, and I'm very glad I embraced it when I did.

My dancing, however, was still horrible. I had never in my life progressed beyond the ability, at public dances, to shuffle from foot to foot and clap my hands. When I tried to dance more freely at home, I just didn't look good, and I didn't have any idea how to improve. Once, my ex-husband saw me dancing, and said, "it's a good thing we never had kids."

"Why?" I asked.

"Because they might have inherited that!" he brutally exclaimed.

Needless to say, I never danced in public.

This state of affairs continued until my late thirties, when a childhood girlfriend told me that she had learned bellydance from DVDs, and was enjoying it immensely. For some reason, that knowledge stuck in my head, and in a few months, I had gotten up the courage to try it myself. I bought two DVDs and began the arduous process of training my body to do things it had never attempted before.

I was not a natural, or a quick study. I was, however, determined. And in the privacy of my own home, I could make as many mistakes as it took, and spend as much time as it took, to learn the basic movements.

Soon, though, I hit a wall in my home training (I'll write in more detail about that later), and realized that if I wanted to progress, I would need to take lessons, and so I screwed up my courage and began.

Here I am, seven months later. The lessons have helped me immensely. For the first time in my life, I feel like I can actually dance, and look beautiful and graceful rather than clumsy and awkward. It has been an enormous boost to my self-confidence, as well as a great workout. I have fallen in love with bellydance. It is something I took up completely on my own -- no one else decided it for me, as was the case with piano. I take great joy in my continuing attainment of dancing skills. I have learned that if I work hard, I will see improvement. And I eagerly look forward to improving more and more as time goes on!