Originally Posted by Albertina

I've just recently (a year ago) started studying Egyptian after a few years of dancing with a company who did something vaguely tribal and fusion-y and I'm really struggling.

I realized one day in class that I don't know how to dance to the melody. At all. We had live drummers with my old dance company so we only ever danced to the rhythm, although a lot of times we didn't even do that. We would just count out the choreography without the music and then rehearse it to whatever 4/4 rhythm the drummers played. I always had the feeling that something was missing or this was not the coolest way to do things - but I was a baby belly and didn't know any better.

So, needless to say, this whole musical interpretation/musicality thing is totally new to me. I watched the clip someone posted on the Egyptian dancers thread of Lucy from DC and I had a moment of "Yes! That's the quality that I'm searching for!"

Are there guidelines for interpreting the music? You know, do you normally do a hip drop on the dom? Do you only shimmy when there's a drum making a shimmy-like sound? Or can you shimmy whenever something is happening that seems vaguely shimmy-esque? Some parts of a song seem to almost demand a particular movement and some others leave me standing there looking lost.

Argh. It's so challenging. I'm having a blast.