Students are going straight to tribalin some areas and I know this has happened in the US, completely bipassing Egyptian or Turkish style belly dance.
I try to resist teaching basic ATS until we have got a grip of Egyptian and then progressing with both. But of course I remind my pupils they need to go to other teachers, to workshops to do this dance justice anyway.
But with a constant influx of beginners I end up with them doing tribal from day one. I teach an hour and half lesson with tribal drill in the last half hour and that is optional for students but they all stay! I can hardly tell newcomers to "p$ss off , this ain't for you!"
The thing with tribal is that most of the women ( no guys as yet)find the notion of set moves, cues as well as the image of tribal attractive. Older and less body perfect gals are comfortable with the covered, earthy whatever you want to call it clothing and frankly my young slim things like the funkiness!( see Sharon's discussion on her website on ATS costuming...it rings so true)
Egyptian is my number one but you have to give 'em what they want. ATS?Tribal Fusion is a Western creation and maybe that is why so many in Britain and elsewhere are attracted to it, maybe it suits our mind set. And in anycase it is a group dance and belly dancers dance in groupshere in the West. Raks Sharki is a solo performance even though we bop around in our group dances being so unauthentic.
In actual fact I don't think we should call these variations on a theme belly dance at all. Unless we are trying to dance as they do in Egypt, Turkey or the Lebanon, maybe should call tribal belly dance just ATS, Tribal Fusion, World Fusion..whatever. That doesn't mean we have to never be in each others presence and doesn't mean we never acknowledge the origins of tribal belly dance.
|