TribalDancer

Yeah. See what I mean?

adiemus

tee hee! it's not only me then!!

__________________
He wahine, he taonga- Every woman is a treasure(Maori proverb)

Aziyade

My understanding of Gothic style is that it's done to Gothic music, and has a more dramatic and theatrical appearance. The dance heightens the mood of the music.

But the word "Goth" is a lot like "Tribal" or even "bellydance." Everybody wants to be able to define what is and isn't Goth. You get into arguments about music and costuming and lifestyles, and it's an endless debate.

My fave goth dancer is Taletha. She has grown up with goth music, lives what would easily be considered a goth lifestyle, but doesn't pretend to have that morose, "Oh life is so meaningless I might as well just die" juvenile attitude. She's a fantastic dancer, and she sometimes prefers to dance and express herself to Goth music instead of Wahab.

A lot of "Goth" dancers use DRAMA and THEATRICS (ooh a snake HISS! ooh I'm so spooky.) as a cover-up for the fact that they just can't dance very well. I've seen them prance around stage striking poses, and it's all very dramatic, but it's not really dancing. Theatrics are great, but if you're going to call yourself a dancer, eventually you have to shrug off the burial shroud and actually dance!

Aziyade

"TF movement is muscular, with particular attention paid to engaging the muscle and releasing, passing the movement from muscle to muscle through the body and limbs. Belly dance has a less deliberate stretch and release, looking at the movement as a whole, creating phrases in the body in response to the music."


Yes yes!! This is what I've noticed too. This is a great start.

Eve --
That Ariellah clip is not one of my favorites, but if she's the same gorl who did the instructional on conditioning and drills, I LOVED her performance on that dvd. She has the most expressive upper body and arms of the dancers I've seen so far.

Sharon --
I'm going to call it Tribal Fusion (or TF) for the remainder of this thread because I don't really know what ELSE to call it, and I want an easy nickname to refer to, but I respect your opinion about how it's not Tribal and shouldn't really be called that. I think there would be a lot less confusion if it wasn't called Tribal.

But, I was just watching the choreography dvd "Arabian Spices" and that dancer does seem to use a lot of movements I recognize from Tribal dance. More actual "Movements" than just simple isolations. I would say that choreography looked different than ATS style tribal, but I could definitely see that the two were related.

Also, Sharon, your explanation of why they look like Suhaila makes perfect sense!! I just wish a lot of the so-called TF dancers would take a Suhaila Level TWO class. There's more to her method than just glute squeezes and chest pops.

SaraKat --
The first time I heard the phrase Tribal Fusion was when Rachel was first talking about doing a dvd. At that point, my understanding was that she was calling it that because she was fusing Yoga technique with Bellydance technique, and she wanted to teach her specific method.

Prior to this, if I had heard someone refer to Tribal Fusion, I would have assumed it would be ATS mixed with an ethnic dance, or ATS and Bollywood or something.

Thing is, when I first saw Rachel, like 5-6 years ago, her dancing was very much like it was on the BDSS first performance dvd. But her last show in Lexington KY was COMPLETELY different. She had moved a totally different direction. I love that about her -- I know she used to do cabaret for years before she moved into doing TF-Rachel style, and I love the fact that she's not keeping herself in the same box just because it sells.

Rachel is SO unique. I think she's a fantastic performer, no matter WHAT style she's doing. Heck, she could probably stand on stage and do cat juggling and she'd make it fascinating.

Aziyade

Oh wow, this is a GREAT sampling !!!!!

First of all -- Ultra Gypsy -- I've loved what I've seen of them. This clip reminds of what could be called old-school ATS or classic ATS. Gorgeous.

Olivia -- oh wow! I have to check out this girl more closely, especially since I can't really hear the music. I really like what she's doing here. Very modern. She has a great fluid style. Seems very fused with modern dance, and I like it.

Amy Sigil -- this is probably one of my favorite TF performances. Lots of visual interest. Level changes, tempo changes. This is good. Some of Unmata's stuff I've watched I haven't really liked, but I do like this solo.

Rachel -- I can SOO see Suhaila in this. It's so funny, there's one performance of Rachel at at Tribal workshop and it looks SO MUCH like a Suhaila vibration solo. She dances more like Suhaila than Isabella does! Isn't that odd?


Sometimes I have a hard time preventing myself from being distracted by the costume and accessories. With old ATS, at first it's really attractive, but then you sort of get used to seeing the jewelry and turban and flying skirts, and after a minute or so you start just seeing the outline of the body and can appreciate the dance. I've noticed I actually PREFER watching (on the instructional dvds) the instructor do the dance in her workout clothes rather than in costume. I think the hair falls and all the jewlery and all the busy-ness at the hipline can be too distracting -- but that's just me.

This is helping a LOT, guys! THANKS!!!

Oba Bear

I believe in an interview Rachel Brice herself said that what she does is a fusion of the style Suhaila Salimpor does along with Carolena Nericco's ATS. Personally I absolutely love the style that Rachel Brice and the rest of various members of the Indigo do. The best article I read describing Tribal in its various forms was on this website:

TribalBellyDance.org - Articles

SaraKat

I hope I don't sound like I am nitpicking, because that is totally not my intent. But just so you know, the Ultra Gypsy clip is a choreography and it uses moves from outside FatChanceBellyDance's vocabulary, so most people would not call it ATS.
It is certainly reminiscent of ATS and in that way you are totally correct, but it's not actually ATS.

There is a lot of debate going on just about everywhere as to what exactly "Tribal" is. It's harder to pin down than, say, Egyptian, for obvious reasons, or even American Cabaret, which is pretty much just bellydance as interpreted by Americans.
My personal interpretation of the term "Tribal" is the dance that has grown out of the aesthetic developed by Jamila Salimpour with her troupe Bal Anat. So it makes sense that Tribal Fusion reminds you so much of Suhaila!
Masha Archer was Jamila's student, and in turn Carolena Nericchio was Masha's student, and she went on to develop ATS. Jill Parker, the director of Ultra Gypsy, was originally a member of FatChanceBellyDance and was Carolena's student.
Meanwhile Rachel Brice developed her style studying tapes of Suhaila. Rachel was also in Ultra Gypsy for a while (did you catch her in the video I posted?). And she has said that she is in part inspired by Hahbi Ru, who is directed by John Compton, who was in the original Bal Anat back in the day.
To me this has nothing to do with being "dark" or dancing slowly. It doesn't have to be moody (or worse yet emotionless). It can be, but that's not the core of it. It has more to do with the posture (queen-like with lifted arms), the characteristics of the movements (isolated and grounded), and to a lesser extent the costuming and music choices. However, I could put on a bedlah and dance to Hakim and I think it would still be pretty obvious that I was doing Tribal of some sort, because of the way the moves themselves look. The same goes in reverse. You can't (shouldn't?) just put on a coin bra, Melodia pants and a yarn belt and do AmCab and call it Tribal, although God knows people try.
Like I said, though, this is just my personal opinion. Other dancers have different, equally valid, ideas of what Tribal is.
Honestly, it can get really confusing, especially when you throw dancers like Mira Betz into the mix, who do both orientale and tribal, or dancers like Olivia from Zafira, who look like they are doing tribal in some respects but not in others. There is a lot of crossover between tribal and practically everything else imaginable, a ton of fusion, some of which is awesome, but a lot of which is passable to very bad and barely recognizable as bellydance.
The confusion and the bad fusion have given Tribal a bad reputation through the years, but I guess my point with the videos is there are a bunch of really awesome dancers regardless that are somewhere in the Tribal spectrum.

Aziyade

Hey picking nits is how we learn around here! I'm ALL FOR nit-picking.


90% of what I personally have seen labeled Tribal Fusion comes from one source:
World Dance New York dvds.

With the other 10% coming from the BDSS dvds.

Obviously I need to branch out a bit.

I guess what really threw me is that the INSTRUCTION seemed entirely Suhaila format. So I sort of assumed all the dancing would be as well.


So would you REALLY be able to point me out as the Cabaret dancer in Tribal drag if you saw me dance? I never thought about it that way...

SaraKat

That would be an awesome game... find the undercover cab dancers!

I can usually tell a big difference in my students that come from cabaret backgrounds vs. those who come from tribal backgrounds, so I think I could probably do it, as could most people who have studied tribal for a while (especially those of us with some knowledge of ATS).

It would be fun to try!

adiemus

I can see the headlines now 'Notorious undercover amcab agents infiltrate tribal dance troupe' The body of the article would have something like this...'recognised by their use of excessive glitter and rhinestones, these agents thought to insinuate their way into the Tribe but were quickly outed when they started to improvise out of turn'!

__________________
He wahine, he taonga- Every woman is a treasure(Maori proverb)