Aniseteph

Agreed.

What I have found with several of the Fantasia programmes is that having crossed off the top level workshops I can't manage yet (especially over 2 or 3 days when I can only do one day), the fusions/styles/choreo's that don't appeal, and the "been there done that didn't get much out of it thanks all the same" teachers there's often very little left to justify the trek out there. And I'm not even a veteran Fantasia attendee. Maybe I'm just too picky!

I suppose a certain amount of perceived cliqueyness is inevitable when people know each other through a training scheme and aren't as familiar with dancers outside that group. IMO it's how the group behaves towards "outsider" teachers and performers that's the decider - welcoming and judging fairly on the basis of talent, experience and skill? Or being truly cliquey and excluding.

Which is more important - the gang, or the dance? (that's a rhetorical question BTW!)

Suheir

Indeed. I got a very useful perspective on how the Fantasia front-row-hoggers might be seen by outsiders when I attended a belly dance festival in another country and the first thing a foreign dancer told me, when she found out I was English, was how she'd been to Fantasia and was elbowed out of the front row in the Master Teacher's workshops. Nobody spoke to her but when the same sharp-elbows found out she was a teacher with her own festival they were suddenly all over her. I've observed myself that certain pointy-elbowed types won't even give someone the time of day, let alone make conversation, unless they perceive the other person to be "important".

I've always found the world's *real* top teachers to be friendly and sociable to everybody, it seems to be the ones with airs and graces who are not nearly as good as they think they are who behave like that.

lizaj

I think it is difficult to avoid being cliquy once you start and join an organisation...after all any one not part of it is excluded..how do you avoid that?
Actually ,although I do not want to see want to see belly dance highly formulated, I am concerned to see a standard of teaching and because of this I took the JWAAD foundation course.I have to say it was also because I respected the two tutors Kay Taylor and Anne Kingston ( this reminds me to start another thread) that I chose to do so .
And equally I have to say I have not been impressed by some long qualified JWAAD teachers either in perfeormance nor in workshops.

Back to comment I don't think it is pretentious to set up an "association" of teachers and dancers striving to make sure dance practise is safe and respectable and good technique is to be respected.

Suheir

The variation is huge, I have to say.

taheya

I am all for raising the standard of bellydance in the UK and certainly I think there is place for a teacher training course to promote a standard. However, clearly the name does not always guarantee a good teacher or a professional dancer and I think that is where it loses credibility. (Although there are good JWAAD teachers dont get me wrong!)

Suheir

Kharis

You avoid it by making a concerted effort not to allow this to happen. I attended the J'WISE Summer School many years ago... I went with a friend, and we ended up with all the other on their owners, who were left on their own, and not a single "Hi, I'm Jo Wise, welcome to my summer school" from her. Don't tell me, she and all her cronies did not know who was a newbie and who wasn't. I would. And I'd be damned if I'd let the people who lined my pockets feel like outsiders. I'd make sure they felt welcome and part of it. I found the whole experience very cliquey and unfriendly. Personally, I was not that arsed....I was there to learn. My friend thought it was awful. Channel 4 were there that year filming the event for their documentary, Butterflies. I just have very strong memories of J'Wise lording around like queen bee, and only interacting with her mates.

Kharis

I took over a J'Wise trained teacher's class of 3 years' standing. And guess what? None of 'em knew diddly. Not even the basics. 3 years' tuition and didn't even know how to do a hip drop. I was gobsmacked. So, for me, being J'Wise trained means eff all.

lizaj

And I hope they have moved on since those days. I have to say I think some people in a "circle of dance" are stuck in a doldrums of their own making. I hope the new efforts at training by others will be different.

And like your experience, I know of a local dancer who attended the course and was badly injured on it and no one but no one enquired after her health
mmmm Butterflies Lucy being grimaced at! The post trip comments mmm.. Mind you we know how the media can swing it!

Suheir

I have that Channel 4 doc on video, they called it "Shake Sheik Shake" It's not at all clear what the point of it is, if I wasn't into belly dance I think I'd have been a bit bemused. It's fun getting out the tape years later because I can spot so many more people I recognise now, mostly the ones who went on to become much better dancers than Madam Josephine. Jo's face when Lucy told her she was too fat is a perfect study in suppressed fury.