Aniseteph

Yeah - when I read it I did think it sounded a bit, er, one-sided. It was the bit about teachers stopping their students going to "rival" events that made me go :eek: , which is why I started the thread.
The article itself certainly isn't going to help foster a spirit of cooperation is it? Not so much pouring oil on troubled waters as pouring petrol in and adding a lighted match. Heigh ho....

Aisha Azar

Dear Sharon and Aniseteph,
Although I admit I was surprised, since some if those things have happened to me in the past few years, I thought it was rather refresehing for a change to see people actually name names. I have on occasion named names myself and do not think it such a bad idea in an industry where there is so much underhanded stuff that goes on.
And, there is always room in most magazines for rebuttals. Also, if there were lies in the article, the victims also might sue for slander if it is proven that there are lies.
The dance community is often a very vicious place to be and sometimesnaming names does put an end to the nonsense, though i admit sometimes it does not. It is a two pronged fork!

Regards,
A'isha

Suhad

I can see both sides of the story...the one sided 'venting' aspect of what should be a journalistic piece, and the need for naming names in order for the guilty parties (if any) are held accountable for their actions.

I think that DeeDee is savvy enough in the business world that she is perfectly aware of the risk she takes in stating this publicly and naming names. Therefore I tend to believe there is enough proof in her possession to make her case if need be in court.

I also do think Lynette might have actually contacted those named to get their comments, if any, prior to publishing...even a 'no comment' can be quite revealing sometimes.

elle21

Ooh, now veering off onto a different angle, yes I noticed that too, and assumed that next week or whatever the offended parties would have a justification for their side of the story. But yes, it is presented incredibly one-sidedly.

That said, it seems common enough a situation given people's responses to this thread, that even if the article itself is one-sided to the point of being completely made up, the situation itself is clearly very real and worthy of a thread all by itself.

jumping back a few posts, Aisha again makes a very valuable distinction between healthy/non-healthy competition. I think the UK has, until recently at least, suffered from a lack of competition in general, and I welcome the sudden boom in events this year as hopefully this competition will raise the bar. that said, I also worry the sudden boom in events will lead to a lot of 'ugly' competition. There are a lot of egos in this dance!

darcy

TribalDancer, your post sums up my reaction exactly.

I know one of the people mentioned in that "article". I don't feel she's been accurately portrayed. From the sniping, gossipy tone, to the poor writing, this so-called piece of journalism doesn't impress me at all. In fact, the whole thing left me feeling like I needed to take a shower

samira shuruk

There were some letters to the editor regarding the questionable journalism tactics in this interview.
http://www.gildedserpent.com/let2ed.htm

Yes, these things happen and I agree that it should not be continually swept under the rug, but I'm not sure this article portrayed the whole story. In fact- it clearly didn't.
There ARE sponsors who purposefully schedule conflicts. There ARE teachers and schools who are territorial- not just discouraging their students from taking from anyone, but making up bold-faced lies about other teachers, pulling from events and venues (or threatening) when they don't get involved in something they want to be in. Withholding information on workshops sponsored by others, even controlling where the studio's teachers are "allowed" to perform. For some it's about power and the need to control, for others it's about ego or insecurity.
The good news is, people usually eventually see through the BS. Students eventually are exposed to other things and "see the light", venue owners realize they are being controlled and either push back or push away etc etc etc.
And I think the majority of teachers are the opposite. My teachers all encourage study with others, workshops with anyone etc... My two main teachers with over 30 years professional experience each still TAKE workshops (and travel to research etc).

Gabi

Ha! Verrrry good point. Mine actually take workshops from their peirs and encourage their students to also, even refer to how someone else would do this or that in their classes. Nevertheless, it's kind of annoying for the students when many have class the same day and time if you want to take multiples.

I'd think piggybacking would ensure more attendance for everyone rather than doing the same time conflicting thing

Aziyade

What I've experienced in the cornfields:

1. Teacher A, the extremely insecure type, refuses to allow her students to take classes with any other teacher, and discourages her students from attending workshops and performances by other teachers.

2. No matter how carefully you schedule your event, checking with everybody you thought might have even CONSIDERED doing something that same weekend, inevitably you will find there will be someone nearby who sponsors a similar event the same weekend -- at which point there will usually be a name-calling contest and someone will accuse someone else of not doing enough research, someone else will get her feelings hurt, and the two groups will avoid each other's events for about 3 years.

3. Group A always has their events on the first weekend in October. Group B gets the opportunity to host Dina, and guess what ... the only time she can come is the first weekend in October.

As to the Snake itself:

Gilded Serpent has always sort of seemed like tabloid e-journalism to me, so this article doesn't surprise me. GS seems to thrive on the proverbial sh*t-storm, and for the most part the only time I read it is when someone points out something offensive. This article is par for the course for them.

And on Sibling Rivalry:

For what it's worth, if 1000 people showed up for a workshop (as Johara claimed she could attract), I don't think I'd want to go to that one. I want at least the ILLUSION of personal instruction. If the workshop videos produced by Little Egypt are any measure of how many people actually attend the events, it seems like a good size for the STUDENT -- maybe not for the vendor -- but as a student, I like some breathing room.

Of course, I'm in the cornfields and we don't really have the problem of oversaturating the market. Here, you have tribal groups who put on tribal events, cabaret groups who put on cabaret events, and the odd group who tries to fall somewhere in between. Each group knows its audience, and there seems to be very little cross-over between them.

Sisterhood is a laugh. Our global dance community HATES one another. There are still today dancers and teachers who are carrying grudges from the 1960's!!!! Anytime you start mucking about with someone's artistic perspective, or their perceived territory of expertise, or their livelihood, or their emotional obsession -- even if it's just a HINT that you might be surfing on their wave -- the claws come out.

When some of the biggest and most trusted names in the field resort to name calling and writing disparaging articles about their contemporaries, we can't really be surprised by small-fry and medium-fry rivalry. The best we can do is try to not get caught up in it.

Yasmine Bint Al Nubia

Very well said Aziyade!
Yasmine

Aisha Azar

Dear Aziyade,
While there are plenty of people who do not get along, I think there are also plenty of people who do. I think to say that the global community hates one another is rather overstating the point. Thre are personal preferences and dislikes among the people in any profession. We have people that we really respect. We have people that we respect their work, but we feel misrepresent what they are doing. There are also those that we would not walk across the street to spit on because we think they are so vile, either in their abuse of their students or in their general business practices. While I have never felt that "sisterhood" thing either, I do have people in the field for whom I have utmost respect for various reasons. And, I can't think of anyone that I actaully "hate".

Re the 1,000 student workshop: I hope that was an overstatement on Johara's part, too.... for the sake of the students. I am way into personal attention as the cornerstone of good instruction!


There will aways be competition as long as there are two people on the planet, but as long as it is healthy there is no problem. Unfortunately there is often a rather Machiavellian approach to the element of competition, and then it gets nasty, because the ethic is weird. In the end, for me it needs to be about the dance before anything. It needs to be about the dance on stage, and about the dance and the students in the class room....which is one reason I will enver get rich teaching. I ask my sponsors to please keep their registrations under 30 for any workshop so that I can gve the personal attention that students need. The only persdon that I have ever seen successfully manage more of a student load than that is Shareen El Safy! I WISH I could do a larger vlass than that, but I just can't manage to give enough students what they need when the numbers are bigger.
Regards,
A'isha