Choreography… for some dancers it’s a very long four-letter word. Even for those who love choreography, the process of learning a new routine can be exhausting, confusing, and defeating. As if preparing for a performance wasn’t intimidating enough! Whether the idea of choreography makes you skip or shudder, it’s pretty much a given that you’ll have to learn one at some point in your studies (And if you plan to perform regularly with a class or troupe you may as well learn to love it!). That’s why you need a strategy for learning choreography. It can make the process go a lot easier and it can help you remember a routine when it most matters… on stage!
Although only introduced to Belly Dance in the last one hundred years, the veil is nonetheless an important tradition in American Cabaret. The image of a dancing girl with a veil dates back to the times of the ancient Romans, and is perhaps an inspiration for this art form. As you will soon learn, the veil tends to have a mind of its own. It is sometimes unfaithful to even the most experienced dancers. Here are a few tips to help make your first experiences with a veil enjoyable…
You probably already know that balance is one’s ability to maintain an equilibrium either while standing still or moving. Balance is actually linked to strength. It’s the strength of very small muscle groups needed to hold us in place when we disrupt our natural support structure (either by taking a foot off the ground or moving different sections of our body out of alignment). So how do we use balance in belly dance, and why is it important to develop this skill…
Coordination is our ability to integrate our movements into sequence, into what we call dance. It is actually a synthesis of the other components of fitness such as strength and balance…
With inactivity and aging our muscles tend to shorten and stiffen, in other words we lose our flexibility. Flexibility is needed for extending muscles through their normal range of motion to create the beautiful hip and torso articulations we use in belly dance. And it isn’t just for dancers, fitness experts now agree that being flexible is extremely important to preventing injuries both during exercise and in our normal day to day motions…
In the world of fitness “endurance” can be either muscular or cardiovascular. Muscle endurance is your ability to repeat movements without fatiguing, cardiovascular refers specifically to the strength of your heart. Amping up your endurance means aerobic exercise and lots of repetitive movements… in other words, drills, drills, DRILLS!
Technically speaking, strength is the capacity of a muscle to exert force against resistance. In belly dance we don’t hold weights (although I have a pair of zills the size of tea cup saucers that might count); the ‘resistance’ is often gravity or even the weight of our own bodies. Belly dance is therefore only light strength training, but having strength is important for maintaining good posture and for clean isolations…
A physically fit person can do more than just lift weights. There are actually several components of fitness including strength, endurance, flexibility, coordination, and balance. The good news is that belly dance (at least in some small ways) can be used to target them all…
There’s a reason that dance is found in every culture. Modern science has only begun to examine the physical, mental, emotional, social, and spiritual benefits that have held intuitive value in human society throughout all history. In short, dancing makes you a better human being in body, mind, and soul…
I hear this question all the time: “So will belly dance make me lose weight?” It’s a complicated response, the answer is both yes and no. Unfortunately, I think a lot of women are drawn to the dance by the weight loss marketing schemes adopted by many popular DVDs. The message is this: Shapely women with all the right curves belly dancing… buy this and join their ranks! So how come dancing to the video twice a week hasn’t made you lose weight? No wonder so many come to the conclusion “belly dance for weight loss just doesn’t work”…