Event Drop

While I'm writing this post under my belly dance blog, this phenomenon can happen after any kind of event: convention, weekend camping, vacation. etc. Essentially, anything that takes you out of your normal routine has the likelihood of bringing event drop... and the more different from your usual routine and the more fun you have, the greater the drop. And how long the event was will also factor into the amount of drop.

Symptoms
So what are some of the symptoms of the drop:

• Lethargy
• Tiredness/sleepiness
• Depression
• Getting teary-eyed easily to downright crying your eyes out
• Sense of loss for your friends who aren't there and feeling lost in general
• Sleeping for long hours or not being able to sleep at all. Or sleeping at odd hours. (Especially if there was a time zone difference.)
• Loss of interest for normal stuff
• Having issues talking to regular people correctly (i.e., having issues readjusting your filters for the regular environment and/or talking about things that other people have no idea what they are)
• Wanting to go back to that happy place
• Feeling like your life sucks right now
• How can you go on living like this?

And the list could go on.

When that happens: don't panic!!!! It's actually normal! That's event drop. It will get better. I promise.

Treatments

Really, time is what will "cure" the event drop. You'll settle back into your routine and normal life and it will be all fine. You will remember the fun times and miss it but it will be with fondness and not the sense of loss that you're feeling right after the event. So the below are not so much 'treatments' of course as they are tips to handle this time.

• Be kind to yourself! This is so very important b/c you may end up having some thoughts pop through your head like you're stupid or childish for feeling this way. No, you're not. And everything will seem hard. It's normal. It takes time. 
• Drink water. That sounds corny, doesn't it? But chances are, you will have neglected to drink enough water and are dehydrated. So drink up.
• Be careful with alcohol intake. See the bullet above about dehydration. But also remember that alcohol tends to make people more depressed so it will only enhance the symptoms instead of dulling them.
• Eat well. You likely ate whatever was available at the event, which may or may not have been healthy for you. So try to eat some actual good food that will help restore your body. And you may not feel hungry b/c of the symptoms so you may need to force feed yourself.
• Indulge... in moderation. Sure, if you want ice cream b/c it will make you feel better, go ahead. But be careful as this can be a slippery slope as emotional eating can be a tricky thing. But if it makes you feel a bit better to indulge, go ahead. Just keep an eye out for whether it's creeping in for too long.
• Snuggle up and watch a movie. Chances are you'll be brain dead to a certain extent. Snuggle up on the couch under blankies with your significant other and/or your pets and watch something mindless. 
• Plan for it. If you can, plan for the fact that all you'll want to do will be vegging on the couch when getting back from the event and whatever that entails. For example, don't push out doing something until when you get back b/c you likely won't do it. I will actually often will make sure that I have good food in the house for when I get back home b/c I won't want to go to the store that night... and maybe not even the next day after I get back.
• Get back to your routine as quickly as you can. Your routine anchors things for you and trigger that you are back to what you normally do... which is excruciating when you have event drop but you do need to prompt your brain that it's back to routine now. And it's really hard on the sleeping schedule, especially if there was a time zone shift. But try to eat when you normally do, go to sleep when you normally do, and if you have a bed time routine (or waking time routine), just do that too.
• Be kind to yourself. It bears repeating so here... I repeated it. :) And it's fine also to say to people you encounter that you just came back from an event and it was so much fun but you're a little out of it now. People will understand. And then you don't have to put on a front so much.

Again, time will make it better... just do what you need to do to take care of yourself in the meantime.

Con crud

As if the drop was not enough, there is such a thing as "con crud", aka getting sick after an event. If you've traveled by plane or have been around lots of people (for example, Gen Con or Dragon Con), you may actually get sick and have a fever, sore throat, coughing, sneezing, headache, etc. Rest is what you need when you suspect you might be coming down with con crud. Well, essentially treat it like when you're coming down with a cold b/c it's very similar, so rest, fluids, chicken soup, etc.

In conclusion...

Hopefully these tips will help. I know firsthand how weird it feels to be so energized for things when you're at the event, only to go home and just not want to do anything anymore. It's jarring and a WTF moment... but it's normal... and it will pass.

How to deal with the weird crowd?

This is long overdue for some students who have asked about this. So, what do you do when the crowd's not really into belly dance?

Well, first off, let's analyze the setting. Though I will experience the weird crowd in a setting like the Greek restaurant where I dance (example, when the Jehova's Witness convention was in town), usually, the phenomenon will happen at a not so conventional place for belly dance like a fundraiser of sorts or some weird show night at a bar or whatnot. Or the setting could be perfectly fine but you just so happen to be THE dark fusion dancer in a sea of happy, shiny cabaret people (that has happened to me, actually).

It can be really hard to keep your composure and keep pushing through... but you have to. Remember what you're there for: to entertain (whether it's a fundraiser or a weird show night at a bar). Someone booked you to do that and believed that you can do it and add to their event: believe in yourself as well.

This is when I think to myself that I should have the courage of my conviction. My conviction here could be just being a belly dancer or my specific genre of belly dance or my specific piece. Just remember what your intent is with your dance. I know that it can be easier said than done but do take a moment to breathe and ground, if you can. Now if you realize that you're in a weird situation as you're dancing, it's the same principle: keep holding onto the intent of the piece, of your dancing, and try to ground yourself if you can.

What it boils down to is that you should keep focused on what you are delivering: some awesome belly dance. It's fine to be a different kind of belly dancer. It's fine to be a belly dancer when people didn't expect one. Just try and relax.

One important thing is to not close yourself off. That will be a natural tendency as you are bound to feel vulnerable. If you've ever worked with techniques to project energy (for example, opening your chest), do use those. I've managed to swing a whole crowd around by projecting energy.

You also will generally be able to find at least one person who will be into watching you dance and your energy will connect with theirs. Or you may even be able to make eye contact with that person. And that will help you carry on. (And oftentimes the person will find you afterwards and tell you how they appreciated you connecting with them.)

Now if you're in a noisy setting like a bar and there's ruckus, I will handle in the following manner (and it's easier for me to adapt as I mostly do improv): I will first direct energy and my attention towards the ruckus. It is incredible how much people will pick up on someone watching them. Generally, one person in the group will tell the rest of the group that they should quiet down and pay attention. If that doesn't happen, then I'll just generally ignore that area and focus on those who ARE paying attention.

And if all else fails and you can't find a good groove or anyone you can connect with, just try to connect with the Universe and Dance. It sounds woo woo but connecting to the joy of dance will help you power through a difficult setting.

The other thing to remember is that these unpleasant instances are what makes you into a better performer. The more you encounter them, deal with them, and come out on the other side unscathed, the better you get at handling them. You can view it as just earning experience under your belt. And those usually make for some good stories to tell later on.

So go forth and do your thing!

Practice Tips Series - Planning What to Practice

If you've ever found time to practice and then didn't know what to do, it's likely because you didn't have a plan... and then this scenario may feel familiar: you end up doing just a little bit and stop and check your phone and noodle around and you have a very unsatisfying practice session. Honestly, without planning, it can be rough to practice.

Another advantage to planning is that it may actually make you WANT to practice. You may get excited about doing something or at least you have an idea of what to do so it doesn't sound so scary.

Now one thing that helps with planning is having goals. We'll cover that in a separate entry as it'd be too long to cover here.

Practice Session Elements

Except for the warmup and cool down, note that the below elements can be done in whichever order makes sense to you... and that not all practice sessions will contain all these elements. These are more suggestions/food for thought than mandatory elements. :)

Warmup

All practice sessions should start with a warmup. One super quick way to get your heart rate up is to shimmy for a few minutes. But, honestly, that's not quite enough. Ideally, you want to spend time on stretching your body a little and prepare it for the work ahead and all that. If you don't quite know where to start, feel free to use your teacher's warmup as it's something that you know and it should have been created with the goal to get your body stretched enough for belly dancing. If you don't take regular classes and don't know where to start, I would strongly encourage getting a belly dance DVD and borrowing something from there. Or just simply think of how you'd need to stretch your body: neck, shoulders, wrists, ankles, legs, knees, hips, etc.

I'm a big proponent of keeping the warmup constant. I use the same warmup for myself as I do for my students with the exception of an alternate warmup that I use when I do more intense drilling sessions. The advantage with a consistent warmup is that it ends up mentally prepping you to practice. You'll know when that first note hits and when you're doing your first stretch that it's practice time. As improbable as it may seem, it creates a sort of Pavlov reaction that trains your brain over time to quiet down to enter practice mode.

Drilling/Isolations

I pretty much always drill at least something or work on isolations in general for at least a few minutes. Even when the focus of a session is more on choreographing/piece development, I will make it a point to drill at least one thing or go through a selection of moves. The reason for this is that I find that it helps get my body and mind aligned that we're doing belly dance now and sort of uploads the concept and some movements to the brain. Other times, the focus of a session will be on drilling.

One of the reasons why drilling and working on isolations and why doing some even for a few minutes is so important is that it helps you perfect your technique. The better you are at technique, the easier it will be to execute movements on stage. So that's an important thing to keep working on. When you work on drilling, your focus should be on feeling the movement through and through and assessing where its weaknesses/areas for improvement are.

There are a number of drills that are possible, obviously. You can create your own, you can pick a DVD and follow along, you can borrow from something that you remember (or noted down) from a workshop, etc. One thing that works really well for me is to work on one thing for the duration of a piece.

Just Dance

I pretty much make it a point in each session to pick a piece (generally randomly on my iPod) and just dance to it. While part of the purpose of this segment is to help develop some of the improv skills, mostly, it's just to have fun. With the drilling and the choreographing/development of a piece, it can get nerve racking and you forget that you actually like to dance. So that's an occasion for me to connect with that awesome feeling that you get when dancing. When I do the "Just Dance" portion, I don't care if I'm doing belly dance at all... the point is to get your body moving and to enjoy the feeling.

Choreographing/Developing a Piece/Practicing Your Piece

I don't choreograph anymore. I do mainly planned spots with improv in-between. I may post an entry on that. Even if you're an improv kind of performer, you need to work on your piece at least a little bit to ensure that it will come out as you want on stage. If you're a choreographer, obviously, you do need to devote some time to doing that. 

Once you've choreographed the piece or my version of it is when I have enough planned spots, then I get in practice mode. I won't consider that I'm practicing the piece until it's stable enough so it may take a number of sessions before I get to practice the piece.

Cool Down/Stretching

I'm terrible at doing this but I will generally do at least a few stretches after I'm done with my practice time to ensure that my body will stay dancing for a long time.

Timeline Planning

Again, we'll talk about goals in a separate entry. But, for example, if one of your goals is to conquer the 3/4 shimmy... you'll need to work on it (that would fall in the drilling category). So you can use your goals to help determine what you'll be working on. If you never work on a thing from your goals list, guess what? You won't achieve your goal. So do look at your list and use that as inspiration for what you want to work on.

Performances may or may not be part of your goals list (they're not on mine). If you know that you have a performance coming up for, say, June, you know that you'll need to get ready for it. So that will help you in determining a timeline for when you need to be done with your choreography or whatever step you know you need to be at by when for a good performance... with time left to practice, right?

So things that you can/want to work on will become blocks and you'll be essentially be using them to help create your practice plan and having a timeline will help you tremendously for that.

Time Budgeting

The concept here is to be realistic about how much time you have for your practice time (which was discussed in the previous entry) and also be mindful of how much time you'll spend on what in your practice. For example: if you know that you have a performance coming up this weekend, you will likely need to spend more time in the "practicing your piece" time of your practice session.

What we mean by "time budgeting" here is having an idea of how much time you'll spend on each segment of your practice time. So, in the example above, if you were to have 30 minutes to practice and spent 25 minutes drilling, you would have no time left to practice your piece (because that remaining 5 minutes should have been spent on warmup). This is where the focus of a session becomes important. So if a session were to be focused on practicing the piece, I may parcel out a 30-minute session like so: 5 minutes for warmup; 5 minutes for drilling; 5 minutes for just dance; 15 minutes for practicing the piece. Or if there was a combo or a movement in my piece that needs a bit more attention drilling, I may skip the "just dance" and do 10 minutes of drilling. Again, this is just an example but that's the idea behind time budgeting: allocating a ball park idea of how long you'll spend on what. That obviously can change during your practice, though, according to your needs.

Additional Tips

• A note on the drilling segment: Whereas it's going to be (or should be) very clear what you're working on for the choreographing/developing a piece/practicing a piece segment, the drilling segment can be very vast and leave you confused if you don't have a plan and will likely end up doing the "just dance" segment instead of focused drilling and perfecting your technique. So before you even start your warmup, think of what you want to work on for your drilling segment. And, as mentioned above, do look at your list of goals for inspiration.
• I generally will plan the details of my practice session of the day during the day, way ahead of when I'll be starting it.
• Try not to bring your electronics in your dance practice. Don't have other web pages open if you're using your computer to play your music. Turn off your phone. Heck, don't even bring it in the room that you're practicing in (unless of course you need to). It's so easy to get distracted by Facebook, texts from friends, the weather, etc.
• I have a dance journal that I keep. I'll touch on this in the goals entry as well. I use a pen and paper dance journal to remove the electronics distraction temptation. I write in it what my practice consisted of, how long for each segment, how long overall, what I need to work on next, discoveries, etc.

Practice Tips Series - Planning When to Practice

So, you intend to practice more. That's great. Next up, you gotta plan. Oh man! Not that! No, seriously, you do have to plan. Raise your hand if you've ever made that promise to practice more, say, 3 times a week, and then a whole week goes by and you haven't practiced once... OR... you've started your practice and didn't know what to do. That all takes planning. This entry will only cover planning your when to practice. The "what" will be covered in a separate entry.

Look at a Typical Week
Chances are, you have some typical weeks where you know that you generally have XX on Tuesday and YY and Thursday. Or whatever your typical activities are. Which days have an opportunity for you to practice? You don't have to pick all days that are available... you just know that they are a possibility. And if you don't have a typical week as things are often in flux, that makes it harder but not impossible to plan.

Be Realistic About Your Time
While you're assessing your typical week, you should also have an honest discussion with yourself over how many times in a (typical) week you can realistically practice. For example, if you are busy 3 nights a week, setting a goal of practicing 5-6 times a week may be too much. You'll need to allow yourself some time to just relax or else you'll, yes, fill all your time with dancing but then you'll get burned on it... and that's much worse than doing fewer practices but keep at it.

Set a Regular Schedule
This will help with consistency. If you can pinpoint some days when you DEFINITELY don't have anything routinely that day, then you may want to plant the idea that these are mandatory practice days. For example, I'm taking a break from teaching classes for now and have definitely nothing Mondays (or very rarely do) and 3 out of 4 Tuesdays are completely free. So Mondays and Tuesdays are days that I've scheduled as mandatory practice days.

The idea here is creating a habit. The more you can create this pattern of you just dance on these days, the easier it will be to just get up and dance. It's really habit that will fuel your willpower to just do it. And the more you can create consistency, the easier it is. If you think vaguely of practicing XX number of times per week but don't set a regular schedule, you'll forget or pretend to forget that you need to do it. It's real easy to let it slip if you don't have a regular schedule. So help yourself by creating a habit.

Respect Your Body
So while you love the idea of practicing like 3 days in a row, your body hates you for it. Well, you just may need a recovery day in-between practice sessions. There is no point in forcing your body to do more than it can do. Again, it goes with being realistic and, if you get too tired from practicing, you will stop doing it altogether and that's not good.

Some food for thought on that, though. You do want to gain stamina so pushing your body isn't necessarily a bad idea... within reason. The good thing about belly dancing is that there is quite a vast array of dance moves that you can practice/drill so you can mix it up. So your upper back is hurting because you drilled a whole bunch of chest circles, well maybe you can work more heavily on hips today. Or you could do one day more focused on drilling, the next day more focused on just dancing, improv, and/or choreographing, and the next day be drilling again. There IS flexibility. And, yes, that may require some different planning (again, will be tackled in a different entry).

Look at the Upcoming Week
The next week may be a typical week... or it may not. If it's not, and it's a busier than normal week, you'll need to work with it. There is no point in pretending it's anything but what it is. This goes also with being realistic about your time, right? So maybe this week, you won't be able to do your 3 times a week that you wanted because you are super busy and going out of town this weekend. Don't fret. How many can you do? Hopefully you can hit at least one of your normally scheduled days. And if you normally dance for like an hour at a time, can you swing a shorter time but more sessions? Try as much as possible to squeeze in at least one practice session, even if only a short one because we want to keep that idea, that habit of practicing regularly.

Now if it's a case of your week has more time in it than it normally would, see if you can't squeeze in an extra practice session. But be kind to yourself: when you have more time, you CAN use it to decompress and relax. You do need that too. But, yanno, if you can squeeze in a bit more, try to do it.

Be Careful about the All or Nothing Scenario
It's a very human tendency so don't beat yourself up for it but be mindful of it. You may go down the road of thinking that, if you can't practice 6 times a week, then there's no point. That is completely untrue. ANY practice time will be beneficial. And, yanno, actually too much isn't good either as you do need some rest and you need to not get burned on dancing to keep dancing.

Also, if you missed your first practice time of the week, that doesn't mean that the week is * beep *. It just means that you didn't practice that day. Don't beat yourself up. Just practice whenever you were scheduled next or if you can make it up another day, do it. In my weight loss journey, one thing that Weight Watchers did for me that was awesome was take care of the guilt of having messed up. Well, it's hard to mess up royally with Weight Watchers but not impossible. What they tell you is that, if you messed up, you get to get back on track at the next meal... you don't even have to wait a full day or a full week. Same here.

Make a Date With Yourself
This sounds silly but comes via The Artist's Way book (kind of a good read but it gets tedious after a while... good food for thought in the beginning): make a date with yourself to practice. Or if you've ever heard or done the Covey "7 Habits of Highly Effective People" workshop (I think that they're up to 8 habits now?): honor your commitments... (addition from me here:) even those with yourself. So you said that you'd practice on Monday and Tuesday nights. DO IT. You'll feel so much better after you've done it. It's a much better feeling than thinking that you should have practiced but didn't... but maybe you can make up for it now... but you don't want to. Know that song and dance? And it will be real easy to get tempted by other things. Those other things can wait. You owe it to yourself to take that time for yourself. Be selfish here. Protect that time even from yourself. ;)

Rewards
This also may sound silly since you're all grown up and all. But, yanno, we're still kids at heart (again, you can read about that in The Artist's Way book). And visuals work GREAT for simple rewards that will make you feel good about the work you've done. How about you get a wall calendar (they must be on sale now) and put it up in your dance space (or somewhere else). You can go to the dollar store or some other store and get stickers. You can write on each day on that calendar that you practiced or put a star or some sticker on the day (great visual impact). When you have reached the minimum number of practice sessions in the week, you can put another sticker (maybe a bigger one?) for the whole week. That visual alone will make you feel good about the work you've done.

And you may want to have milestone rewards as well. So say a full month of doing your minimum, you may say that you'd buy yourself that big bindi you've been drooling about or the DVD from XX dancer that you've been wanting to get. For 3 months of mostly doing every week with the minimum practice sessions (don't go for an all or nothing scenario here; you could set a ratio of 80%? that'd be 10 out of 12 weeks), you get yourself something bigger. The point here is to give yourself an extra incentive to keep at it. The biggest incentive that you'll get and also the biggest reward, though, will be seeing the improvement in your dancing and there is no price for that.

These are merely suggestions and ideas. You can definitely come up with your own. The most important thing is to do what works best for you to keep you motivated.

Practice Tips Series - Debunking some myths

It's winter time and you have a bunch of time on your hand because, well, it's winter. In the fall, you had all kinds of awesome plans for how you'd kick your practice into high gear. But then you find that your motivation and willpower has has gone out the window and you haven't practiced in... who knows how long? Or you've been practicing real good for a while and then the Holidays happened and you got off the proverbial bandwagon and have a hard jumping back on it. Or you never got on it. Whatever may be the case, so you're having issues practicing?

Let me just say that it happens to all of us... or at least most of us. It's just normal. So you're not alone. The key is finding ways to get you practicing.  This is what this series of blogs will be about: giving some tips and tricks to help with your practice.

First off, though, I want first to debunk a few things about practice.

Debunking the willpower myth
I've heard the line "I have no willpower" from a lot of folks for a number of things that they wish they would do. If I learned one thing from losing weight, it's that it's really not about willpower but about habits... and then out of those better habits will come your will to resist temptations. In the case of practicing, temptations abound in the form of a lame TV show that you somehow feel you need to watch, looking at everyone's updates on Facebook or other social media, or whatever has been keeping you from practicing.

Again pulling from my time losing weight, when people wield the "no willpower" card, it seems like they believe that willpower is a magical wand that will suddenly make everything better and easier. So here's the truth: there is no magic wand. There's really only planning and habits. More on that in the next blog entry (coming soon).

Debunking the length of practice time
I've been guilty of that myself but I've sometimes been reluctant to practice if it's for a short period of time. We have these grand ideas of practicing where we'd like to think that we could practice for hours every day... but then the reality hits you and you don't have all these hours of time or have just a limited amount of time and figure out that there's no point in even practicing a little.

Honestly? There is literally no amount of time that is too short. For example, I've seen improvements by just doing a few isolations while cooking my eggs in the morning or doing shoulder rolls at work (which has the added benefit of relaxing my shoulders from all this typing I have to do). Or maybe an idea for a combo will come up and you'll try it in the kitchen... or the bathroom... or wherever. I call those micro-practices. While they aren't the only thing that you should rely on for improving your dance, they still serve useful purposes and even that is helpful.

One other thing to know is that you're better off practicing more frequently for shorter sessions than less frequently but longer sessions. Instead, most people believe that it's better to do, say, one practice session of an hour per week versus, say, 3-4 sessions of 30 minutes. If you do the math, it's clear that one yields more time overall for the week. But even if it was the same amount of time (e.g., 2 x 1 hour versus 4 x 30 minutes), the more frequently you practice, the better it is. I will put a caveat to that in an upcoming blog entry about being realistic about your schedule.  That being said, if you can swing a longer practice session during your week, that can be beneficial since you'll be able to cover more material in your session and build your endurance and all that good stuff.

Open Your Horizon

I've been musing on this for a while now.  There have been some interesting trends that I've noticed.

Back when I first learned to belly dance (1995), the internet wasn't widely used at all and few actually had access at home. Given that I was in Quebec City, Canada, there wasn't a whole lot of information being spread around about belly dance. I was at the mercy of my instructor to know what was going on in the belly dance world (and she wasn't one for sharing information). Back in those days, you'd be lucky if you could find a catalog that carried belly dance VHS and even if you did find it, the price would be exorbitant... add the currency conversion (since I was in Canada)... and duty... and the cost was very prohibitive.

Once more people started getting internet at home, finding information was oh so much easier. During the glory years of tribe.net (remember that?), it was easy to find information on any topic that you were interested. We had so many different tribes (i.e., message boards) on specific topics. It made finding information easy. Events were also promoted there.  I thought for sure that, given how information was so easy to find, it would enable us all to broaden our horizons and learn more about everything belly dance well beyond your neck of the woods.

And, for a while, that was true. Everyone seemed to know the big names in the belly dance world. And whether you were tribal or cabaret, you knew at least the big names for the other style and got to learn about a number of awesome smaller names in your style. Events were well attended by people from neighboring cities and states and sometimes well beyond (especially for festivals).  People weren't afraid to drive 3-4 hours (if not more) to attend some workshops. It seemed that dancers had a thirst for knowledge that FINALLY was being quenched.

In the Summer of 2008, there were so so so many glitches with tribe.net that it made it practically unusable. It definitely was very frustrating to try to use the darn site... I remember full well. A bunch of people decided to recreate some tribe-like feel on Facebook. Well, Facebook, ain't tribe... but back then, actually, groups were more like message boards so, for a bit, it worked out okay. That being said, finding information in general and definitely finding information for event was a little tricky as we were all trying to figure out how to use Facebook.

Well, you know what else happened in 2008? That's right: the economy took a real bad turn. So besides having a hard time finding the information about events easily, people didn't have as much disposable income for traveling far and wide to all events and would pick and choose which ones they were attending. So events (and classes) weren't as well attended in general.

But, for a while, it seemed like people were at least keeping a minimum of interest, enough to still know what was going on in the belly dance world in general (i.e., beyond their local community). So while people couldn't travel as much, the fountain of knowledge was still there and people were still drinking from it.

What happened since then? Well, things have been hiccuping. For all that we're told that the economy is getting better, either people are being more frugal and keep their disposable income in their savings account or the economy isn't that much better... or it could be that the belly dance revival that happened in the late 90s-2000s is over with. Only time will tell.

One thing that has me concerned, though, is that I've noticed that people won't even travel a few hours for a weekend of workshops with a renown instructor. Instead, they'll just attend their local events and not expand their horizons. While I'm all for promoting and participating in your local belly dance community, I feel that, without seeking out new knowledge, growth will be harder to reach.

But I get it, the cost of events, even just a few hours from your home, may be prohibitive. Okay, fine. What has me even more concerned, though, is that I notice that so many new belly dancers have no idea who renown belly dancers are but they will only know their local dancers. Again, while I'm all for knowing and interacting with your local community, it's important to also get to know contemporary and historical names in the belly dance world.  And, again, with the internet, you have no excuse for not finding that information! It's available at your fingertips! Look at videos on youtube, search on google, look up groups on Facebook, when in doubt, ask an instructor for pointers (and if they don't know, they should find out). The fountain of knowledge is still there... please drink from it!

I invite everyone to branch out and open your horizon to gain more knowledge about this art form that you love so dearly.

Play date vs. Baby Frankenstein

I’ve heard some ghastly music mixes in performances over the years. One time, the performance was like 3 minutes long and there were like 6 different pieces used. Seriously, folks, it’s really annoying to hear the music suddenly switch from piece A to piece B without any editing in-between. ESPECIALLY if the pieces don’t have any relationship to one another.  Beyond the annoyance for the ears, it detracts from your performance! My brain has to switch from A to B quickly and, while it’s adjusting, I’m totally missing the dancing that you’re doing! So, once again, I’d like to make a plea for better music editing.

This is really my opinion and you don’t have to agree with me but I have huge issues with using only small portions of a piece in my performances.  I tend to use the whole piece.  I’ve seldom done some music mixes because of that.  To me, up to a certain point, if you are using only bits and pieces of a music piece, you’re kind of deconstructing someone else’s art for your own needs. And I have some issues with that.  Now, I do love industrial music and we all know that they do sampling quite a bit… and that’s fine. But may I point out that they do it with artistry and the insertion of those elements is so well done that it’s seamless.  Also, both with industrial music and electronica, it can get repetitive so I understand cutting such music; if you do, I’d like to hear a representative portion of the piece, though.

I know enough musicians to know that their music is their children… just like my dances are my children.  So I view performances as actually a play date between my child and the musician(s)’s child.  And, yes, it’s possible to have a play date with more than 2 children, of course! You can invite other musician’s “children” to play but, just like in real life, it shouldn’t be complete and utter chaos.  In real life, if play dates were too chaotic, the parents would put an end to it or go with smaller numbers. Similar analogy with your mixes.

Also, try not to make a baby Frankenstein. Sometimes, I’ll hear mixes where the songs have so little to do with each other that it totally felt like someone patchworked a baby Frankenstein together (you know, like an arm comes from this child and a leg from this other child, and a torso from this other child, etc.). Just like you should be striving for your music, your costuming, your movements, your hair and makeup to work harmoniously together and have common elements, you want the pieces that you’re using to work together and create a seamless story.

I don’t know if these tendencies to want to mix music that have nothing to do with each other is a by-product of wanting to perform them all and feeling like there aren’t enough opportunities.  I totally understand that there’s a lot of good music out there. But I think that it’s important for a performance to have focus and, if you use music pieces that have nothing to do with each other in your mixes, it will give a sort of schizophrenic effect of not knowing where you wanted to go. If you’ve ever watched Project Runway or Top Chef, you’ve most certainly heard the judges say something like “there are some good ideas in there but this lacked focus.”  It’s like that.

Believe me, based on the few times that I’ve had to mix or cut music, it takes a long time to get a seamless effect (and, yes, even with doing just a cut). There are tons of softwares out there, some free, to help you out (I use Audacity). But it still takes time.  So take the time. And, no, it’s not something that you can pull off at the last second unless you are very experienced with these editing softwares. If you don’t have time to do a good job (I understand being pressed for time), try to find a DJ who can help you with that. There are a lot of DJs out there and a good one should be able to mix your pieces very seamlessly.

So when you’re picking out the different pieces that you want to mix together, think of the story and mood that you are weaving together.  Consider that you’ll most likely need to adjust the mood with each piece… even if they’re all about, say, sadness. No two pieces are exactly alike. How are you going to transition the pieces from one to the other musically? And how will that affect your dancing? 

What progression are you going for? Worst mixes are going up-down-up-down… e.g., happy, anger, love, more anger, hope, hate, etc.  So strive instead for some sort of progression… something that would make sense in the real world. People are rarely this chaotic in their emotions (PMS excluded, of course). And, throughout, keep in the back of your mind this question: What is the overarching theme of the whole piece? That should help you figure out how to order things.