Arts and Crafts

Felsha, dancing the art of the skirt

Dance is both a craft and an art.

You have to master the craft before it becomes an art.

You have to become a craftsman before you become an artist.

To become a craftsman, fully understanding the art, takes years of practice, with daily hours dedicated to practice, the mind turned to explore the craft and comprehend it.

Dance is an art built of mastering the craft.

Many people dance as a hobby, many more perform as a hobby- but you do not call yourself a dancer until you have mastered not only the craftsmanship of movement, but the essence of the dance you are performing, so that you can then perform in public in such a way that the audience understands the music, the movement, the dancer and the dance..the entire presentation is the DANCE.

Those hobbyists who perform to a professional standard, with respect for their chosen art, deserve much respect- more so than a person who markets themselves as a professional, or a teacher, yet lacks the understanding or knowledge of their craft.

Today, with so many people calling themselves dancers and performing in public after too little work and too little mastery of the craft, having too little comprehension of the essence of the dance they are performing, the audience is no longer able to discern the true masters and has lost part of what used to be the experience of the dance: the audience itself entering the dance because they are given that path of entry via the mastery of the art.  

In addition, in encouraging students to put themselves out in public as “dancers”, in allowing students to call themselves dancers before they have mastered their craft, we have also done harm to the audience- we have begun to condition our audience to be under-educated as to what our art is about and what they should expect from those who dance in our art- indeed, we are training them to expect less of our art, to be unable to differentiate between an artist and a student…once you train your audience to accept any quality, high or low, as representing your dance form, you have done it, and your audience, a great disservice.

I have seen hundreds of people dancing- but I am seeing fewer dancers. I have seen fewer dancers concerned about the audience, and too many treating the performance of the dance as an opportunity for obsessive self-gratification. I am seeing fewer dancers able to take the audience into the dance with them.

What we are also seeing instead is a rise of the “cult of personality”, wherein a dancer- some deserving of the name, some not- becomes the iconic flavor of the month, with students rushing to take a workshop from a teacher without ever asking the critical question: “Does this teacher offer something I need at this point in my training to make me a better dancer?” 

The truth is, not every workshop is valuable at certain points in a student’s training. There are various types of workshops: movement technique, layering and transitions, choreography, specific targeting, refinement of movement, musical understanding, props, specific dance forms, and so on, and students need to think about their strengths and weaknesses and look for workshops that will help them refine their strengths and improve their weaknesses. Teachers should be able and willing to help students focus.

Instead, we often get this: “Oh, look, Mr/Ms Fabuloso the bellydancer is going to be offering a workshop in her/his latest style from Egypt/Turkey/wherever (or in the latest synthesized trend) and he’s so amazing and sexy/she’s so amazing and sexy, let’s go take this.. “ and everyone in an area rushes to spend the day learning the latest fad thing.

The problem with this approach is 1) not everyone is physically trained to learn things well yet, 2) not everyone understands that what is being taught can be far removed from bellydance and may confuse them about bellydance, so they need to understand what is being offered and what it is, 3) what is being taught is not suited to everyone trying to dance, and 4) when students attend a workshop they are not prepared physically for, not having mastered the foundational work, they often learn the material incorrectly, or badly, and then add it sloppily to their own performance.

Or, a beginning level student hears that a workshop is being offered in advanced torso and pelvic articulation work and she signs up, despite her teacher suggesting it might be too advanced and despite the advertisement clearly stating dancers must be at an advanced level. During the workshop, she struggles with the material and complains that the teacher isn’t any good and the material is too hard and it was a waste of her money.

In this instance, the student has not yet developed the dancer’s mindset of self-discipline, of knowing when she is prepared physically to go to another level. This is the ego-stage of learning to become a dancer, when a student is so excited about being “a dancer” that she forgets there is still a distance to go. There is a certain emotional immaturity at this stage, and the student tends to blame the teachers rather than her own lack of training for any struggles she might have in the classroom, in her practice or at a workshop. There is also a tendency to be a little dismissive of the teacher’s knowledge of the students limitations, because the hunger to learn, the excitement, overrides the wisdom and patience of self-restraint.

In both instances, the workshops are not doing what they need to be doing for the student  or dancer. If you are that student or dancer, be patient- work to master your foundations so that the workshops you take will give you your best results.

And when your teacher suggests you may not be ready for a workshop, don’t assume she is trying to hold you back. Remember: a teacher builds her reputation on the quality of the student she produces! She wants you to do well and wants you to avoid becoming frustrated or disheartened.

I am an advocate of cross-training, but I also feel it is the responsibility of the primary teacher to inform her students about which workshops the teacher feels will do the student most good, and to train her students to be able to use discernment in pursuing their own dance education. And it is the responsibility of the student to be patient, work hard and master the foundations of her chosen dance form, and recognize she is part of a wider community, each person depending on the next to represent the art well.

The problem with haphazard workshop selection, flavor of the month workshops and the “I just wanna dance” approaches to the field of bellydance, Fusion, Synthesized Dance and Dance Theatre, is that we are seeing a rise in poor dancing, a loss of understanding of dance standards and we are doing this to ourselves.

The result will be a deepening divide between other dance forms, in which training is essential, standards are maintained and quality is apparent, and the forms of dance we perform, whatever they might be.

And yes, when we dance we dance with passion, but remember: our passion is best expressed in our art when we master that art. You can have all the amazing feelings of the world, and if you have not applied yourself to learning your craft, your expression of those passions through dance will never be what they truly could have been.

I am also seeing the same thing in teaching: too little work and too little mastery of the craft, having too little comprehension of the essence or defining characteristics of the dance they are teaching, a lack of understanding of the elements of each dance style in the genre of alternative dance forms, and more.. but that is a op-ed piece for another day. (See How to Find a Teacher in a Non-adjudicated Dance Form (Finding a Teacher in Alternative Dance Forms)

© 2017 Prima Beladi