I was surprised to see in the Nile group festival only 3
classes on the program that were not teaching a choreography. It is always
useful to learn someone else’s dance. That way you learn how they hear the
music and gives you an idea of how to put steps together in a different way.
However, I much prefer classes where you learn technique and information about
how to interpret the music so you can make up your own dance.
This is what Asmahan was teaching this morning in her
workshop. She gave (in English and Spanish) very clear guidelines on how to do
technique and where the moves should come from and also one to one attention to
check everyone had it right. She had fun music, blend of Arabic with salsa and
with rap and had us do very simple routines to practise the technique she was
going over. After all these years I didn’t think I could learn new things about
even basics like the hip drop, but I did and feel inspired from it.
Asmahan had such a relaxed gentle, yet commanding attitude
while teaching that everyone loved her. She made everyone look at their dancing
anew and talked about ‘us’ as bellydancers, what ‘we’ should do and how. It was
lovely. Like being part of a team.
Mergance is the entrance piece for a dancer’s show and
Asmahan talked about how this is the
only music actually composed for the dancer. She talked about the importance of
not dancing everything in 4’s or 8’s rather to mix things up and make surprises
for your audience. She had lots of fun, hard, ways to drill moves and i could
feel how effective they were even though I had to run out half way through the
workshop because I had a lunch sail on the Pharaoh. I was very sorry to have to leave, but i did
feel like I got a lot out of the class. I liked when she talked about attitude
when you dance- but mispronounced it’ actitude’. I liked that- the idea of
acting your way through it! Also she talked about ‘nefis’ (Arabic for breath) being when a dancer is comfortable in
her own skin and takes time within her dance to take a breath!
So much information generously given (I wish I’d been there
for the whole 3 hours!). Well Done Asmahan. A very good teacher!
(and a lovely person-
she went out her way to introduce me to people as a professional dancer here in
Cairo, which she didn’t need to mention at all)
Good news for people wanting to see her show is that Asmahan
will be back performing on the Nile Maxim for this next month and then again in
the summer.
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