Monday, August 3, 2015

Dancing to the Beat of Your Own Drum







My niece, Elizabeth is a very special child.  As you can see in the video, she dances to the beat of her own drummer.  My sister who is her mother and her loving aunts (Lisa and I) encourage that behavior.  We want an independent, sassy child who expresses herself without the societal pressures of fitting in.  We want her to express her authentic voice and be celebrated for it.

One of the reasons that many of us have chosen to belly dance is because we want to dance to the beat of our own drum.  Let's face it, this choice isn't a particularly sanctioned one in our society.  Many people do not understand our love of costumes, desire to be on stage or need for this particular community, the one that we find only in our dance sisters and brothers.

My last performance as an Egyptian style belly dancer where solo improvisation is the norm.

Yet, for American Tribal Style® dancers, we make a choice to be in community when we dance.  Our art is one of group improvisation at it's core.  When we dance in this style, we agree to put the needs of the group ahead of the needs of ourselves.  We commit to supporting our sisters and brothers, following their lead and being there for them in class, in rehearsal and on the stage.  We agree to dance to the beat of the group's drum!

Dancers at a Third Eye Tribal class practicing as a group.

In order to do this successfully, we need to be able to work cooperatively, putting our own needs aside at times for the needs of the group.  Some concrete examples of this are:
  • agreeing to different music or costuming than is your first choice
  • performing to the skill level and movement knowledge of the least experienced member of your group so that everyone shines
  • not intentionally leading moves that others in your group do not know or are not proficient in executing
  • allowing others to express their opinions when planning a set or making a decision
  • encouraging less vocal members of your dance group to share their opinions
  • being generous about allowing others to take the lead during performances
Although these suggestions seem like common courtesy or normal adult behavior, sometimes in the heat of the moment and stress of interpersonal relationships, we forget them or don't even realize that we are ignoring them, or in other words, dancing to the beat of our own drum. 

I just wrote an article called "Against the Flock" for the most recent issue of The ATS® Magazine discussing difficult students.  You can get it here:  The ATS® Magazine

Many of the problems related to "difficult students" center around dancers who need to dance to their own drum but have landed in a group improvisational dance style where that just isn't a possibility.  The same problematic behaviors that instructors find in their classroom can be found in dance troupes.

How do you cultivate community in your dance classes and troupes?  How do you encourage the members to dance to the beat of the group's drum?  We would love to hear from you!

Happy Shimmies!

Terri




















No comments:

Post a Comment