Many Years Back I went into a workshop with a few of my teachers and was advised I danced like her. Well, you’d have believed I won the lottery since I was thrilled that somebody thought I danced just like one of my instructors. As a newcomer student my individuality had been influenced and molded from the fashions and methods for multitude instructors. And as I climbed my consciousness grew not just about our dancing form but also within my monitoring of amateurs as well as the numerous levels of training necessary to become the ideal. An interesting quote I like sets levels of dancing into standpoint;
“Beginning singer understands nothing. Intermediate dancer knows everything and is too good to dance with beginners. 3. A hotshot dancer is too fantastic to dance with anybody. 4. Advanced dancer dances everything particularly with novices”
As I progressed through my courses and workshops something interesting occurred. I acquired gestures and combinations in the teachers I’ve studied but I did not know exactly what to do with them after I got home and began to practice.
I saw how amazing the motions appeared on each of the dancers I admired but once I attempted to move like these, I lacked the pure elegance they had. I believed it was because I simply needed to practice along with the requirement to get familiar with all the choreography. In the long run I simply didn’t go like my instructors and also there was a part of me felt just like that I never would. I needed to understand that the motions needed to become part of that I had been first and just than would they eventually become “my” moves. This meant that I could respect my teachers but in precisely the exact same time different my “individuality” and dancing the mixes my way.
“Great artists are people who find a way to become themselves in their artwork. Any kind of pretension induces mediocrity in art and life alike.” –Margot Fonteyn
The amusing thing is I did not develop my own “individuality” before I had been dancing for approximately ten decades. So there have been many years I danced without even understanding who I was or the dance needed to come from inside me. As a matter of fact I did not know it needed to come from inside me since I was too busy dance me outside. It only happened to me because a fan came up to me and said “I understand you, you are what her name is”. Come to find out she had been thinking of another warrior that I looked like and enjoyed like. I came home and realized I needed to reinvent myself and begin to comprehend exactly what I desired from this dancing.
Push came to drive Due to an experience I had in a restaurant in Dallas. I auditioned for the operator and was advised to go home and find out how to belly dance.
It was a harsh lesson but one that I heard from and will never forgets.
There were two streets I might have traveled. One was to stop dancing all together and another was to prove him wrong. Since I really like a challenge I decided to prove him wrong. I went home and began back To square. This was because I worked from the interior. First I opted to perform moves that just felt great in my entire body. Second I chose to Alter how I set moves together and to go away from the box of “secure” Moves. I changed everything was appropriate for me personally and let go of thoughts that simply did not match Me. Every educator has her perspective of dancing and as we know we Will Need to decide what to keep and what to let go and understand that this is okay. I chose that there was definite ways I chose to dance than that which I had been told. So I decided to follow my instincts and do it.
