shanmonster | Yet Another What-Am-I-Doing Post

I hesitate to describe what I do as belly dance, and not even because I object to the term belly dance. It's because what I do, although certainly based off a core movement vocabulary I picked up in my raqs sharqi studies, just doesn't resemble anything I see in those circles. My movements are core-based, incorporating muscular isolation and tension, but what I do is not what I teach. What I teach is just the barest bones of what I do.

And neither can I really call it a belly dance/martial arts fusion, because my dance doesn't look particularly martial any more. But again, it draws from fundamental movements I've learned in those studies. You can see it in some of my stances, in my footwork, and in my arm, hand, and foot positioning.

I also incorporate facial expression to a large degree. The faces I make range from carefully neutral to positively horrific, depending on the mood of the dance. This must come from my theatre degree (I guess my university training came in handy, after all!).

I can't call what I do syncretic core dancing; that's the ugliest thing I've thought of today. But that's probably the best description I can think of.

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I'm still thinking through what I'm going to do at the Tribally Yours show next month. For "Leah," I'm thinking of starting from a crawl, then flipping over into syncopated backbends. For "Dragonfly," I'm thinking veil poi for a prop, and a dance heavy on contractions and tension. How am I going to mix tension with poi? That's going to be tricky....