DANCE IMPROVISATION for BELLY DANCERS

It is important that the dancer be prepared to interpret the rhythm and the instrumentation as well as the melody and words. Keti Sharif, in her book Bellydance, points out that the melody creates the emotive atmosphere, while the rhythm governs the speed and momentum of the piece.

If, in addition, the music has words, you really need to understand what the words are saying and what the context is... same as with any music! I still remember the Mormon talent show that I attended with a friend where most of the adult males in the room (including my friend) got up on stage to perform to the Y-M-C-A.

Piper Reid Hunt in her article Going Pro:

• Understand your music thoroughly;
• Learn to improv by building on the steps you already know;
• Plan your performance, don't choreograph it.

[If] you want to learn to freestyle better, put on a favorite piece of music and dance around your living room. When a particular combination of moves feels right, write it down. This is the way to create your own combos. Now vary your posture and add different arm positions or a dip or a hop, and suddenly one combo becomes two. Once you have several combos you like, try mixing and matching various elements from combo to another until each one flows from one step to the next. Then try some step progressions, starting with a simple step and then embellishing it with different arms or layered hipwork. Add these to your combos. In this way, three different combos with three steps each can get a beginner through a whole song! If you keep doing this, using different tempos and rhythms each time, soon you will be able to handle anything a band can play like a pro.

Accents

Call-and-response

• Karim points out that in many songs the singer sings a line (sometimes very short) which is responded to by an emphatic instrumental (non-vocal) answer, the Lazma. The orchestra plays lightly during the vocal music, a cue for the dancer to do likewise, and then leans into fuller, more complex sound for the lazmat sections, which cues the dancer to do likewise as well.
• Keti Sharif encourages the dancer interpreting a call-and-response between percussion instruments to match her body movements to where the instrument is positioned on the musician's body (see her explanation of Earth element instruments, below).

Hands and Arms and Energy

Instrumentation

• Wind: Wind instruments reflect the element of air. "The element of air communicates freedom, lightness and spirituality. The gestures that best correspond... are upper body movements —arms, shoulders, head and upper torso." Within the Air mode, the dancer must be mindful of the delicacy, tone and pitch of the individual instrument.
• Water: Instruments played close to the chest (accoridan, saxophone and violin) reflect the element of water, producing flowing waves of sound. "Snake-like undulations, figure-eights and swaying hips " correspond.
• Fire: Stringed instruments played lower on the body (oud, saz, bazouki, qanoon, guitar, cello and bass) reflect the element of fire. and " impart a fiery quality —passionate, warm and feisty... The element of fire opens the body for outward movements: turns, sweeping gestures and soft shimmies that last as long as the tremolando strumming does."
• Earth: Drums and percussion reflect the element of earth, "and the heavier, more robust and closer to the ground, the lower the response in the body" She perceives the backbone rhythm of the doholla or tambour setting the pulse for the stepping of the feet; The darbuka or tabla rhythm synchronizing the dancer's hip movements; the reque or dof activating shoulder and upper body accents and shimmies.

Lyrical sections

Repetitive rhythm cues

Mary Ellen Donald recommends that dancers be able to effectively combine zills, rhythms and body movements during performance. Dancers who understand what steps go with what rhythms do not have to rely on the crutch of teacher's choreography -- they will be able to make up their own variations. (Middle Eastern Dancer magazine in 1989.)

Taksim

Najia Marlyz, in her article Taxim from a Dancer's Perspective, has a lot of very excellent advice on learning to interpret taksim solos.

• Learn to connect with the source of all dance movement generated from your solar plexus along your spine (the site of the core of your dance).
• Learn to discern between movements generated by your intellect and movements that start and end in your dance core.
• Learn how to listen to all genre of music analytically and to transfer your understanding of the form and resulting imagery to your dance core so that the music becomes a guide and your inspiration without causing you to become its mind-numbed slave.