tribal taxonomy
since the original thread was deleted and I so rarely get involved with these things online I am reposting my post on my take on tribal style nomenclature:
-----
I just taught a workshop this past weekend called "Tribal Taxonomy" which was probably a confusing explanation to a group of orientale dancers about this whole tribal/tribal fusion thing, the origins of, who the other major players are, etc. Where their previous experience with tribal anything consists entirely of FCBD and Rachel Brice/Indigo. We don't live in CA, I don't know SF counter culture, there's not a lot of tribal anything in my area. I watch this whole debate online and it's interesting, I suppose. I do FCBD format improv, I like to add in other moves from other teachers so I guess that makes me ITS now, but I am a soloist due to circumstance so what I say I do is tribal fusion bellydance.
so, anyway, my degree is in zoology so I sort of think of this dance style situation in evolutionary terms, since I think everyone can agree that it is in a quite rapidly evolving state. Taxonomy being the science of classification and relationships, and isn't that what we're doing here?
Now, in zoology, we can maybe say that we know what a species of animal is, and maybe, what other kinds of animals it is relatated to. people have made arbitrary definitions about what can be called a species; so that we can look at some birds and say "That's an American Crow, and over there that other black bird is a Fish Crow, and that other bird over there is a Common Raven, and all of these birds are in the Corvid family, oh and they are also all birds."
But, (if you take evolution and speciation as a fact) a species is not really a fixed point. Things interbreed, form hybrids, have mutations and change into entirely new species. But it may not be obvious for a while when something has become sufficiently different enough to earn the species title.
So! back to tribal bellydance Taxonomic Timeline. First you have some hybridization of middle eastern dance and some other dances like flamenco, and for a while this exists as something which retains features of it's parent dances, and you get FCBD ATS. offspring of ATS undergo some small style mutations and you get Gypsy Caravan and Blacksheep bellydance and various other improvisational tribal styles.
(aside... remember back when all you had to complain about on the internet was tribal improv FCBD clones who only knew 5 moves and performed for an hour? ah, those were the days)
Then there is a further hybridization of ATS, Orientale (which also has it's own nomenclature problems..), Suhaila Method, modern dance and Yoga, etc plus some random mutations of individual creativity and you get Ultra Gypsy, The Indigo, various other what might now be called Tribal Fusion style dancers.
What I think is occuring now is sort of like a Hybrid Swarm which is:
"A group of morphologically distinctive individuals which results from the creation of hybrids between two parent species, then the backcrossing of the offspring to members of the parent species and the interbreeding among the hybrid individuals. "
We have not arrived at some particularly distinctive post-tribal-fusion species that you can put a name on because everyone is kind of still trying everything out. Perhaps, since this is a sort of young dance form and people are moving rapidly, there will be some kind of back to the roots movement in the tribal community, where there is suddenly a move back to ATS, or to more traditional middle eastern forms, or possibly more of a move back to hip-hop or Flamenco, or whatever. Perhaps another really influential mutation/dancer will appear with a really compelling technique and everything will move off in a completely new direction and make a whole new species.
and then who can answer the question, if all Crows are Corvids, are all Tribal Dancers Bellydancers?
I just taught a workshop this past weekend called "Tribal Taxonomy" which was probably a confusing explanation to a group of orientale dancers about this whole tribal/tribal fusion thing, the origins of, who the other major players are, etc. Where their previous experience with tribal anything consists entirely of FCBD and Rachel Brice/Indigo. We don't live in CA, I don't know SF counter culture, there's not a lot of tribal anything in my area. I watch this whole debate online and it's interesting, I suppose. I do FCBD format improv, I like to add in other moves from other teachers so I guess that makes me ITS now, but I am a soloist due to circumstance so what I say I do is tribal fusion bellydance.
so, anyway, my degree is in zoology so I sort of think of this dance style situation in evolutionary terms, since I think everyone can agree that it is in a quite rapidly evolving state. Taxonomy being the science of classification and relationships, and isn't that what we're doing here?
Now, in zoology, we can maybe say that we know what a species of animal is, and maybe, what other kinds of animals it is relatated to. people have made arbitrary definitions about what can be called a species; so that we can look at some birds and say "That's an American Crow, and over there that other black bird is a Fish Crow, and that other bird over there is a Common Raven, and all of these birds are in the Corvid family, oh and they are also all birds."
But, (if you take evolution and speciation as a fact) a species is not really a fixed point. Things interbreed, form hybrids, have mutations and change into entirely new species. But it may not be obvious for a while when something has become sufficiently different enough to earn the species title.
So! back to tribal bellydance Taxonomic Timeline. First you have some hybridization of middle eastern dance and some other dances like flamenco, and for a while this exists as something which retains features of it's parent dances, and you get FCBD ATS. offspring of ATS undergo some small style mutations and you get Gypsy Caravan and Blacksheep bellydance and various other improvisational tribal styles.
(aside... remember back when all you had to complain about on the internet was tribal improv FCBD clones who only knew 5 moves and performed for an hour? ah, those were the days)
Then there is a further hybridization of ATS, Orientale (which also has it's own nomenclature problems..), Suhaila Method, modern dance and Yoga, etc plus some random mutations of individual creativity and you get Ultra Gypsy, The Indigo, various other what might now be called Tribal Fusion style dancers.
What I think is occuring now is sort of like a Hybrid Swarm which is:
"A group of morphologically distinctive individuals which results from the creation of hybrids between two parent species, then the backcrossing of the offspring to members of the parent species and the interbreeding among the hybrid individuals. "
We have not arrived at some particularly distinctive post-tribal-fusion species that you can put a name on because everyone is kind of still trying everything out. Perhaps, since this is a sort of young dance form and people are moving rapidly, there will be some kind of back to the roots movement in the tribal community, where there is suddenly a move back to ATS, or to more traditional middle eastern forms, or possibly more of a move back to hip-hop or Flamenco, or whatever. Perhaps another really influential mutation/dancer will appear with a really compelling technique and everything will move off in a completely new direction and make a whole new species.
and then who can answer the question, if all Crows are Corvids, are all Tribal Dancers Bellydancers?