African dancesplosion!
I'm really loving African dance these days. I started taking classes a year ago, and did that for a few months before my schedule got crazy. I was only able to start up again this past January, so now I'm almost 2 months into classes again.
West African dance is enjoyable for me on a lot of levels, and challenging too; there are some similarities to belly dance, but plenty of differences. I enjoy learning about the ritual and cultural contexts, just as I like doing moves that are sometimes familiar, sometimes hard-as-hell.
The sequences we've been working on lately, for instance, are called Zaouli, and one example can be seen here; I mean, we're talking crazy-fast footwork, hopping, leaping, stomping, that kind of thing!
So tonight, I was the only person in class who'd learned a certain movement sequence last week, and when the master drummer gestured for me to come forward to lead the movement in practice, I had to overcome my "eek! shy! scared!" response and just do it. So I led the move while we were practicing, and he made eye contact and gestured for me to move to the center and to lead it again at the end of class, when we normally just run through movements without pausing to refine our steps or techniques. It was a little intimidating, but not quite as frightening as the first time I did a solo at the end of class (which is essentially stringing together a handful of movements that we've been working on lately, or hell, whichever movements you like, while dancing in the center of the circle). It actually seemed to go pretty well; only a few of the faster transitions tripped me up.
I think African dance is one of those things I want to do for the rest of my life. It's started to inform my personal style, like when I'm dancing at clubs or whatever, as well as leaking into some of my belly dance, which is already pretty fusion-istic...
Edited to add (now that my brain has started working again post-dance-euphoria): this form of dance has actually been really difficult for me in a lot of ways, but I'm glad I've been pushing myself to do it. Mostly, I try not to compare myself to others, because of course I won't have the same skills as people who've been learning the dance for longer than I have. I wanted to make sure I mentioned this aspect of the dance, because while I feel like it's beginning to come a little easier to me, it hasn't always been this way.
I still frequently feel very clumsy in class, as last night, when we began learning moves from Mali. I was really digging the Temate/rice-dance moves, and now I feel like I'm being catapulted into something foreign and counter-intuitive for the way my body normally wants to move. But go figure - I still like it, and I'll keep doing it.
West African dance is enjoyable for me on a lot of levels, and challenging too; there are some similarities to belly dance, but plenty of differences. I enjoy learning about the ritual and cultural contexts, just as I like doing moves that are sometimes familiar, sometimes hard-as-hell.
The sequences we've been working on lately, for instance, are called Zaouli, and one example can be seen here; I mean, we're talking crazy-fast footwork, hopping, leaping, stomping, that kind of thing!
So tonight, I was the only person in class who'd learned a certain movement sequence last week, and when the master drummer gestured for me to come forward to lead the movement in practice, I had to overcome my "eek! shy! scared!" response and just do it. So I led the move while we were practicing, and he made eye contact and gestured for me to move to the center and to lead it again at the end of class, when we normally just run through movements without pausing to refine our steps or techniques. It was a little intimidating, but not quite as frightening as the first time I did a solo at the end of class (which is essentially stringing together a handful of movements that we've been working on lately, or hell, whichever movements you like, while dancing in the center of the circle). It actually seemed to go pretty well; only a few of the faster transitions tripped me up.
I think African dance is one of those things I want to do for the rest of my life. It's started to inform my personal style, like when I'm dancing at clubs or whatever, as well as leaking into some of my belly dance, which is already pretty fusion-istic...
Edited to add (now that my brain has started working again post-dance-euphoria): this form of dance has actually been really difficult for me in a lot of ways, but I'm glad I've been pushing myself to do it. Mostly, I try not to compare myself to others, because of course I won't have the same skills as people who've been learning the dance for longer than I have. I wanted to make sure I mentioned this aspect of the dance, because while I feel like it's beginning to come a little easier to me, it hasn't always been this way.
I still frequently feel very clumsy in class, as last night, when we began learning moves from Mali. I was really digging the Temate/rice-dance moves, and now I feel like I'm being catapulted into something foreign and counter-intuitive for the way my body normally wants to move. But go figure - I still like it, and I'll keep doing it.