Remember when I went to the Musical Instrument Museum a couple months ago and said I hoped to return soon? Well, I went back last night, but not to see more exhibits! Instead, I was there to see my favorite band Niyaz perform live in MIM’s wonderful theater!
I splurged on front row tickets, because seriously, they were only about $5 more than tickets further back in the theater, and am I gonna skimp when the band I love is finally in my state? No, I am not. Although, the theater had a really nice slope to it so I have a feeling that there’s not a bad seat in the house, and that even the back rows probably had a good view, because it wasn’t an especially large venue. And of course, since it was specifically built to host concerts in a museum dedicated to music, I’m sure the acoustics were amazing no matter where you sat. I know the music sure sounded great in the front, though, without being too loud — neither Chris nor I had “concert ear” at the end of the night.
The show was a mix of songs from their new “The Fourth Light” album and a few old favorites. You can see which musicians are touring with them on the flier above. I have to say, in addition to of course loving Azam Ali’s voice, I was so impressed by Didem Basar’s kanun playing! It was so incredibly beautiful, and it was amazing to watch her hands as she played faster. The kanun is one of my favorite instruments and one I rarely get to hear played live, so that was a special treat.
Niyaz’s music is incredibly danceable, although I spent most of the show swaying in my seat next to my non-dancing husband. I finally got up for the last song of the night, and when Azam acknowledged me with a smile from the stage, I almost swooned like a teenager at her first boy band concert! Then when some of my old Plaza dance pals ran down the stairs to join me, we had a wonderful mini-dance party and agreed that we all should have gotten up a lot sooner!
My only complaint was that the show was pretty short. It started at maybe 7:20, and after one song encore, a chat with my friends after the show, and a quick trip to the lady’s room before the long drive home, it was 9:05 when we got in the car. I would have liked a couple more songs in the set… Or, you know, an all-night concert covering Niyaz’s entire repertoire. That’s not too much to ask, right? Especially since it was over a 4 hour round trip?
All in all, I’m so happy that I was able to attend this show and I hope Niyaz will come back to AZ again before I move away next year. In the meantime, if you live in California, they will be out your way next, so catch one of their shows if they’re anywhere near you!
In case you missed it, yesterday’s post was about finding new music. But now that you have all of this awesome music, how do you know what to dance to? Which song is right for which venue? This is especially difficult for tribal fusion dancers as many of us dance to a huge range of music and perhaps at a wider range of events. That’s not to say that Egyptian, Lebanese, Turkish, and AmCab dancers don’t have their own challenges, but dancers more experienced and knowledgeable in those areas have already written great things on that subject. I’m going to focus more on the pitfalls that a fusion dancer faces.
There are so many factors to take into consideration when choosing what to dance to at any given event. What is the audience like? What is the setting like? If you’re part of a larger show, what will everyone else be doing? This post will probably be a little scattered because I can’t decide what order I want to discuss things in and how best to organize my thoughts, so here goes.
1. Your audience should be your first consideration, because you’re dancing for them. Overused songs that make an audience of dancers roll their eyes might sound fresh and awesome to the general public. A heavy Goth piece is not going to fly at a Lebanese restaurant. People at an outdoor festival probably want something fun and flashy, whereas your fellow dancers might prefer something more soulful.
2. Setting should be next. Floorwork is awesome on a raised stage when everyone can see you, and awful in a restaurant where the floor is dirty and only a few patrons can see you once you’re down there. The black costume you wear for that heavy metal piece looks beautiful against a red velvet curtain and gets lost against a black backdrop. An outdoor festival during the windiest time of the year is not the time to do that cool fire eating fusion. A venue with a lot of ambient noise is not ideal for a quiet, subdued slow song.
3. Back to your audience. Is there a good chance that they’ve seen you before? What did you do last time they saw you? Make sure you do something completely different so they don’t think you’re a one-trick pony.
4. Do you expect to get good video at this event? If so, definitely choose something that you don’t already have video of, and that is really awesome, because then you’ll have something cool to add to your YouTube channel.
5. Do you expect to get good photos at this event? If so, choose a song that goes well with a new costume you want to show off, and that has lots of really photographable moments.
6. Does the event have a theme? If so, don’t go for the most obvious interpretation of the theme. I promise, you are not the only one thinking “I’ll do Roustabout for the circus show!” and if I see one more person do “Airship Pirates” at a steampunk festival I will scream.
7. Be authentic to yourself even when you’re trying to fit in. It can look really weird to do tribal fusion moves over Egyptian orchestral music. So if you’re at an event where Middle Eastern music is most appropriate, find something that will work for them but also fit your style of movement. Do a drum solo with lots of awesome pops and locks, or choose some world fusion music with an Arabic theme (of course if there’s any lyrics make sure to get a translation).
8. Let’s talk about pop music. It can be fun to dance to a pop song and sometimes the general public absolutely LOVES it when you’re either dancing to something they recognize from the radio or a cross-genre cover of an old favorite. But the problem with pop music is that it can get dated fast. I’ve already seen a meme that said something along the lines to “Can everyone please stop dancing to Radioactive already?” (My thought? “NO!” I love the Pentatonix/Lindsey Stirling cover of that song). Of course, if you’re an improv dancer it’s easy to do a pop song for a bit and then retire it. If you want to choreograph to something popular and mainstream, make it something fun and simple so you won’t feel bad when you have to remove it from rotation.
9. Make sure that you are confident about what you’re dancing to. Sometimes it’s tempting to rush to the stage with an awesome new song that you love, but you don’t want to show the audience a half-baked choreography or awkward improv! The same thing goes for a new prop, or a movement you haven’t quite mastered yet, or even something you are usually pretty good at but feel like you might not be able to do because of a healing injury or bad stage situations or whatever. Push yourself in class and while practicing, but on stage, present something you know you can own.
10. When in doubt, get a second opinion. I’ve been known to ask my teacher “What do you think of X song for Y event?” or to get my husband to watch what I’m working on and tell me if he thinks it’s ready for the stage. If you’re torn between two or more options, talk it out with a friend. They don’t even need to be a dancer or familiar with the songs you’re considering, just get someone to help you examine the pros and cons of each choice and what would be best for the event in question and what you could save the other pieces for.
I think that’s about all I have to say about music for now, but please, if you have any thoughts to add, share them in the comments section!
[Portrait of Clyde Lombardi, Barbara Carroll, and Chuck Wayne, Downbeat, New York, N.Y., ca. Sept. 1947] (LOC) They’re searching for new music for you to dance to.You know how annoying it is when you listen to the radio and every day they play that same slightly out of date song, you know, the one that was popular 5-8 years ago, and it’s an OK song and maybe you liked it a lot when you first heard it, but now you’re thinking maybe it would be nice to hear some of your other favorite songs from that year, or some of that artist’s more popular work, but no, the radio station has only paid for the rights to play that song, and play it they will, over and over and over again until that song that used to make you tap your feet and belt out the chorus when you were alone in the car now makes you just want to tear your hair out.
That’s how I feel about a lot of songs that dancers perform to. I have a list of songs that I never want to see anyone dance to again. Adir Adirim by Balkan Beat Box. The Bassnectar remix of Beats Antique’s Roustabout. Natacha Atlas’s version of I Put a Spell on You. All of these songs are great on their own merit, and beautiful dances have been performed to them, and I’m sure that somewhere out there is a dancer that can do amazing new things with them that give the song new life, but as soon as I hear the opening notes of any of the songs on my list, I just shut down.
Then there’s the songs that I’m not completely fed up with, but that I still see being overused. Depending on my mood, I’ll either be happy to hear an old favorite and see what someone is doing with it, or I’ll be a little bored of it and the dancer will really have to work to get me excited. This category is full of older Beats Antique songs, all the Helm stuff that ATS troupes love to use, and those Egyptian songs that I don’t know the names of but seem to hear every time I go to an Egyptian-heavy show.
So anyway, what I’m saying is that we dancers really need to be better about actively looking for new music. I include myself in this. I’ve been dancing to the Kid Beyond version of Wandering Star for 2.5 years, after all. I’m in desperate need of something new to inspire me so I can bring fresh material to my upcoming shows. So here’s some of the ways that I like to find music:
1. Use Pandora or Songza. Pandora is nice because it gives you recommendations similar to what you already like, but sometimes it feels like my station basically just plays the Beats Antique and Niyaz songs I already have and doesn’t give me much new stuff. Songza has playlists curated by DJs, including lots of world music. I also heard that Google has a new music thingie, but what I heard about it didn’t impress me so I haven’t checked it out yet.
2. Have you ever purchased music on Amazon? If so, go have a look at their recommendations for you. The nice thing about living in the future is that you can easily listen to samples to get an idea of whether an album is something you might want to dance to. Also Amazon sometimes has music on sale for cheap, which is good when you’re on a budget, and so much of it is available digitally for that instant gratification.
3. Don’t forget to “like” all of your favorite bands on Facebook, because then you’ll know when their new albums come out and sometimes they’ll release songs for free as teasers, or have special remixes or other goodies available.
4. Get on the mailing list for bands you like and labels and stores that carry the sort of music that you like. It’s a good way to discover new bands within your preferred genres and to know when they’re having a big sale or when bands on their label are on tour in your area.
5. You know that one song you really like from that Bellydance Superstars compilation CD? Chances are that artist has entire albums of other songs you might also really like.
6. Go to live shows! Go see the bands you like, and chances are their opening act will also be something you’ll like. Go see bands you’ve never heard of who seem like they might be interesting. Go catch a DJ set at a local club. The more music you expose yourself to, the more likely it is you’ll hear something that inspires you.
7. Hear something you like in a class or workshop? Ask the teacher what it is, then go find something else by that artist or within that genre.
8. Ok, I’m just going to go ahead and say this: stop having music-sharing parties with your dance friends. Not only are you depriving the musicians of their money, but then everyone in your local community has all the exact same music, instead of everyone going out and buying something different, and then you all end up dancing to the same stuff all the time. Stop it! By all means, share recommendations, but that’s as far as it should go.
9. Recruit someone to help you. Do you have a friend with incredible musical taste? Tell them to let you know whenever they hear a cool new band or song. My husband listens to music all day while he works, and he’s always sending me something he thinks I might like to dance to. Some of it doesn’t work for me, and some of it becomes my new favorite thing that I dance to all the time. The nice thing about getting recommendations from someone else is that they probably listen to different genres than you do and lurk in different corners of the internet, so they’ll find things you never would have found. Just make sure that they won’t take it personally when you actually don’t like some of their ideas.
10. Occasionally go back through your old music. I think Mahin recommended this in a Daily Belly Dance Quickie? Anyway, sometimes music that made you go “meh” two years ago might suddenly jump out at you as amazing. Or you might find that you bought an album for one song you loved and then forgot to listen to the rest of it. I had Poison Berries on my iPod for years before one day realizing that it would be awesome to dress up as a faerie and dance to it.
This post is really long, so come back tomorrow for more opinions about music!
I mentioned briefly on Monday that there were some sound system problems at Saturday’s show. This glitch led to a couple of dancers swapping songs, and another dancer having to provide her back-up copy. It left me thinking about what a dancer should do when she steps on stage and the wrong music starts.
1. Keep calm! No matter what sort of music problem you have (wrong music, sound system goes out mid-performance, CD starts skipping), put on your professional face and deal with it in the best way possible.
2. You can dance to whatever is playing, but there can be a couple of pitfalls in this. Obviously, if you’re now performing to someone else’s music, that means she then has to decide whether to dance to your music (which she might not like), or whether she wants to dance to her song and risk the audience being bored. Also, you might find yourself dancing to something that totally doesn’t work with your costume, your prop, or your dance style.
3. Be flexible! In a perfect world, when there’s a music problem you’ll have a backup and everything will be fine. But maybe you forgot your backup, or the sound system doesn’t want to play it. When that happens, be willing to dance to something else. This is why it’s good to build strong improv skills!
4. That said, it’s OK to insist on dancing to your song if it’s at all possible. Whether you do improv or choreography, chances are that in the weeks leading up to the show you’ve been practicing this piece very hard. You’ve chosen your costume to match the mood of the music. You did your hair and makeup to fit the personality you want to express. Maybe you’re using a prop and there’s moments in the music where you can show off the really cool new tricks you’ve been working on. There is nothing wrong with wanting to do what you had planned to do, and you shouldn’t feel bad about saying “No thank you, I don’t want to dance to this other song, please try to play my back-up copy.”
And now, a few ways to avoid musical pitfalls:
Did I mention that you should always have a backup? Maybe two? I try to remember to bring my iPod to every gig, and sometimes I’ll also have an extra CD copy. Or two.
Remember to check your music before you leave for the gig. Double-check that the CD burned properly. Edited to add: A clever reader pointed out that you should not just test it in your computer, but in the least-reliable CD player you have access to, because if it will play in that, it will play at the show.
Always pay attention to the music requirements for a gig. I know we’d all prefer to just be able to send in an mp3 and be done with it, but some gigs want the music on CD, and may even want a CD with that song and that song only on it.
When sending digital music, make sure that it’s in a format they can actually play. You don’t want to accidentally send a song that can only be played on your iTunes, for instance.
Always. Have. A. Backup. But maybe also have a backup plan. For instance, if someone else is dancing to your song, have a different song you can perform to instead.
Music and I have not been getting along for the past week or so. I’ve been trying to find new things to dance to, or rather, things I already have but have not performed to yet, and I’m just not really liking anything. I had to go way back to something from the 90s for open stage this coming Thursday, and then I had to fight with editing it, because I am bad at that.
I don’t know if it’s burnout, or if I’m feeling the pressure to just really make amazing choices, or if I’m still feeling a little bummed out and thus not really connecting to anything. I can get into music in class, but there I don’t have to pick it out, and I’m also soaking up the good attitude of my troupemates.
I probably need to spend some time just listening to things, without worrying about whether I can dance to it or whether someone else has already performed to it locally or whether a famous dancer has an iconic choreo set to that particular song. I need to remember how to enjoy music for music’s sake, and maybe then I can find some inspiration.
I’m at least a third-generation believer in Retail Therapy, so I tried to make myself feel better by buying a pillow with a beetle on it. What does that have to do with anything? Nothing. But blog posts need pictures.
Today has been a rotten day. Really, things have been varyingly rotten since I received bad news on Saturday (please read this post on my other blog to learn about the loss of a dear friend. I don’t want to rehash it here), but today was one of those stupid, annoying days where nothing went right.
First I tried making some jewelry, but I didn’t really have many ideas and the ones I tried didn’t work. I ended up with one small item and a mess on my desk.
Then I decided that I was going to be a grown-up responsible adult and do the laundry. Well, that’s when I learned that our pipe was full of tree roots again, as the water draining out of the washing machine had no place to go so it came back up from under the toilet. GROSS! Luckily since this had happened before we knew exactly what was happening, and the plumber came out and fixed it quickly, but it cost some cashola.
Plus, you know how whenever you have a service person over, as soon as you think “Ok, well he seems to be doing his own thing, I’ll go get some little job done now” that’s always when they suddenly need you for something? Yep, that was an hour of my day that I got nothing done.
Oh, and I tore one of my favorite little yoga jacket thingies while moving something that was blocking the access point to the pipe, so dammit. I really liked that jacket.
So then I was like, well, I’d better salvage this day with some dance, let’s sit down and pick out a fan veil song for Open Stage! An HOUR LATER I decided that I hated all of my music, old and new. Albums that I had purchased because I loved the music at the time suddenly sounded awful. Note to self: you hate everything when you’re in a bad mood. Next time just drill.
Then we went to Target where we couldn’t find some things we needed, but at least I got a beetle pillow, because that is clearly what I need in life. I wish the coordinating comforter also had beetles on it instead of just a floral jungle-y print. I would love to have my bed covered in beetles.
I almost didn’t go to class and practice tonight because of my bad mood, but I like to save my skipping for when I get sick. And you know what? I’m glad I went. My bad mood melted away. I’ve been enjoying the hell out of classes lately. I don’t know if they’ve been especially fun or if I’ve been especially receptive, but it’s just been a great level of challenge and accomplishment and new material and good music and good friends.
So the day wasn’t all rotten, but it sure did try. I hope tomorrow will be better. I’ve got a massage scheduled, and I need to work on Friday’s cosmetics review and definitely get a lot of practice no matter how much I hate my music.
Well, my emotional homework tonight was interesting. First some In Extremo (German folk metal). I think the song that came up was about a witch trying to convince a lord to marry (or was it sleep with?) her, so I tried to be seductive without being over-the-top sexy. Lots of direct looks, smiles, and hair play. The next song was a Beats Antique that could have gone several ways. I went for sad, because I think sad is what I need the most work on. Not feeling like I had a lot of success on either song. I’ll keep on working.
Also did a few minutes of drills of 3/4 shimmies on the up and down (because I need work and the Wolgemut song that came on was perfect for it), some turns and spotting, some walking around and balancing ballet-style because Jolie makes us do that sort of thing, etc etc. I wasn’t feeling particularly focused so my practice was all over, but at least it was all stuff I needed to work on.
Then I decided to have a nice long stretch-out, because my muscles needed it and I figured it would help get me into a nice, relaxed state for going to bed early (I have to be up at 7am tomorrow, lame). It feels good to dedicate some time to taking care of my body, instead of just honing my moves. The moves are nothing if the body isn’t in good enough shape to do them!
I did it! Mostly! Yes, I missed a few days due to being sick but I never gave up. I danced every day that I could. I danced at home, at class, in New York and New Jersey. I danced in bed, in line at the post office, in chairs of various sorts, and in the car. I danced on stages indoor and out, alone and with friends. I danced regardless of my furnace breaking, my shower breaking, my cooler breaking. I danced my freakin’ heart out!
The one-year retrospective will have to wait. I’ve just finished ringing in the New Year with alcohol and dance and I do not have the focus to go back through my blog and see what goals I set at the start of this and how I did with them.
Anyway, today’s practice was good ol’ multi-tasking while I cleaned, chair dancing while I beaded, and then dancing to a song which may well be my next solo — which is funny because it’s a cover of a song I did a solo to back in May! Guess I can’t get away from Wandering Star! It felt really good to really dance, to be well enough to move and enjoy it, to rock out while I was cleaning and to sink into a new song and to just feel like myself again.
Thank you all for joining me for this journey. I started out for a year of practice but now I’m looking forward to a lifetime of practice — hopefully with less sick days 😉 Check in tomorrow to see how it starts out!
Lately it seems like I’m always in a class, workshop, or troupe practice. It felt weird to be home and have time to just dance, play around with new music and work on some solos. I think I’m going to dance to Convivio at the student performance this weekend, simply because I was so busy getting ready for the Shakedown that I never worked on a new solo. Of course now I have all these great ideas, but not enough time to really get to know a song and perform it with confidence.
But it is really, really tempting to perform to a Nick Cave song, just to keep up my trend of choosing unusual songs for Tucson performances
Tonight I worked on my solo, and my Anaya moves and tribal basics (I’ve been taking HUGE steps for Gahwazee again so I drilled taking little steps, for instance). But I also played around by hearing a random song on my iPod and wanting to get my dance on. I might just use it for my solo performance at our upcoming student show here in Tucson. It’s fun and funky and it’s NOT A VEIL SONG. I love veil, but I don’t want to be typecast as “Sophia Ravenna, the girl who always does a veil solo at every hafla.” Especially since there’s a veil part in our student performance.
The other thing I did today was go shopping for supplies for a new dance bra. Yay! I bought a nice bra to use as my base — dang, good bras are expensive! But if it’s the only thing between my nipples and the audience, I want it to be good quality.
![[Portrait of Clyde Lombardi, Barbara Carroll, and Chuck Wayne, Downbeat, New York, N.Y., ca. Sept. 1947] (LOC) They're searching for new music for you to dance to.](/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/5189943762_325aac6875_z.jpg)
