_How to Dance to the Music: Part Two
By Michelle
In the May/June 2003 edition of Zaghareet, I wrote an article called “How to
Dance WITH the Music,” because I had seen so many students struggle with how to
deliver an effective performance when they were unsure of how to break down their
music. I recently received a letter from a dancer asking me to further explain what I
meant by this phrase, beyond the technical aspect of breaking the music down into counts
and phrases. I realized that reading how to listen to music is a bit of a challenge. It is
difficult to talk about music without actually being able to hear examples and see
demonstrations, isn’t it?
To recap that earlier article, I said that the most important element of a performance is
your ability to hear—and as a result, allow the audience to see—the music. A dancer who
does not hear her music I refer to as “dancing OVER the music,” which means that while
her moves and technique might be flawless, they do not at all reflect the song she is
dancing to. She could be dancing to any old piece of music instead of interpreting a
specific song for the audience.
So how do you make sure that the audience is seeing the connection between the
music and you?
When you first start to listen to your music, you’re probably just trying to decide if you
like the piece or not. The tempo (speed of the music), the melody (the tune) and the
overall emotion of the song will affect you. When you find that piece of music that
speaks to your heart or your hips, listen to it over and over and over until you can sing it
in your head—in other words, you know what is coming up next. This will be the biggest
step in dancing WITH the music: simply knowing what it is going to do next.
Now sit down and play the song one more time. Analyze how the music makes you feel.
Decide what you want your audience to see when you perform. Is the music fast paced?
Perhaps you want to deliver a high-energy, friendly piece that shows your audience how
much fun it is to dance. Perhaps the song is slow and you wish to deliver a contemplative
statement that will allow the audience to see into your heart. This step of your music
breakdown may come instantaneously. You may not need to spend more than a few
minutes accomplishing the first two tasks (1—how the music makes you feel, and 2—
what you want to say to your audience). Or, the music may be more complex and you
really have to think about its impact on you and your impact on your audience.
Once you know your feelings and your message, then you get technical, breaking
down the music as I indicated in the first article.
What happens most often when a dancer is dancing over the music is that since
she doesn’t know her music inside and out, and has not decided what she wants to say in
her dance, she will dance out of sync with it. For example, she may get stuck dancing to
the drum backbeat in the song and completely miss the sweeping orchestration that is the
main melody. Or she will not be prepared in her music and start a slow movement when
the next phrase of the music is actually a fast section, or keep doing one successful
combination right through a series of accents that breaks up two phrases in the song.
Each dancer hears different things in a piece of music. The fully orchestrated
chorus of a song often tells me to travel around the stage. Drum accents to me sound like
sharp down hips. Ney taqsims sound like floaty travelling steps accompanied by chest
circles or snake arms. But to another dancer, she may hear the same sections and think
“3/4 shimmies in place; 3-step-turns; full body undulations with leg vibration.” The point
is, if you match YOUR movements to the music and change them when the music
changes, then you will accurately reflect the music to your audience. What’s more, when
you’re prepared to change your moves when the music changes, it will actually be easier
to dance because the music will tell you what to do.
While in general I think it is important to know music’s technical terms (a topic
for another article…), you do not need to know what 4/4 time refers to or what
syncopation means as long as you understand the heart of the music. We don’t ask our
audiences to know everything about belly dance, just to understand what we are saying to
them when we move!
By Michelle
In the May/June 2003 edition of Zaghareet, I wrote an article called “How to
Dance WITH the Music,” because I had seen so many students struggle with how to
deliver an effective performance when they were unsure of how to break down their
music. I recently received a letter from a dancer asking me to further explain what I
meant by this phrase, beyond the technical aspect of breaking the music down into counts
and phrases. I realized that reading how to listen to music is a bit of a challenge. It is
difficult to talk about music without actually being able to hear examples and see
demonstrations, isn’t it?
To recap that earlier article, I said that the most important element of a performance is
your ability to hear—and as a result, allow the audience to see—the music. A dancer who
does not hear her music I refer to as “dancing OVER the music,” which means that while
her moves and technique might be flawless, they do not at all reflect the song she is
dancing to. She could be dancing to any old piece of music instead of interpreting a
specific song for the audience.
So how do you make sure that the audience is seeing the connection between the
music and you?
When you first start to listen to your music, you’re probably just trying to decide if you
like the piece or not. The tempo (speed of the music), the melody (the tune) and the
overall emotion of the song will affect you. When you find that piece of music that
speaks to your heart or your hips, listen to it over and over and over until you can sing it
in your head—in other words, you know what is coming up next. This will be the biggest
step in dancing WITH the music: simply knowing what it is going to do next.
Now sit down and play the song one more time. Analyze how the music makes you feel.
Decide what you want your audience to see when you perform. Is the music fast paced?
Perhaps you want to deliver a high-energy, friendly piece that shows your audience how
much fun it is to dance. Perhaps the song is slow and you wish to deliver a contemplative
statement that will allow the audience to see into your heart. This step of your music
breakdown may come instantaneously. You may not need to spend more than a few
minutes accomplishing the first two tasks (1—how the music makes you feel, and 2—
what you want to say to your audience). Or, the music may be more complex and you
really have to think about its impact on you and your impact on your audience.
Once you know your feelings and your message, then you get technical, breaking
down the music as I indicated in the first article.
What happens most often when a dancer is dancing over the music is that since
she doesn’t know her music inside and out, and has not decided what she wants to say in
her dance, she will dance out of sync with it. For example, she may get stuck dancing to
the drum backbeat in the song and completely miss the sweeping orchestration that is the
main melody. Or she will not be prepared in her music and start a slow movement when
the next phrase of the music is actually a fast section, or keep doing one successful
combination right through a series of accents that breaks up two phrases in the song.
Each dancer hears different things in a piece of music. The fully orchestrated
chorus of a song often tells me to travel around the stage. Drum accents to me sound like
sharp down hips. Ney taqsims sound like floaty travelling steps accompanied by chest
circles or snake arms. But to another dancer, she may hear the same sections and think
“3/4 shimmies in place; 3-step-turns; full body undulations with leg vibration.” The point
is, if you match YOUR movements to the music and change them when the music
changes, then you will accurately reflect the music to your audience. What’s more, when
you’re prepared to change your moves when the music changes, it will actually be easier
to dance because the music will tell you what to do.
While in general I think it is important to know music’s technical terms (a topic
for another article…), you do not need to know what 4/4 time refers to or what
syncopation means as long as you understand the heart of the music. We don’t ask our
audiences to know everything about belly dance, just to understand what we are saying to
them when we move!