Thanks to my classes through the Meridian Parks and Rec and a gig teaching Belly Dance for a bachelorette party,  I was able to attend two workshops at Cairo Fusion’s 2008 Fusion Fest.  Since my background is traditional Egyptian Cabaret, this was an awesome “Stretch and Grow” opportunity for me.  My mind and body had quite the challenge learning how to move fusion-style!

The first workshop I took was with Samira Il Naia, and it was called Creative Cueing.  I learned something I’d wanted to learn for some time, namely the difference between American Tribal Style Cueing and Improvisational Style Cueing.  In American Tribal Style, the cues are the same wherever you go, and the cues are for individual moves, so, dancers who know them, are able to dance with any troupe wherever they go.  This really appeals to me (being able to dance with anyone at any time), but when I think of how many individual moves there are, it staggers my mind to think how one could even make up that many (movement) cues, much less memorize them all!  It makes learning a choreography sound easy! 

Samira’s style is ITS, and the cues are for step combinations, not individual moves, and the leader decides what they are, so they are unique to each group.  Although this means dancers can only dance with their group (unless they learn another group’s cues and step combinations, this means there are potentially fewer cues to remember.  For both styles, the leader gives the cue on count 5, so that the rest of the group knows what step will be coming up on the next 1 count.  If it’s a layered cue (two cues), the first is given on count 1, and the 2nd on 5.  I told my students that thinking cueing would be easier than choreography was soooo wrong!  It seems to me that using this style of dance would be a good way to prevent Alzheimer’s! 

One step combination Freyja taught us was very difficult for this cabaret dancer to learn.  I still can’t do it fast enough - that will just take lots of practice.  Basically, it’s: right hip drop, left hip drop, chest out, stomach out, stomach in, chest in.  I think the reason it was so hard to learn is because it forces your body to move differently than in a body wave, but it’s enough like a body wave that your body wants to do it (the regular way).

Because Freyja has so many movement/dance influences (including Taiji and Qigong), her fusion style is very mixed.  One of the dance moves she taught us used a Taiji/Qigong form.  I’m afraid I didn’t write it down, and, even if I’d tried, I don’t know if I would understand my notes later.  Suffice to say, the move looked very Asian/Martial Arts.

I’ve used two of her warm-up and practice techniques with my students. To warm up shoulders (and make sure the movement is in the rotator cuff only), Freyja had us position our hands like they were resting on a counter in front of us.  This is a very effective technique for practicing shoulder rolls.  She also suggested practicing single shimmies while lying on your back, to make sure the movement stays in your hips, not your knees.

I only got to watch the first 1/3 of the evening showcase(small kids, early bedtime), so I’m afraid I didn’t get to see Freyja or Monica dance.  I pre-ordered the video, so that I could see them (and the other dancers and groups I missed).  However, one thing I took from the whole Fusion Fest 2008 was how the music Fusion Dancers use can help me to dance more like them.  After the show, I came home and downloaded 9 songs from Itunes to burn a Tribal and Fusion CD.  Try using search terms like: Tribal, Belly Dance Fusion, Tribal Fusion, Dance, and World.  However, you can also type in an image you’d like to create (snake, rain, Goth....) and “electronic,” and you’ll get lots of great music to use for Fusion Dancing.  I took my new CD to my next class, and, at the end of the class, after teaching what I’d learned at the workshops, I played some of the songs and told my Intermediate Students to just dance.  I discovered that Fusion Movement comes easier to me when I’m dancing to this type of music.