These are all movements that come naturally in the first year of life, including this little baby called Liv:
To read my other related posts, click on the label Feldenkrais.
Showing posts with label Resources. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Resources. Show all posts
Tuesday, 14 May 2013
Learning from Baby Liv
I want to share this amazing video with you. My teacher Merav first shared it with us students whilst we were in the middle of a classic series of Feldenkrais lessons that focused on relearning developmental movements like rolling.
These are all movements that come naturally in the first year of life, including this little baby called Liv:
To read my other related posts, click on the label Feldenkrais.
These are all movements that come naturally in the first year of life, including this little baby called Liv:
To read my other related posts, click on the label Feldenkrais.
Monday, 25 March 2013
Discovering Feldenkrais
I started learning Feldenkrais method a little over a year ago. I first heard of it when one of my Egyptian Dance teachers started the teacher training course and started a share a little of what she learned.
I first attended some workshops, then weekly classes and eventually moved on to private lessons. Bit by bit, Feldenkrais lessons are starting to change the way I move, the way I think, and challenging my own assumptions about dance, bodywork and movement.
There are 2 ways in which Feldenkrais is taught. The first is 'Awareness Through Movement'. This is a group class, where the teacher talks the students through a series of movements, starting small and building up gradually into bigger things, helping the student to discover new possibilities. The talking through, rather than 'watch and copy' is really important as it has the effect of stripping away any ideas of what a movement should 'look' like, leaving behind the opportunity to explore and observe, and allow real understanding and learning to take place. There is play, there are 'a-ha' moments, there are new discoveries...
The second method is called Functional Integration. These are one on one classes with a practitioner, as a kind of hands on physical therapy. Classes focus on the individual needs of a student. The movements are subtle, gentle and gradually bring the different components of the body together into an integrated whole.
Here is a short video about Awareness Through Movement. I particularly like this film because it beautifully illustrates a spiral, something which also appears in the movement vocabulary for my studies in Hilal Dance:
Here is another clip, showing more of the class environment, interspersed with interviews with the students themselves:
To read more, find resources, or a teacher in your area you can try the Feldenkrais Guild UK or the International Feldenkrais Federation.
Main photo by Mary Beth Smith, from here.
There are 2 ways in which Feldenkrais is taught. The first is 'Awareness Through Movement'. This is a group class, where the teacher talks the students through a series of movements, starting small and building up gradually into bigger things, helping the student to discover new possibilities. The talking through, rather than 'watch and copy' is really important as it has the effect of stripping away any ideas of what a movement should 'look' like, leaving behind the opportunity to explore and observe, and allow real understanding and learning to take place. There is play, there are 'a-ha' moments, there are new discoveries...
The second method is called Functional Integration. These are one on one classes with a practitioner, as a kind of hands on physical therapy. Classes focus on the individual needs of a student. The movements are subtle, gentle and gradually bring the different components of the body together into an integrated whole.
Here is a short video about Awareness Through Movement. I particularly like this film because it beautifully illustrates a spiral, something which also appears in the movement vocabulary for my studies in Hilal Dance:
Here is another clip, showing more of the class environment, interspersed with interviews with the students themselves:
To read more, find resources, or a teacher in your area you can try the Feldenkrais Guild UK or the International Feldenkrais Federation.
Main photo by Mary Beth Smith, from here.
Monday, 4 February 2013
Bellydancing and the Blues
If you haven't heard all about it yet, Guy Schalom - talented darabuka player, dancer and leader of the Baladi Blues Ensemble - recently recorded a programme for BBC Radio 4 all about traditional Baladi Egyptian music and dance.
Bellydancing and the Blues was broadcast on Boxing Day at the end of last year. The good news for anyone who didn't manage to tune in on the day is that the programme is available to listen again on BBC iPlayer on a permanent basis.
The is an insightful documentary about a traditional form of Egyptian music and dance and how both developed and grew through interplay between east and west. There are some fascinating contributions from distinguished musicians and dancers from Germany, the UK and Egypt including Raqs Sharqi Society trained Jane Wass, music producer Jennifer Carmen and Egyptian accordion master Sheik Taha. I particularly loved hearing a different spin presented to the history of belly dancing past and present. And as a real bonus, the whole show is ornamented with musical excerpts of beautiful Egyptian music, including from Guy's own Baladi Blues series of CDs.
Here's an extract from the blurb on the BBC website:
 |
| Bellydancing and the Blues |
Bellydancing and the Blues was broadcast on Boxing Day at the end of last year. The good news for anyone who didn't manage to tune in on the day is that the programme is available to listen again on BBC iPlayer on a permanent basis.
The is an insightful documentary about a traditional form of Egyptian music and dance and how both developed and grew through interplay between east and west. There are some fascinating contributions from distinguished musicians and dancers from Germany, the UK and Egypt including Raqs Sharqi Society trained Jane Wass, music producer Jennifer Carmen and Egyptian accordion master Sheik Taha. I particularly loved hearing a different spin presented to the history of belly dancing past and present. And as a real bonus, the whole show is ornamented with musical excerpts of beautiful Egyptian music, including from Guy's own Baladi Blues series of CDs.
 |
| Guy Schalom |
"Dancer and drummer Guy Schalom hunts out the spirit of the new Egypt in one of its biggest cultural exports. To our ears, Baladi is the music of the bellydancer - kitsch and mock-Arab. But in its true form it is the essence of Egypt, 'of the country', 'home' in the deepest sense..."To listen to the programme in full go to BBC iPlayer.
Tuesday, 19 June 2012
Resources for zills and sagat - doing it like the drummers do
Here is my second post about resources I've used for teaching myself zills. My previous post talked about learning from online videos. This time, some information about the stuff I've been doing to learn to play Arabic rhythms.
A while back, I took some drumming workshops with the very talented Tim Garside. Tim is an incredibly talented musician who plays many different percussion and musical Arabic instruments. Tim teaches around London, and these classes were on offer at Raqs Sharqi Society events. He's a great teacher with a mild manner and dry sense of humour. Alongside the workshops, he gave us a couple of photocopies of handwritten notes on Egyptian rhythms. This covered all the basics, each with a core rhythm - including Maqsoum, Saaidi, Masmoudi, Malfuf, Zaar and Fellahi - transcribed in simple form, and then followed by one or more additional versions with elaborations.
I've been learning and practising all these rhythm variations straight off the handouts. My current technique has followed on from this study and relies on using the same hands to play my zills as I would if I was drumming. The general rule of this method is for my right hand to play all the "dums" and "taks", and then my left to play the filler "ka"s. I also differentiate these groups of notes with different sounds. For dums, I select an open ring sound, and for taks a slight muted tone. I seem to remember drummer Chas Whitaker, suggesting this to a group of dancers once. I also add in the left handed ka, again with a softer mute tone. This interpretation is perhaps where I feel I'm on uncertain territory. From the you tube videos and recordings so far, there seems to be quite a lot of variation in how the different sounds are expressed. In their drills, Ansuya and Mahin played a consistent ring across all the notes. However, I've seen and heard other dancers use more texture in their sounds including Artermis and Sophie Armoza.
I've also been drilling the same rhythms with a dampened zills tone, although trying to maintain some tonal differentiation between dum and tek. I think the benefits of sticking to the drumming fingering (the term perhaps could better be described as handedness, although I'm not sure) is that my learning would transfer better, if I had the opportunity to learn more drumming.
Consistent with this approach, I found a short series of YouTube darabuka tutorials from RexSoli. He additionally covers the split hand technique, for playing faster rhythms like Malfuf (where dums are played with the dominant hand, and taks with the other hand). This is easy to replicate on zills, and makes some rhythms a lot easier to play. Here is Rex in action:
The approach of following the drummers' language for rhythms (what Artemis calls "drum speak" - including the dums, taks and kas - makes sense to my brain. I found this easier than counting variations (e.g. 123- or 1-&-a-2-) or using "RLR" type transcriptions. The consequences of this approach also means opening up countless resources that transcribe rhythms and their variants. In fact, there are heaps of free online resources written in this format. There are far too many to list here, although one favourite I really liked for quantity of information ease of use is the info on the website Khafif.
A while back, I took some drumming workshops with the very talented Tim Garside. Tim is an incredibly talented musician who plays many different percussion and musical Arabic instruments. Tim teaches around London, and these classes were on offer at Raqs Sharqi Society events. He's a great teacher with a mild manner and dry sense of humour. Alongside the workshops, he gave us a couple of photocopies of handwritten notes on Egyptian rhythms. This covered all the basics, each with a core rhythm - including Maqsoum, Saaidi, Masmoudi, Malfuf, Zaar and Fellahi - transcribed in simple form, and then followed by one or more additional versions with elaborations.
I've been learning and practising all these rhythm variations straight off the handouts. My current technique has followed on from this study and relies on using the same hands to play my zills as I would if I was drumming. The general rule of this method is for my right hand to play all the "dums" and "taks", and then my left to play the filler "ka"s. I also differentiate these groups of notes with different sounds. For dums, I select an open ring sound, and for taks a slight muted tone. I seem to remember drummer Chas Whitaker, suggesting this to a group of dancers once. I also add in the left handed ka, again with a softer mute tone. This interpretation is perhaps where I feel I'm on uncertain territory. From the you tube videos and recordings so far, there seems to be quite a lot of variation in how the different sounds are expressed. In their drills, Ansuya and Mahin played a consistent ring across all the notes. However, I've seen and heard other dancers use more texture in their sounds including Artermis and Sophie Armoza.
I've also been drilling the same rhythms with a dampened zills tone, although trying to maintain some tonal differentiation between dum and tek. I think the benefits of sticking to the drumming fingering (the term perhaps could better be described as handedness, although I'm not sure) is that my learning would transfer better, if I had the opportunity to learn more drumming.
Consistent with this approach, I found a short series of YouTube darabuka tutorials from RexSoli. He additionally covers the split hand technique, for playing faster rhythms like Malfuf (where dums are played with the dominant hand, and taks with the other hand). This is easy to replicate on zills, and makes some rhythms a lot easier to play. Here is Rex in action:
The approach of following the drummers' language for rhythms (what Artemis calls "drum speak" - including the dums, taks and kas - makes sense to my brain. I found this easier than counting variations (e.g. 123- or 1-&-a-2-) or using "RLR" type transcriptions. The consequences of this approach also means opening up countless resources that transcribe rhythms and their variants. In fact, there are heaps of free online resources written in this format. There are far too many to list here, although one favourite I really liked for quantity of information ease of use is the info on the website Khafif.
Tuesday, 5 June 2012
Resources for zills and sagat - some great online videos
Free videos
YouTube is as good a place to start as any, when looking for some top up online tuition. A quick search for "zills" plus "lesson", "learn" etc. will throw up a range of clips of varying quality together with a few trailers for video resources that can be purchased. I found this a good way to cover a few basics and find some interesting play along material too. Some of the videos that are for sale also look good, although I haven't invested as yet. Here are 2 teachers that recommend.
Firstly, Anthea Kawakib, a master ziller from the States. She has an online course on her YouTube channel with 7 classes, suitable for both students and teachers who want ideas for teaching zills in class. This short course, felt like an opportunity to follow the classes I never had. The best thing about them is that from the outset, playing at the same time as dancing and moving about is absolutely essential. By stop starting the clips and doing the same lessons over and over, there are maybe a few hours worth of free training here. Here is an example of Anthea breaking the technique down into manageable doses, from her second lesson:
The second teacher is Mahin Sciacca, author of the "Daily Bellydance Quickies". She has posted a huge amount of free online material on belly dance and body conditioning. This includes over 40 great zills videos, again aimed at familiarization, practise, and getting you moving and playing at the same time. It helps to already have some experience of zill playing beforehand though, as does having some familiarity with American names for basic Arabic rhythms. Here is Mahin teaching a combination with zills to Leylet Hob:
Subscription videos
The other set of videos I found useful, were Ansuya's online classes. Former bellydance superstar Ansuya is famous for performing high energy belly dance, zills always in hand. Just when I needed it, I came across a tweet from Ansuya granting a 24 hour free trial of Ansuya Online. This is a subscription service that offers 4 new videos every month, together with the previous few months worth in an archive. There is a basics class, a workout, a choreography and an "entertainment" section featuring extras type titbits. I followed I think 3 different zills classes from the archive. Lessons were 40 minutes long and I found the teaching to be excellent, clear and precise. Rhythms were broken down into small pieces, built up again, speeded up and combined with moves. I got a lot out of the learning, which even stuck with me for several days afterwards.
Although I am very grateful for the trial, I found the American belly dance posture and style quite alien to my own Egyptian Dance training. But I would still recommend this series to an experienced dancer who can't easily access classes/workshop, especially if you're already a fan or interested in learning a variety of different props in addition to zills.
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