Being Together in Dance

If you are in a group number you need to be able to coordinate your moves with others when on the stage. Here is how to master the art of matching your movements to other dancers. Do not try to stand out from the other dancers. By matching other dancers in movements, style timing, and energy is an equally challenging skill that after practicing at home needs a tune-up. You have to commit from being a soloist to immersing yourself in the group and retaining your individuality. Following are ways to become a better team player and create powerful group performances.

Watch Each Other:

Observing each other helps dancers approach choreography and can help you observe the movement style of others. Take videos at the end of class or at rehearsals then dancers can each study and analyze whether they are dancing as a unit. Also, watch other dancers in class when you are not dancing. Watch as they go across the floor or in the center. Find something you admire and try it yourself.

Refine Your Focus:

You have to have an inner-outer focus by staying aware of your fellow dancers when you perform. You have to practice this inner focus. It helps you to feel what is going on beside and behind you as you see peripherally. As you are looking out, you are also looking in. It is a sophisticated way of focusing. This starts by using the mirror wisely in class and rehearsals. Avoid staring at yourself instead scan the room as you dance.

Master Musicality:

Timing is a must when dancing in a group. Count the music as soon as you get it. If the rhythm is unfamiliar, listen to it while standing still and picture yourself doing the choreography to it or count and clap the rhythm exactly the way the music sounds. Make sure you understand where the beat is. Focus on knowing the music backward and forward before you start to dance to it. Once you know what you are doing and everyone else does too then you will all be together

Breathe Outloud:

The breath is what keeps people together. When beginning a new piece breathe out loud. Once you know the piece (meaning everyone in the piece), then you breathe silently. This helps to keep the dynamics of the piece as one. If all dancers are breathing rhythmically and naturally then they are cohesive. If breathing shallowly it is not sharing with each other. You will not connect.

Connect Backstage:

Just like doing partner work, you have to connect. Squeeze the hands of the hands of the others. etc This allows energy to pass from one to another. This really helps! Be sure to train each dancer on how to move from the wings to the stage and how to leave the stage. This is important, especially in new surroundings This makes sure all performers arrive musically on stage.

Morwenna Assaf, Artistic Director

Art/Dance Academy, Cedar Productions, Tales1001

Walid Assaf, Music Drector,

Art/Dance Academy, Cedar Productions

Get An Uplifting Light Quality in Dance

How to achieve that enchanting quality of lightness.

This is a quality we all need to work on all the time. So how do you acquire that appearance? Lightness is an elusive quality that makes a dancer seem to float across the floor. As with all dance, these things take an enormous amount of work behind the scenes. Then it looks effortless on stage. Whether you are striving for that fast on your feet look or lightness in your arms, here are some tips to help you.

Contrast: – Contrast gives the illusion of lightness versus heaviness. You have to go back and forth between heavy & light. This is what the two are, both visible elements. The key to this is being grounded. You have to push from the floor. This gives you the easiness to lift. Once you have found oppositional energy, which comes from the legs, the core, the back, then you can lift up and move into lightness. If you are already lifted it is hard to go higher. How do you achieve this? Learn how to plie properly Strengthen those legs! The bottom half of the body is more rhythmical.

Raks el Anwar

Strong, Light Arms: – The upper body is more melody. Arm placement, holding the carriage correctly with endurance not, compensating gives you better strength and control. This will make your arms and hands lighter. Will also aid in shoulder stability. Hold your arms up with ease. Soften the elbow as you exhale. Never let it hang on the bottom. The arm is held shoulder down, elbow next facing back wall and lower than shoulders. then hands float down from there. The elbow leads the port de bras. This achieves a look of synchronicity with the body rather than the arms looking separate from the body. Or, moving on their own.

Learning to Float: – Coordinate the breath with what you are doing. Hold your breath a moment at the top of the move and then exhale when finishing. Have a clear picture of the picture you want to create. Then take a little breath at the end. Do not drop the arms down immediately. Try this with small weights, then put the weights down & try without.

Elena Lentine

Breathe Through It: – Breath control is so important to your moves. You never want clenched or stiff hands, a tense jaw, or muscles that are tense. Gripping muscles is a sign of core weakness. A good cardiovascular system and strong core go hand in hand. Practice breathing! Having a better use of breath & pressure (plie) management gives a better sense of ease and lightness.

When dancers use their breath onstage you can feel the energy and dance with them.

Morwenna Assaf
Dance Director of Art/Dance Academy
New Market, TN

760-715-2276

Morwenna Assaf

Autumn Dance Season is Here

Life IS Movement

SUMMER 2021 Art/Dance Academy

SPRING 2021 Art/Dance Academy

Virtual/Digital Shows! – Make Yourself Stand Out

Covid -19 has made us all look for other ways to share our talents. Have to admit I am not a technician and this stuff scares the daylights out of me. I was using Zoom etc. when nobody had heard of it to keep in touch with my students far and wide. I now have a lot to learn. I envy those you have come to terms with the situation. I only ever used it for coaching. I remember my my first class on Zoom. I learned a lot.

This article though is for those who are performing in shows produced on Zoom or Skype etc. I cannot sit through one more. The people running the shows do the best they can. Most do well. It is the dancers that I worry about. All get a great introduction. After that it is all over. Most just dance to one person the camera. No, no there is not one person there. Why aren’t Arabic style dancers taught more in their choreography classes than just steps? I was taught that things done face on were flat. Have no depth whatsoever!. Facing the side has no personality. Use you angles!!!

I think most of the problem is focus. No one knows where to look. Going across the floor means just that. Have energy, unique presence and dynamics. This is called “See and Be Seen”! Focus on really performing the movement. You have to have direction on your look. It demands that you imagine an audience and show them where to look. Do not focus on your self in the camera, really be aware of where you are focusing your eyes. Sustaining warm, friendly eye contact when ever appropriate also lets the audience know your personality. You need to be present and focused. Easy to forget in a virtual realm. Be yourself and and feel you are being seen all around you. Carry yourself accordingly. This is not just your imagination at work.

You are not performing to an empty house. You have to have stage presence. Pretend you are on stage. Envision communicating to a person. Tap into that feeling of performing for others. Have a confident presence. Learn the nuances of your choreography or improvisation not just steps and moves. Really hone in to what is really being offered, it is more than just reproducing a movement or series of moves. Know the phrases of the music. Take ownership of the material and show you understand the musicality. When using improvisation, feel free embrace and respond to the music. Be an artist!

While two dimensional representation onscreen cannot fully show the richness and complexity of your dancing like in person, getting your dynamics can give a more accurate idea of who you are as a performer. The screen flattens us out and we are not fed by the energy in the theater or restaurant. So, it is even more important and imperative to compensate by being highly articulate and dynamic in your movements. Hit a movement a little harder. It turns the volume up in subtlety and nuance. Make the movement clear rhythmically, feel your connection to the music.

Practice is a great idea. Let go of imperfections or technological mishaps as quickly as possible. Keep dancing full out at least as much as you can in your limited space.

For anyone who really has no idea what I am saying, give us a call and schedule a coaching session. We can do this, it is really commonsense. But if you do not know we can help you.

Morwenna Assaf Educator an Choreographer
Arabic Style Dance & Movement
ArabiDanseAcademie@sbcglobal.net
https://ArtDanceAcademy.webs.com

Walid Assaf, Rhythm Master & Musical Director
760-715-2276

SPRING 2021 Art/Dance Academy

Egyptian (REDA ) WORKSHOP

Take Care of Your Muscles

No matter whether you are into fitness, dance or tennis you need to make sure you are taking care of your muscles. You do want to strengthen but nor over strain them. Know there is a difference between muscle soreness from use and a strained or pulled muscle. Both, do need a balance of rest and strengthening. A pulled or strained muscle has distinct symptoms. You know it is not just a back from a vacation soreness.

Muscles like to be warm. Coming into class and not doing a warm up before dancing is asking for trouble. So. take the time for even a quick stretch before starting full out.
There are three levels of muscle tears.
1. This level is where a few fibers have been torn and stretched beyond their natural resting spot.

2. Level three is where All or most of the fibers have been severed.

3. Level 2 is somewhere in between.

SYMPTOMS:
1. Pain When Stretching: If it is painful to move, minimize the range of motion. If still painful you might have a muscle strain.

2. Lack of Strength: Soreness accompanied by lack of strength distinguishes soreness from strain.

3. Redness, Swelling & Bruising: Any combination of these three can indicate a a strained muscle. The onset of symptoms can develop itself differently.

TREATMENT: It is important to see a medical professional. Get it diagnosed and create a treatment plan. Muscles DO repair.
It is easy to push the muscle too much or too little. To repair properly it must be used. So think walking. If not the body will create a scar tissue instead of rebuilding. Scar tissue is weaker and less pliable than regular muscle tissue. Then, one becomes weaker and less flexible. If you push too hard you will end up with a worse injury.

PREVENTION: The best way to prevent a muscle strain is to warm up before dancing, sprinting etc. Avoid static stretches when muscles are cold. A static stretch is one that stretches beyond its flexibility and holds it there. This produces the muscle to decrease its ability to contract and use force. These static stretches should be used t the end of class to cool down as your muscles are warm. Dynamic stretching, where muscles are moving through a range of motions but not stopping at the end point for too long. You are moving the muscles back and forth like an accordion.

DYNAMIC STRETCHES:
1. HAMSTRING BOTTOMS UP: 1.Feet in parallel, hip distance apart 2. Bend knees, Put forearms on thighs with flat back. 3. Straighten knees. Lean forward pressing weight into forearms 4. Keep the back long reach out with sitz bones up to the ceiling. 5. Only straighten legs to point where you can keep back flat. 6 Squat down as deeply as possible keeping weight on knees. 7. Repeat 10 times slowly.

2. HIP FLEXOR: 1. Stand with left leg front & right foot back in a wide lunge with back heel lifted. Keep hips square. 2. Keep back straight and body centered. Slowly lower as you bend both knees. As you lower bring right arm up over head. Keep left knee of left ankle . You should feel a lengthening of the back thigh and hips into belly. 3. Bring arm back down as you slowly straighten up to starting position. 4. Repeat 5-10 times before switching to the other side.

For an extra challenge lean slightly forward and do a contraction. Do this with one hand on the barre for support.

Do not hold any position. Move slowly to the end of your range of motion and then back out of it. NO BOUNCING EVER!!

Morwenna & Walid Assaf
Art/Dance Academy
East TN 37820
760=715-2276
ArabiDanseAcademie@sbcglobal.net
https:://ArtDanceAcademy.webs.com