Spring Term - Week 2

Today we worked mainly with Sharp Movements.

We worked on the Step Push. This video goes through the basic Step Push, the Cross Step Push (from 2m20s), and the two new versions, the Twist Step Push (from3m50s) and the Pivoting Step Push (from 6m02s). I didn't include the stepping backwards options, but you can do this yourself very easily with the basic and the cross step versions.  

We also worked on a new member of the Sharp Moves family - the Taq. This is a hip hit that moves vertically upwards, rather than sideways like our usual hip hits. The key to the Taq is that it is powered by straightening your knee, so you need to make sure you have a soft bend to the knees in the first place. Also, remember you are straightening UP, not straightening back. You don't want to wrench your knees, you're going to need them for the rest of your life! The last thing to remember is it's a flat footed move.

This video covers Taqs from 3m39s. I've added the video to the Playlist.

Home Practice - Choreography to Hayatak Fi Soura

Try different ways to learn/practise the routine...

You can try practising the choreography mentally - run through it in your head, note where you struggle to remember what comes next, so you can tell me about it, and we can practise that. It's usually the transitions that are hard to get. I find that once I've started a section, I can usually remember it to the end of that section - the problem is getting into it in the first place, or remembering what the next section is! 

You can walk the routine through, using the choreography notes, without the music, so that you can do it at your own pace.

You can listen to the music here on Spotify or here on Youtube, and make sure you know which section is which, and visualise what you're doing in the different music sections.

You can talk with someone else about the routine. Telling someone something is a really good way of cementing what you know about it. If you have a patient partner, who doesn't mind hearing all about your classes, you can tell them. Or maybe you have a pet you can talk to! 

Still thinking about Auditory learning styles, you can "sing" the routine while you dance it. 

Or you can watch the video, here, and copy along:

Beginners - Week 8

This week we worked on using the hip push while travelling - the Step Push, with a plain and cross-step option, going forwards and retreating. The practice video is here - it's a big vid covering various Hip Push options, but the Step Push section starts at 9mins5secs:

We also did more work on Arms.

The Arms music was Al Gani Bad Youmein, by Samira Said. It's very passionate and emotional. There's a lyrics video with English translation here, if you want to follow the words.

For the Choreography, we've got started on the repetition of the sections we did at the start. One of my Principles of Choreography is that when we have repetitions in the music, we use repetitions of the moves we used earlier. So with Verse 2, we're repeating exactly what we do at the start of the routine (the cross step, hip drops, grapevine combination). But in Verse 3, it's "same but different", still hip drops, but in a different pattern, using profiles rather than facing front.

A bit of background - I created this choreo as part of a workshop series with Kay Taylor, who runs FaridaDance.com. It was all about creating choreography, I wanted to gain insights from how other people approach it. All of us on the course created our own routines to the same music. To see how other dancers interpreted the music, you can see our compilation video here.

Homework suggestion, either the Step Push or the Choreography (the more you practise it, the more it will stick in your memory).