Beautiful Plans 3: Introduction to BP's Tools for Independent Study

 
Structuring your Practice

Work through the following Preparation, Lessons, and the accompanying Flows on the Beautiful Technique DVD progressively, like levels in an old-fashioned arcade game: completely finish your current level to advance to the next. Each Lesson and Flow builds on material that has been presented earlier, so it’s important to move through the program in sequence. If you are using Beautiful Technique as a primary resource to learn belly dance, I recommend that you start out by only dancing Lesson 1: prepare with Warm Up and Arms from the DVD, drill the movements in Lesson 1 independently, dance along with Flow 1 on the DVD, and keep repeating only these exercises until every detail is clean and crisp and the steps and transitions flow easily.  (Of course, if you are working with other materials or taking classes, you should practice the other skills you are learning as well. But, for Beautiful Technique, don’t add moves from future Lessons to your practice until you’ve mastered the moves at your level.) If you would like to increase your strength or flexibility, end your practice with exercises for conditioning and mobility.

Progress

Move at your own pace, but, if you choose to push yourself, be judicious; when you rush ahead, you may end up sloshing through difficult moves and formalizing slosh in your muscle memory. Instead, if your goal is to develop and maintain the cleanest technique, challenge yourself to be patient and diligent. Coordination, skills, strength, and flexibility all build gradually but reliably through repetition and it takes time and effort to put dance into your body. If you’re working independently and you’re uncertain about your progress, use a mirror or video camera: look at your movements, and work to change the things you don’t like. Consider a movement or skill to be “mastered” when you can dance it in a way that feels intuitive and looks beautiful.

Attire

You’ll be able to see your body line most clearly in simple clothing with a low waistband, scarf, or belt, arranged straight across your hips, to show the angle of your pelvis. If you prefer to cover up when you train, make sure your clothing moves with you and shows the movements of your knees, waist, shoulders, and elbows. It’s usually easiest to see muscles and joints through light colored, stretchy fabrics.

I went barefoot in Beautiful Technique so that you could see movement in my feet, but I usually train in a ballet slipper. Choose whatever option for your feet looks and feels best to you. Barefoot dancing gives you a beautiful natural look and a great sense of connection with the earth, but it’s a dangerous choice for some performance venues, and you will need to build up a callous layer to glide your foot smoothly and comfortably against the floor. If you feel the floor tugging against the skin of your feet, try a soft-soled dance shoe made for jazz, modern, or ballet. If you like high heels, train carefully to avoid dancing with locked knees and a swayed back.

Using Diagrams and Notes

These materials are provided for reference, to be used in conjunction with the video content in Beautiful Technique, and as an aid to musical interpretation. I’ve represented each dance and piece of music from the standpoint of a dancer and choreographer, not a musician or archivist. For instance, I often record counts and phrases rather than beats per measure, and I’ve used my own terminology and a variety of organizational methods to meet the unique needs of communicating by each piece. My notes are meant to be comprehensible to users of Beautiful Technique’s content, but may not be transparent out of this context. They are not meant as primary sources from which a dance or piece of music can be recreated.

If you are a student and find written materials useful, I strongly recommend that you create your own diagrams and notes, and merely use my versions as a reference: by doing your own structural analysis, you will gain a much deeper understanding of the music you are dancing to—an essential skill for improvisation and choreography alike; by creating your own notations, you will develop more personally meaningful documentation and gain greater familiarity with the dance you are describing.

Terminology and Abbreviations

The Lessons use the following abbreviations:

R, L	Right, Left
CW, CCW	Clockwise, Counter-Clockwise
U, D	Up, Down
F, B	Front or Forward, Back (also “Figure” in Figure 8)
H, V	Horizontal, Vertical
I, O	Inside, Outside
SR, SL	Stage Right, Stage Left
US, DS	Upstage, Downstage
USR, DSR	Upstage Right, Downstage Right
USL, DSL	Upstage Left, Downstage Left
S-S	Side-to-Side
2SS	Double Side-to-Side
HF8B	Basic 8 (horizontal-plane figure-8 to the back/outside)
WPF	Weighted Push Forward
T-S-C	Twist, Shift, Center
T-S-P	Twist, Shift, Pull In
Or	Oriental
Fl	Folkloric

In my lesson plans and notes, “sets” of movements (double side-to-side, basic 8, twist-shift-center) use one side of the body then the other. “2 sets HF8B, lead R” indicates a figure 8 starting with weight over the right foot then transferring left, back to the right, and back to the left. An “x” indicates the number of times a movement is done. For instance, a movement done R x2 is done two times on the right.

→ Next in Beautiful Plans: Diagram: “Rust Metal” (The Magic Veil/Anatolian Kanoun) (Warm Up)

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