Travel Steps Study Guide 6.6: Hip Rotation

Changing Direction with Hip Rotation; Belly Dance “Pas de Bourrée” ; Cross-Pivot

In a step across, you’ll feel a slight twist in your body.  This twist isn’t a pivot—your foot stays fixed on the floor—but a rotation in the hip (probably complemented by rotation in the torso).  Use the next few exercises to take notice of how you use hip rotation to change your direction of travel in everyday locomotion.  These sequences aren’t designed to cultivate any special technical skills; you’ll just be taking “normal” steps.  But some dancers will find that bringing awareness to the action in the hip increases the intentionality of their dance and can give a cleaner look and feeling to their movements.

Try taking steps to turn in place.  Standing comfortably, bring your weight to your left foot, so that you feel the weight of your right leg hanging underneath your right hip.  Start by turning your pelvis counterclockwise, bringing your right foot and leg across and forward.  Notice that your left leg has become turned-in relative to your pelvis.  Transfer your weight to your right foot.  Turn your pelvis counterclockwise again, bringing your left foot behind you.  As you turn, you will feel your right leg turning out under your right hip.  Transfer your weight to your left foot.  Continue turning your pelvis and stepping until you have taken yourself through a counterclockwise turn.

Turn the other direction, this time using rotation in both hips to carry the body further in fewer steps.  Start with your weight on your left foot.  Turn your pelvis clockwise, bringing your right foot behind you and feeling your left leg turn out under your left hip  Before you transfer your weight, reorient your right leg, so that you are turned out in both hips.  Step on your right foot.  When you step, unless you engage turn-out muscles, you’ll feel your pelvis naturally turn clockwise over your right hip, reorienting to a parallel alignment in the right leg.  Turn your pelvis clockwise again, this time rotating to a turned-in position in your right hip.  Before you step left, turn-in your left leg.  When you transfer your weight, again you’ll feel the pelvis turn over your standing leg to reorient to parallel.  If you used a lot of hip rotation, you may find that you’re facing the front of the room again, and have completed a full revolution in just two steps.

Try walking around your dance space, making direction changes, and noticing how you use hip rotation to direct your steps.  Walk towards one diagonal, then turn your pelvis to walk to the other diagonal.   Walk toward the audience, then turn away.

Step through the footwork pattern commonly known as belly dance “pas de bourrée.”  (Pas de bourrée is a ballet step derived from a regional dance.  The belly dance version doesn’t resemble it very much, but Mahmoud Reda uses this term to describe a sequence that appears frequently in his choreographies, and many belly dancers who work in Egyptian styles have adopted the term.)  Here’s the footwork sequence for one set of pas de bourrée, leading with the right foot:

Step	Step	Step	Hold	Step	Step	Step	Hold
R	L	R	[staggered stance, facing stage right]	L	R	L	[staggered stance, facing stage left]
Forward	Together	Back	·         Unweighted hipwork	Forward	Together	Back	·         Unweighted hipwork

The steps in the sequence turn the body toward one side then the other.  Begin the sequence on the right side of your dance space, standing in profile to the audience, with your right hip downstage and weight on your left foot.  As you step forward, step together, and then step back, turn your body clockwise, so that you face “3 o’clock” for the unweighted hipwork in the hold.  Step, step, step, and turn back to face “9 o’clock.”

The turn inside the belly dance pas de bourrée can be danced with pivots, but it’s more often accomplished with changes of direction in steps, led by subtle rotations in the hip.  Either variation is straightforward and can be danced easily by a beginner, but you may find that your precision improves after you’ve taken a moment to dance through the sequence with a close focus on placement and alignment.

Finally, try a cross-in-front pivot turn, noticing how both legs deeply rotate in to help power the movement.  With your weight on your left foot, turn your pelvis counterclockwise, turning your standing leg in under the hip.  Then, also turn in your right leg, so that you can reach your right foot as far around behind you as possible—ideally you should place the ball of your right foot behind your left heel.  Begin to pull yourself around.  Once you are pivoting, lower your right foot and complete the pivot on the ball of the left foot and heel of the right foot.  If you get stuck, try stepping directly into the pivot; the swing of the leg may make it easier to get around.  Step on your left foot, then step across on the right, allowing momentum from the right leg to slightly pivot you counterclockwise on the ball of the left foot at the very beginning of the movement, before the right foot lands.  You may also notice that the momentum of the right leg increases your hip rotation and allows you to reach the foot around further behind you.  (If you’re new to this movement, or have a very limited range in your hips, the momentum may also misdirect and put torque on your knees; be gentle!)  When you’re stepping into the move, take care to land the right foot directly underneath your body.  If you’re having balance problems, it may relate to the spacing of your feet.  Hopefully you’re finding that your balance is steady and your turn delivers you to an ending position with the feet side by side, but some dancers find that concentrating on the breakdown of this movement makes it impossibly difficult to execute. It isn’t essential understand the movement this way, so don’t get bogged down in the details if they’re not helpful for your learning style.

If you just can’t make the cross-pivot work at all, there’s another version you may prefer:  cross your right foot over your left, so that all ten of your toes are in a row or shallow “v” with pinky toes in the center.  Your right heel is lifted and your left foot is flat; legs are either parallel or slightly turned out.  Shift into your right foot, and turn yourself counterclockwise.  End with the left foot crossed over the right.

Before you call it a day, make sure to also run through a few clockwise pivots that start with the left foot across.

→ Next in the Travel Steps Study Guide: Ball-Change and Step-Ball-Change Variations 

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