Late to the party

[mekyria]

I am finally watching last year's Project bellydance. I watched the first episode last night, where they have the initial auditions and the group assignment and they are voted for by their teammates. First thoughts that come to mind:

1.wow, those one minute choreographies look amazing, especially since they had 30 minites to prepare
2. it is obvious that they edited the commentary of the judges. Aziza is very good in formulating her thoughts and adding nuance. I tend to disagree with Michelle Joyce as the dancers that she loved didn't do it for me. I am just not that into fancy wow dancing.
3. adding the video round before asking the final 25 to audition was a good choice in raising the level of the participating dancers. I did feel that tribal and tribal fusion are very underrepresented though, and that is just not fair. Or they should rename the program 'Project commercial bellydance'
4. The judges have a very specific profile in mind for the winner, meaning that dancers are judged on the whole package: their hair, nails, costume, music choice, music interpretation, etc.. This automatically excludes half of the dancers of the big group, and most of them we don't get to see dancing. It makes me wonder if it was a concious choice by the editor to not show the auditions of the people that didn't have the full package.

Tomorrow, episode two!

Comments

[suzycat.livejournal.com]

It's true that tribal/TF is underrepresented but you can see why, and it's not due to Haters or anything. The dance styles are *radically different* now. It's not even about the aesthetics; it's the musicality, the KINDS of music, the commonly used steps/movements, the notion of what is and is not bellydance.

There are fusionists with great skill in oriental/folkloric dance as well, but who's going to do T-rex arms and sidewinders with their shoulders under their ears when they hear Bahlam Beek or something?

It would be different if all the dancers were expected to know how to do all bellydance. An Egyptian round, a Turkish round, a TF round, a tribal improv round. But that's starting to change BD into something else IMO, something a lot less personal, something that requires commercial-dancer training across the board rather than deepening personal exploration of ME music and traditional performance.

Of course even in something like this, Egyptian on steroids and speed is the standard.

[mekyria.livejournal.com]

you are right, a full spectrum dance competition would not be a belly dance competition. I already have my doubts with the current cmpetition, since the focus is very much on 'can this person sell my prouct'. It is the discussion of commercial versus artistic. I like how they also look at musicality and personality, those are two solid skills that a bellydancer needs.