Amelie Rigetto This article is based on my own subjective experience with Bellydance festivals in Europe. I want to share with you my thoughts and feelings about festivals and specific paradoxes. It’s possible to add a lot of other ones, here a short list of mine:
The Guest Paradox
When your goal is to create a successful event, you want to align big stars to drain a maximum of participants. But what about the other dancers/teachers? The unknowns (or less known ones). Some of them are really great and have a lot of things to share with the community.
Some promoters prefer to keep their festival safe instead of bringing risk and inviting unfamous guests and it’s totally understandable but how the new generation can raise their popularity if none give them lights?
In my opinion, it’s difficult to be an event guest if you haven't been invited to another festival before.
Just imagine what Bellydance would look like today if no one haven’t given his chance to an actual dance star!
Sometimes, the winner of the previous competition has the opportunity to teach a workshop. It’s a good way to start but, in my point of view, a good dancer doesn’t make automatically a good teacher.
The Student Willing Paradox
As participants, you're waiting for a specific topic from the stars. In reality, they're teaching to explore new horizons and get out of your comfort zone but they can’t do this.
Just imagine, you sign up for a big festival, in which, your favorite instructor is invited. You know that his/her signature style is elegance, hand moves and very elevated raqs sharki. If he/she proposes new topics he/she’s currently working on (for example specific folkloric dance he/she just felt in love with), you will be frustrated to not have what you're waiting for.
That reminds me a show during which a dancer wanted to share something new. She was in a life transition and wished to transmit it through her performance. She wasn’t in the mood to present what she was famous for. Her heart wanted to do something unusual. I was really impressed. After the show, I came to congratulate her for taking risks and get out of her comfort zone. She hugged me and started to cry; I was the first one to not blame her for doing uncommon and unexpected dance.
As a student or a fan, we don’t realize how much pressure we put on dancer shoulders. They have to be conformed of what we're expecting from them. Ask yourself: where stop the artist and start the brand you consume?
The Competition Paradox
If I ask who’s the best dancer in the World. I will get as different answers as people I ask. All the best dancers have their own personality, their own character, their own style.
How jury of a competition can decide who’s the best? There are so many criteria and subjective aspect.
The level is various, the technical background is distinct, the history is separate. A dancer will never be another one.
Just imagine, you go on competition with a piece you're working on for years. You choose the music, you did the choreography by your own, you bring into it what makes you unique. Your main opponent is a dancer who is coached by a big star. She knows everything for her. When she’s dancing, you can’t make the difference between her style and her mentor’s. She registers to this competition because her instructor is one of the guests (so one of the judges). Do you think you have a chance to win?
What would become the Bellydance world if all new born stars are just a copy of their teachers?
The Athlete Paradox
Most of the time, the competition takes place right in the middle of the festival, starting after a day full of workshops. Imagine, you're the last one, after a long list of dancers. How can you do your best? Festivals are really intense for student’s body and mind.
It’s normal that as a guest, you want to offer a fabulous and energetic workshop and give you at 110%. In events, apprentices have 4, 5 maybe 6 exhausted workshops per day sometimes, without any lunch break (or a very tiny one). If you add the lack of sleep (late end of shows and competition and early class starting), jet lag for big travelers, you must be a superhero to survive an entire festival.
Most of the time, you plan to do all the lessons but in reality, you must be in an Olympic form to resist half of them.
On a more medicine point, a weak muscle gets tired easily and injuries like to come at that moment. Who has never been sore after a whole festival during which you asked to your body to move in a way it not used to.
The Investment Paradox
Your body is stressed by events but your wallet is too. Festivals need organization to book the trip, the stay, probably the work day off…
Even you want to, you can’t do everything: travel all around the world costs money and time. You have to make decisions and sometimes you register for an event, plan everything and a month later, another one, more exciting than the one you just sign up for, popping. How frustrating!
Right after the Covid lockdown, some promoters proposed hybrid festival (both online and in presence). I know it requires a lot of organization but I think it's a fabulous opportunity to have a taste of a specific festival you have an eye on. It can be difficult to mix family life and traveling for your passion. In that case, you can bring your moment in your own space.
The Learning Paradox
As a dancer, we have to learn: moves, techniques but not only this. It’s difficult to make an exhaustive list of what a Bellydance should know: culture, history, anatomy, makeup, hair dress, sewing, music editing, video making…
Students love to share, to ask questions to their teachers. Sometime, it’s good to stop and discuss about a specific subject. Learn how to approach improvisation, choreography making, music mapping is an asset for a dancer. They can absorb interesting concepts thanks to round tables or just lectures.
The Covid provided us a lot of very interesting conferences about different topics that gravitate around Bellydance. The students are really enthusiastic in that sort of skill but I don’t see many festivals offers that kind of lecture. In middle of intense dance classes, it would be a fabulous body rest time.
The HyperBrain Paradox
During festivals you jump from a workshop to another one. How you can assimilate tonnes of choreography, technique, information in such a small amount of time? Do you still working on the choreography you learned? Can you remember one of them? After a long and intensive dance weekend what remains? Good memories with buddies, emotional moments with teachers, stories to tell, things to explore, concepts to dig, …
In my opinion, dance festival is a taste of instructors. It’s the perfect way to meet a teacher, to learn how he or she apprehend the music, the dance, the teaching and if you like it, go deeper. It’s like a library where you check introduction of books before choosing which one you want to continue to read.
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About me
My name is Amélie, I’m not a teacher, I’m just a Bellydance student. Based in Luxembourg (Europe), I love to travel for my passion (virtually or physically, depending on my time and my bank account).
Except the dance itself, what I love about Bellydance is the community and the interaction with it. Share, learn, discuss.
It’s the first time I write an article for a magazine, I hope you enjoy read it as much as I enjoyed writing it.
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