January 2008 Archives
I stupidly posted "Using Audacity to kick ass with your choreographies!" in pre-draft form. The new version not only has more explanations, but also is in both normal and extended forms. If you don't see an image in whatever email you're sent, or in the feed you're getting, come over to the entry. There's text after "as I'm about to..", I promise!
Sorry for the mix-up!
Sorry for the mix-up!
I've been playing with the free sound & music editor Audacity for awhile. This idea came to me in a flash while I was working with a new tune; it's Electronica, and not new stuff, but it's got a lot of the complex layering and shifts in tone that I like about Arabic Classical, as well.
But those shifts also mean it's a hard one to count. And I've heard enough dancers, on all levels, complain about counts that I've had, in the back of my mind, pondering on how to help dancers with counts. A dancer needs to know how to count music, true, and how to interpret music -- esp. for Improv work. At the same time, it's a hard job form someone not musically trained, and also a challenge for some pieces -- Taxsims come to mind.
So, then, I was using Audacity to play this song, so I could watch the waveforms, and sort out when my changes were coming that could not be counted. And then I discovered the Label function, where you apply another "virtual track" of text; labels that bookmark a timestamp. With that, you can literally write your choreography on the music, just as if it was sheet music!
If this works out, it will open up a whole new level of flexibility and complexity for dancers. You still need the ear,a nd the training to use this properly, but instead of having to start off remembering the changes, you can simply focus on building the music you want, and layering the changes ad-hoc. Then, you can print out the labels, and there's your choreography to remember and work with, to pass to the troupe or post online...as I'm about to.
But those shifts also mean it's a hard one to count. And I've heard enough dancers, on all levels, complain about counts that I've had, in the back of my mind, pondering on how to help dancers with counts. A dancer needs to know how to count music, true, and how to interpret music -- esp. for Improv work. At the same time, it's a hard job form someone not musically trained, and also a challenge for some pieces -- Taxsims come to mind.
So, then, I was using Audacity to play this song, so I could watch the waveforms, and sort out when my changes were coming that could not be counted. And then I discovered the Label function, where you apply another "virtual track" of text; labels that bookmark a timestamp. With that, you can literally write your choreography on the music, just as if it was sheet music!
If this works out, it will open up a whole new level of flexibility and complexity for dancers. You still need the ear,a nd the training to use this properly, but instead of having to start off remembering the changes, you can simply focus on building the music you want, and layering the changes ad-hoc. Then, you can print out the labels, and there's your choreography to remember and work with, to pass to the troupe or post online...as I'm about to.
Continue reading Using Audacity to kick ass with your choreographies!.
The saddest part about "bellydance fusion" -- a name that I personally am coming to despise -- is how limited it is. With rare excpetions, it's all based on jumping off other archetypes, from ATS to Goth* to Hula. Which is great, as borrowing is how Raqs Sharqi got kick-started, yet I'm not certain if there' s much future in looking like a rebuilt version of other people's pasts.
One of the things I've been slowly (glacially, or perhaps even continental-drift-ly) working on is trying to find a Raqs Sharqi that not only fits my personal needs as a performer, but also brings the form with some solid 21-st entry cred, without losing the elements that make Raqs Sharqi, esp. the Egyptian form, beloved and almost unique among dance styles. I refuse to think that this dance can't be brought, wholesale, into the new century, and even evolved in ways that don't lose the core conceptions and conceits.
And maybe it's just that I'm conceited, as one of my focal points on this is the core statement by Morocco and Tarik Sultan, that Raqs sharqi can only be preformed to the appropriate, Arabic, music. I do not feel that a dance loses it's essence merely by being preformed with music that's not of it's host genre, and that dance, in most cases (and certainly this one) is not separate from music, but should not be enslaved to it either.
To that end, I've been working on one aspect of this, in an attempt to kick-start the rest -- sagat work to Western tunes. And moreover, sgat work to Big Beat Electronica, with it's complex layering and high BPMs. Not only is it a challenge, it's something that is, on one level, far, far away from Classical Arabic Orchestrations. As much as I love that music, it's structure is well-known, even if it's challenges (esp. for Western dancers) nigh-infinite.
Electronica, however, esp. the kinds of songs I'm planning to work with, have so many different, and varied, and complex layers to play with, that a dancer could work for days just slicing apart the basics of just one song, much less trying to work movements into the various levels. And the speed is such that one must truly play sagat at a very skilled level simply to keep up, much less to actually play, as opposed to just clack. And when the dancer does, s/he becomes their own musician, bringing an Arabic feel to Western tunes, transforming a song into a new, more powerful and truly different fusion of cultures, honoring both in ways that other fusions struggle to meet.
And if I can do that with simply playing the sagats, imagine what could be done with other pieces of the dance? Imagine growing a fusion organically, from the ground up? So far, we can only imagine.
But I intent to make it real. Wouldn't that be cool?
[Sekrit message to Lynette: New articles coming soon. Got crazy, then traveled, then very sick. Sorry!]
* Yes, I've heard the "Goth isn't Fusion" arguments. No offense to those artists, yet I'm currently unswayed. Feel free to take it up with me in the comments. :)
One of the things I've been slowly (glacially, or perhaps even continental-drift-ly) working on is trying to find a Raqs Sharqi that not only fits my personal needs as a performer, but also brings the form with some solid 21-st entry cred, without losing the elements that make Raqs Sharqi, esp. the Egyptian form, beloved and almost unique among dance styles. I refuse to think that this dance can't be brought, wholesale, into the new century, and even evolved in ways that don't lose the core conceptions and conceits.
And maybe it's just that I'm conceited, as one of my focal points on this is the core statement by Morocco and Tarik Sultan, that Raqs sharqi can only be preformed to the appropriate, Arabic, music. I do not feel that a dance loses it's essence merely by being preformed with music that's not of it's host genre, and that dance, in most cases (and certainly this one) is not separate from music, but should not be enslaved to it either.
To that end, I've been working on one aspect of this, in an attempt to kick-start the rest -- sagat work to Western tunes. And moreover, sgat work to Big Beat Electronica, with it's complex layering and high BPMs. Not only is it a challenge, it's something that is, on one level, far, far away from Classical Arabic Orchestrations. As much as I love that music, it's structure is well-known, even if it's challenges (esp. for Western dancers) nigh-infinite.
Electronica, however, esp. the kinds of songs I'm planning to work with, have so many different, and varied, and complex layers to play with, that a dancer could work for days just slicing apart the basics of just one song, much less trying to work movements into the various levels. And the speed is such that one must truly play sagat at a very skilled level simply to keep up, much less to actually play, as opposed to just clack. And when the dancer does, s/he becomes their own musician, bringing an Arabic feel to Western tunes, transforming a song into a new, more powerful and truly different fusion of cultures, honoring both in ways that other fusions struggle to meet.
And if I can do that with simply playing the sagats, imagine what could be done with other pieces of the dance? Imagine growing a fusion organically, from the ground up? So far, we can only imagine.
But I intent to make it real. Wouldn't that be cool?
[Sekrit message to Lynette: New articles coming soon. Got crazy, then traveled, then very sick. Sorry!]
* Yes, I've heard the "Goth isn't Fusion" arguments. No offense to those artists, yet I'm currently unswayed. Feel free to take it up with me in the comments. :)
