I'm absolutely in love with tribal, but am getting slightly past the standard ATS and ITS movements. We're working on combos, now, and my students have done a wonderful job of picking up the 3/4 shoulder shimmy combo, the maya with "up" arms, and the one I describe below as well as several others that I've made up for them.
I'm curious if anyone has any suggestions on good beginner to intermediate level ATS or ITS combos. I know, I know, tribal is all about improv and my students are quite good at busting out and dancing. But I'd like to challenge them a bit more and put together more interesting and complex movements (instead of just ghawazee...arabic...oh look! ghawazee again ;) ) as I think we've reached that "my brain can't remember all these movements" point...so far introducing combos has been a real breath of fresh air.
So what combos do *you* like to use? What are your favorites? Any suggestions would be great!
Second question: I'm working with my girls on the "Arabic, hip circle, torso rotation, belly wave" combo (or whatever it's called - whew! that's a mouthful!) and I just have one question. I'm having a bit of a hard time, from the video, discerning which way the hips rotate. It *looks* like they go in two different directions, moving counter clockwise first (from R around the front to L) and then moving clockwise the second time (from L around the front to R). Am I crazy? Can someone please let me know if this is the correct rotational pattern?
Thanks for any ideas and help!
I'm curious if anyone has any suggestions on good beginner to intermediate level ATS or ITS combos. I know, I know, tribal is all about improv and my students are quite good at busting out and dancing. But I'd like to challenge them a bit more and put together more interesting and complex movements (instead of just ghawazee...arabic...oh look! ghawazee again ;) ) as I think we've reached that "my brain can't remember all these movements" point...so far introducing combos has been a real breath of fresh air.
So what combos do *you* like to use? What are your favorites? Any suggestions would be great!
Second question: I'm working with my girls on the "Arabic, hip circle, torso rotation, belly wave" combo (or whatever it's called - whew! that's a mouthful!) and I just have one question. I'm having a bit of a hard time, from the video, discerning which way the hips rotate. It *looks* like they go in two different directions, moving counter clockwise first (from R around the front to L) and then moving clockwise the second time (from L around the front to R). Am I crazy? Can someone please let me know if this is the correct rotational pattern?
Thanks for any ideas and help!
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Sarasota
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Re: Your favorite combos and a question on technique?
Tue, May 6, 2008 - 10:28 AMHey Misha,
What video are you referring to with the "hip twist, bellywave" combo thing you mentioned?
My take: "ITS", or "Tribal Group Improv" as I prefer to call it, doesn't have any limits in vocabulary as ATS does. So "moving beyond" TGI isn't really...well...possible. Because it's limitless! And frankly, ATS has a huge vocabulary and if your gals are doing only Ghawazee and Arabics, then you haven't fully explored even the confines of ATS just yet! It sounds like you have been doing Gypsy Caravan based tribal group improv, and that definitely has tons to do. Then if you start picking up the later volumes of the FatChance videos, your mind willbe blown at all there is to do there, as well! How long have your gals been studying with you? It's tough to run up against the limits of ATS outside of 5+ years, let alone a lifetime of details, refinement, and learning to really play with the moves to make it more dynamic and interactive between the dancers!
Combos tend to be more proprietary. Which is to say combos tend to be very specific to the groups which create them, rather than a universal language, and unfortunately is difficult to convey in text. It's something to watch and learn or be taught in workshops.
So my first question is, do you have access to some GC workshops, or maybe a FC ATS General Skills? That will give you fodder for years right there! For combos, of course workshops are your best bet, but YouTube is a great place to garner inspiration. Find troupes you know are doing group improv (like FatChance, Gypsy Caravan, inFusion Tribal, Troupe Hipnotica, etc) and watch their videos for ideas. As an advanced dancer/teacher you should be able to pick out quite a few combos from the performances and break them out for yourself and your girls! -
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Re: Your favorite combos and a question on technique?
Sun, May 11, 2008 - 4:14 AMThanks so much for the ideas, Shay :)
I completely agree that the possibilities are "endless" - you're absolutely right on that one. And thanks for reminding me of that! I believe the move was from either 7 or 8 of the GC videos. I've had the good fortune to attend a weekend intensive with both Paulette and also Tribal Pura with Caroleena/Megha but that was a bit ago. i'd love to try to get up north to do more with Paulette, but I don't know when I'll be able to do that. both of those workshops were amazing, and i definitely took a lot from them, but i know i'd definitely benefit from more training.
I'm a bit bogged down right now, because I teach two different tracks of classes, and I find students go into one track (the Oriental or cabaret courses) for a bit, then switch into tribal, switch back, switch again....aaaaaah! heh. so that desire to learn as much dance as possible sometimes makes it difficult to determine what material to cover when you're holding classes and people keep bopping in and out. I'm tweaking my format still and would like to move beyond the basics with my students who've been studying longer. I'm finding, however, that many are having retention problems when working in the improv setting so we may very well just go into hardcore movement drilling mode!
thanks for reminding me that it's perfectly o.k. to step out of the box! i needed that!
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Re: Your favorite combos and a question on technique?
Tue, May 6, 2008 - 10:29 AMPS if the Gypsy Caravan combo you are referring to steps on the right foot, hip circles, then steps on the left foot and hip circles, then yes, the circle switches direction on each iteration. Not sure if that is the combo you mean, but if you are, there ya go.
