About dance discipline and being lazy

I will share a cool idea I developed after an exhausting day in my opera class today.

Some time ago I spoke to the foreigners in Cairo Opera ballet company and they commented on Egyptian dancer to have a sloppy technique (compared to foreigners), being shaky and unpolished. Ballet is known to have the dance world's most strict discipline.

Now I have also learnt about the contemporary dance mentality in Egypt and today in my class I understood, I have to relax myself more during dancing: some tricks the choreographer asks us to do can only be done with small effort, with a loose body control. 

The discipline in contemporary dance is worlds apart from ballet, but some rules for the body still apply, different rules. But the main point is relaxing and dancing with healthy technique for the body. I have always seen Egyptian girl dancers around me sweat less than me and not dance full power. Now I know some of it is justified. Some technique for our contemporary dance style needs me to just relax and trust the gravity and the partner. The Egyptian girls mostly let the guys toss and throw them around, because they are short and light and have weak muscles. So the guys make most of the work and girls enjoy the “ride”. I have always seen that as laziness and I now know Im only partly right. 

I will be completely open now, to me as a European-background dancer, my Egyptian company girls, in general, are lazy. But I have now learnt that by using their technique of laziness I will make my own dancing easier in some specific moves. If I loosen my discipline in contemporary dance to the limit of no effort I can actually improve my dancing (this applies for special movements) ;)

Me with my partner Salah

I will give you an example. I always struggled with a lift where my partner throws me from his hands (sitting in his lap) over his shoulder and back to the other side of his body onto his waist. I always tried to keep an esthetically shape while doing it and I lost time and got stuck to his shoulder. But TODAY, I found the solution. Simply because I was exhausted. I just lost my control during the lift and the force and gravity took over and before I knew it, we finished the lift perfectly and on time.

So now I know again, less is more! But that does not mean I will give up on my discipline and effort in other movements...and I have already been complimented on “nice personal style”;) - this actually means strong balance, lines and pointing feet from ballet, visible extensions and relaxation of the body from contemporary and graceful arms from oriental dance;)

And coming back to the point of dance discipline in Egypt...contemporary dance is definitely more comfortable and suitable for Egyptian nature than ballet, as this gives them more freedom and relaxation that they already cherish in their everyday life!