How to structure a 20-min non-stop belly dance show
Iana Komarnytska belly dance performance at a wedding.
Is summer just about beach vacations? 🤔 Obviously not! 👉I remember when I was living in Toronto, summer was a very busy season for wedding and restaurant gigs.
20+ minutes NONSTOP for a SOLO dancer, especially when performing for a non-Arabic audience, can be very tricky… 😬 Do you know how to structure such program, and keep it both engaging for the audience AND doable for you as a performer?
This was my typical ‘formula’ for success 👇👇👇
1️⃣Opening song: You can stick to a classical mejance entrance, or if you are performing for a non-Arabic audience, you can choose some fusion "belly dance fantasy" song, and enter with an extravagant prop.💃💃
2️⃣Second song: Usually I try to still keep it as my "performance" song unless the audience is super impatient, and someone just jumps on the dance floor. 😂😂😂 This is something we can't fully control, but there is one trick. 💁♀️I almost always preferred to keep the second song not too crazy upbeat... Of course, nothing super slow, or dramatic, but something that would encourage people to still ☝️keep watching rather than rushing into dance.
3️⃣Audience participation: Now it's time to engage people on the dance floor. 🥳🥳🥳 Any upbeat pop song works. It needs to be easy to dance to for any kind of audience. ☝️☝️☝️ I usually put two songs for dancing with guests, and also blend them together, so that there was NO stop ❌in between songs.
4️⃣Closing part: Here comes a drum solo and finale for exit. I like to finish with a drum solo. It guarantees that the overall impression of the show ends on the most upbeat note.💥💥💥If the crowd is very much into dancing, I might still interact with people during the drum solo, or often they naturally formed a circle around me, and watched with enthusiasm. 🤗💃🤗💃
The one exception in this order is when a client asked me in advance to transform my show into an open dance floor, so that their DJ could take over right after me. 👉In that situation I put a drum solo before I start engaging people into dancing, and I cut out the finale (exit) part of the show. 🎶
💁♀️This is a BRIEF overview on how my typical program looked like. If you want a complete guide to your professional career as a belly dance performer, you might enjoy my course Business Course For Belly Dancers: Everything About Gigs, available at the Iana Dance Club.
Would you like me to share more about my gigs experience here? I remember many more tips and tricks like this, although in the last few years I've mostly been teaching online and traveling. 😜 Let me know in comments below 😘❤️
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About Iana
Iana Komarnytska is a professional dancer, teacher, choreographer, and passionate content creator helping dancers navigate their dance lives.
She is a graduate from the professional dance program at York University (Canada), host of the Belly Dance Life podcast, creator of the Iana Dance Club, author of numerous articles, and winner of Star Bellydancer Canada 2014 among other international competitions.
Along with belly dance, Iana performs and teaches Persian Classical and Turkish Romani dancing. She is the first choreographer to start using Triple Isis wings, and since 2012 this is one of her style signatures.
20+ minutes NONSTOP for a SOLO dancer, especially when performing for a non-Arabic audience, can be very tricky… 😬 Do you know how to structure such program, and keep it both engaging for the audience AND doable for you as a performer?