LEARNING VARIOUS STYLES
Why is it important to learn various styles even within the belly dance genre?
✅ It expands your dance vocabulary: not only in terms of specific combos, but mostly in terms of breaking limiting habits of familiar movement patterns.
✅ It trains your brain to activate your muscles in unusual body coordination patterns.⠀
✅ It makes you learn in different ways.⠀
✅ It helps to improve creativity.⠀
✅ It shapes your individual style with time.⠀
✅ It refreshes your love to dance because you are always in the mindset of a student, hungry to learn more.⠀
✅ It develops your dance acting skills because every style will have its own mood and character, and so much more!
So never limit yourself to only one style: drum solos, or classical oriental, or folklore. Even if you are not planning to perform, even if you are not a big fan of the style, still learn it. It will benefit you tremendously and only enhance your creativity and artistic exploration on stage.
In my personal dance journey I went through studying all sorts of dances along with classical belly dance💁♀️: folklore of Egypt, Turkey, Iraq, many dances of Iran, even did some classes on Uzbek and Indian Kalbeliya styles, as well as ballet, contemporary, flamenco… I always say that my favorite style is the next one, lol. 😆And yet I remain being a belly dancer as my main focus, and my main artistic expression.
Which are your most favorite dance styles, and which styles do you think are not really for you? 🤗It can be something broad, or something within our ‘belly dance-related world’. 😘❤️ Share in the 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.
Mejance, or megance, or mejanse, or any other way that you may spell it🙈, is an entrance piece of the belly dancer. It’s her introduction, and her business card. 💁♀️ It’s the first song she appears in front of her audience, and very often it’s a music composed specifically for her.