As Printed in the Quarter 1, 2005 Issue of
The Belly Dancer Magazine
And Now…A Word From Our Sponsor Part 3
By: Sian Lane
As I write this (in May), I'm staring out my window at my gorgeous red Rhododendron. It's massively covered in blooms this year. Big, bright, beautiful red flowers. Wow. I know the plant itself doesn't have anything to do with the third article in my series, but as I gaze lovingly at it, feeling the serene spring sunshine, I realize that summer is nearly here… and the festival is only two months away. Yikes! That thought just shot my blood pressure through the roof.
Yes, festival time is near. And even though you will probably be reading this commentary long after The Mediterranean Fantasy Festival is done for 2004, the information it contains will be current and timely for many years and events to come.
In this, the third installation of 'Sian's Step by Step Guide To Kissing Up Your Sponsors', we will cover music.
Music is the lyrical poetry that surrounds and augments any dancers performance. Music gives the dance spirit. The dancer uses the music and gives the dance life. It's a beautiful marriage. When it works.
Not so pretty when it doesn't.
The good news is that there are plenty of techniques you can employ to insure that the marriage doesn't need a good shrink.
The very first thing you can do is check that crumpled registration form suspended from the refrigerator magnet. You know, that paper thingy hanging right behind your kid's drawing of Shrek? What does it say about the time frame you have for your performance? Five, ten, ninety minutes? Okay then, now you have a place to start planning your masterpiece. Find a kazoo and blow your horn - or is that a mixed metaphor?
Depending on the amount of time allowed, pick your musical piece or pieces with one eye on the clock. It's your job, nay your civic dancer duty, to dance inside those timelines. Going ten seconds overtime is probably not going to make anyone have a coronary, but if you add a whole bunch of ten seconds together, pretty soon you have a minute, and then two minutes, and then fifteen minutes, and then where are you? Behind, that's where. Events like festivals are subject to any manner of things going wrong and we don't want, say a minor technical difficulty, adding to an already tardy schedule.
Or visa-versa. Dead air and slack time make for a cupola-hundred mighty bored people sitting in the seats, waiting for something interesting to happen. Chances go quickly from fair to middling, that those bored parties (read audience) are gonna toddle off and party somewhere else during those listless stage moments.
Our job, then, as dancer slash tape maker is to adhere to the music parameters set out. Working together with the sponsor slash tape player, we can see to it that them thar partiers (read audience) are riveted in them thar seats, watching an outwardly seamless transition from performer to performer.
An additional benefit for you is that you don't end up standing around in an uncomfortable costume for, like, ever, practically able to hear your muscles harden in place.
The third big perk, and definitely another bright side to a smooth show is that you won't see, or have to personally deal with, a desperate stage crew and/or a cranky sponsor making up crap on the fly, trying to fill in those burgeoning gaps.
Like impromptu fashion shows.
And just how many open dances has that been now?
A slight detour here to touch lightly on the mixture of music, costumes and common sense.
Ninety-nine point nine percent of us don't speak Arabic, or Farsi, or Lebanese. But it makes a modicum of sense (to me anyway), to extend the teeniest effort to find out what kind of music it is you plan on dancing to. You'll make a much more educated picture on stage if you do.
Egyptian (which can contain many, many rhythms all in one piece), Persian, Arabic, Latin, Gulf, Debke, Greek, the list goes on and on. From 4/4 to 6/8 and 9/8, baladi, malfouf and tsar. Different styles of music contain different rhythms. It's only good judgment to know what the rhythm is, where it comes from and what you can do to it. Each has it's own base personality overlaid with many different moods if you will. I'm not saying you have to know the rhythms like you lived in-country for seventeen years, but your performance should at least carry a trace of rhythmic understanding.
Of course, it's also good etiquette. No one wants to intentionally offend any countries heritage.
If you're not sure, ask someone a shade more knowledgeable. It isn't a sin not to be all knowing, all seeing; all-powerful like the great Oz. Sometimes we all need a bit of friendly input from the man behind the curtain. I've asked the vendors who sell the music, an acquaintance of Libyan descent, dancers who do more traditional stuff, or basically anyone who I could commandeer to educate me about different songs and music types. Heck, you can even find translations on the Internet nowadays.
It's difficult to take seriously an Egyptian cane dance done to an Israeli folkloric piece. Or a fluid veil done to a song lamenting a young man losing his leg (seen it and heard it first hand - no pun intended). It behooves us to do a bit of musical investigation.
I also question the common sense of letting youngsters dance to the more racy songs. I know, I know, Tarkan, Shakira and Hakim are wildly popular. Upbeat and hard not to get up and boogie to. But having prepubescent teens performing to a couple of their tracks is certainly eyebrow raising.
Take the song Simarik (the kiss kiss one), which loosely refers to boys kissing their (ahem) pristine ways goodbye when Missy-Oh-So-Much-Troublemaker walks by. Think Middle Eastern Gangsta Rap if you will, and take it from there. It's wonderful music and we all love it, but put that common-mama sense to work and steer the young ladies to another track on the CD. Adults…? have at it and more power to ya.
On the flip side of that thought - isn't there always? - are the youngsters using music not upbeat enough. It's hard enough for an adult performer to carry that long, sonorous piece of mood music, let alone the kiddies. And it takes a really, really, really strong performer with a Herculean stage presence to keep onlookers from dozing off right in the middle of those subtler cuts. Some of that music is gorgeous and I can literally lose myself in it, but performable? Mmmm. Let the little tykes choose pieces they like, sure, but some gentle persuasive tactics towards more upbeat music might make a difference in how their performance is received. And to how their little dancer psyches could be affected by a ho-hummed crowd.
While we're on the subject of different music types (oh, is that where we were?), I'll cram in one more Sian info snippet.
Let the type of music you're using semi-dictate the style of costume you wear. I'm not talking hard and fast rules here, but think for a moment. Armenian Gypsy attire simply does not do justice when dancing to Set el Hossen (a classic Egyptian song). Or - skin-tight Egyptian gowns laced (or perhaps unlaced) with bare buns, sequins and dripping with beads aren't made for that jumping, heel kickin' Karshilama. And I don't care if it is your newest and prettiest costume, those rhinestones just ain't gonna fit to anything by Solace (extremely tribal stuff). However that thirteen tiered, multicolored skirt with the matching velvet choli will. I understand - believe me - that sometimes a middle ground costume that may not match musically, must be chosen when doing several unrelated pieces together, like in a troupe performance. Compromises are acceptable.
Give also just a brief moment of thought as to where you are performing, what time of day it will be, and for whom you are performing. Then with that audience and venue in mind, choose your costume appropriately. Many Kudos will follow.
Now on to the last section. Putting your music together.
Many of us (like the Babs and our sound system) are being dragged into the twenty-first century kicking and zaghareeting. Most of us now are tape and CD (compact disc) capable. So the choice is generally yours in what modality you put your music on. Of course CDs have a much better sound, but it's also a lot harder cutting and pasting and fading and starting in the middle on a CD than a tape. I'm not touching DVD's at this point with a ten-foot pole.
Of course, what you are capable of putting together at home plays a big part too. Some of us still are only able to put together a show on cassette tape, which is fine. Make sure though, that it's a brand spanky new tape of good quality. Not a tape you pulled out of the back of the closet at the last second. Don't skimp on the dollar value of your tape either, trying to save a buck. It shows (or sounds, maybe). Get the best you can afford. Please don't record over another show you did last summer. You may not have equal time frames or pauses and some extraneous sound may escape its celluloid prison: i.e. that blast of Saroyan jolting from the speakers as Warda's voice fades wonderfully away.
Set your equalizer at zero value or flat-line - right across the middle. Don't try to adjust the bass or treble, let the sound guy do that with his bigger system. Let him (or her) know if you have a soft piece or poor quality recording. Then he can be prepared to do the best he can to heighten the output.
Record your piece or pieces, allowing no more than three to five seconds in between (unless you have a big stage adjustment to make). Less even if you are a solo artist. Then you want those songs pretty much back to back (unless, of course, you're planning the extra time for those standing ovations in between numbers). You would be shocked and amazed at just how long three seconds is when you're standing in a beautiful, hard to hold pose, waiting for the next tune to roll. Time is strange thing on stage.
And I know you're all just dying for another Sian story, so here ya go. When Mr. Sian and I had the security system put in our house, the installer set the time at forty-five seconds to get from the keypad and out the door before all heck broke loose. I was askance! Forty-five seconds? I could never hope to snag my coat, grab my knickers, gather up my possessions and hustle all the way over and out the door in forty-five seconds. Then I tried it.
Not only did I pick up my stuff and get all the way over to and out the door, I had it locked, dead bolted, was halfway down the sidewalk and still had oodles of time left over.
Time is strange thing…period. I have weird stories…don't I?
Mark the tape or CD with your name or troupe name clearly. Make a note, which side is being used and whether or not the tape is cued and ready to play or which tracks you are using. Leave it in the case; it's a lot easier for the sound people to deal with it boxed up and contained. It fits way better in the holding bin; is less susceptible to sliding, falling, getting scratched, otherwise marred, or having a nasty unwinding, tape run amok incident.
Let the stage crew know whether you need to be onstage when the music begins, or want to make a fancy entrance to those heart throbbing beats. Yadda, yadda, yadda. All of yours or your troupe's performance should be on one side, of one tape. Or one CD.
CD's are a better sounding modality for your music; tones are cleaner and a lot clearer. The individual nuances carry richly. But they bear their share of problems too. Like I said before, it's hard to start recording something in the middle of a track (at least with my system). Waste is big issue for me as well. Since for the most part, once you burn anything onto a CD, bad, good, long, short, right or wrong or indifferent, it's there to stay. You are unable, Mabel, to record anything else over the top of it (like a tape). It's your little slice of heaven, like it - or Frisbee it.
The most common problem I see with CD's is that it sometimes makes a difference whether they are recorded on a computer or a stereo. And I know on my machine, I have to tell it I want the CD 'finalized' before my recording will play on any other machine. Go figure. Tapes can break or stretch. CD's can get scratched or skip. Nothing is exempt from damage. Everything and anything can go wrong. Please bring back ups. Being technically challenged myself, I marvel daily at what the techie-efficient people are now able to do with CDs.
They're putting all kinds of stuff stylishly together, like personal labels and even pictures embossed directly on their CDs. That'll take me a while, duh-huh. I still haven't figured out the label maker program! I can almost visualize virtual music modalities in the not-so-far-down-the-belly-dance-festival road. Argh. More crap to learn.
So there's Sian's musical wisdom, such as it is. I hope you all said 'hello' at the Med Fest this year, and are already making plans to attend and dance next year, along with your newfound musical knowledge.
Until next time….Sian
