Quarter 2/2006
March/April/May

BAKE A REALLY GOOD CAKE BEFORE YOU FROST IT!

By: Kashani

     OK - did the title of this column entice you?  Well, for those of you who know me well, you know that I LOVE to bake, so naturally I think in baking metaphors.  What could be better than to combine baking and dance, my two all-time favorite things!

     I remember as a grade schooler, my mom taught at a local high school and sometimes the home economics teacher would have her class make birthday cakes for faculty kids.  I got this GORGEOUS cake one year with fluffy white and yellow frosting, with flowers, like a 'big girl' cake.  WOW!  But, the cake itself really had some problems - it split in half before we could even put all the candles on it!  Although it tasted good, it would have been much better if it had been made well and THEN decorated with those beautiful, heavy, sugary flowers.

     So, what's this got to do with dance you ask?  Well, I'm gettin' there!

     What the cake analogy says is - get the basic step REALLY well before you add embellishments.  I think the first time I heard this idea expressed was in a workshop at Oasis Dance Camp on Vashon Island here in Washington State.  Cassandra had us layering and made the point that if a new 'layer' makes the previous one faulty, then take it off and go back to working on the previous one.  See?  This sounds like a layer cake, right?

     Here's a sample of what I mean - my students will be doing a step, then I'll add arms, then I'll add a direction change, then maybe a shimmy or maybe zills (Heaven forbid - I DO get dirty looks at this point, sometimes!), then everyone will practice to the music and they know that each one of them may have a different comfort level from the dancer next to them.  They can always 'take a layer off' and work on the previous one if they need to.  I tell them to work on that previous 'layer' until they are totally tired of it and then add the 'next' layer until it's really comfortable for them and continue adding layers, always knowing that they should take a layer off if it causes them to lose the previous layer(s).

     SO, think about cake when you dance and tell your students about it too!!!  This is an especially good tool to use in multi-level classes - beginners will be doing fewer layers and the more advanced students will be doing the most, so no one is bored.

     And, remember that the layers can be changes in - arm position, direction, level (raising up on toes or dipping down), speed (try doing half speed sometimes!), and layers can be the addition of a hip shimmy while doing a rib circle.  This concept is similar to one Saqra uses when she refers to 'builds'.  Teachers have different way of thinking of this, but it's essentially the same concept.

     Next time we'll talk about flavors of cake.  And, I might even come up with a COOKY analogy at some time!!