My belly dance teacher mentioned to me today that she'd like to have me do a workshop at some point in the near future about ballet for belly dancers. To which I immediately responded "That would be so much fun!" Only now that I think about it, I'm not sure I know enough about belly dance just yet to know exactly what concepts from ballet I should focus on for this! For one thing, the basic posture and the basic movements are very, very different from each other. Port de bras would probably be helpful, and my teacher mentioned turns, only I haven't learned any turns in belly dance, so I don't know what kind of technique that employs or how it might relate to ballet turning technique. Do you spot in belly dance? And beyond that, I'm really not sure what else to include. I'm going to see if I can come up with anything by searching the internet, but I would be interested in any input from DDNers who do/have done both techniques.

Believe it or not, Panic could help you out with this hugely. His mom was a belly dance teacher and he teaches dance technique to belly dancers. I'll see if I can scare him up for you.

I'm so sure Celebrian just outed me like that. lol.

OK Kara, you're on the right track with port de bras, posture, and turns. For the record, belly dance posture should not be all that different from ballet posture, and it's an area that isn't addressed very well in most belly dance classes. So I'd definitely start there.

Yes, belly dancers are supposed to spot. And belly dancers LOVE turns - any kind. They also love footwork - anything that's hoppy and/or footsy. I usually teach petit jete, assemble, saute & sissone (in like 5 minutes), and then show them a few different ways to combine the steps. But they'll like any footsy traveling step you can think of.

Belly dancers don't necessarily need to point their feet, but sometimes they want to (they do kick every now and then, and it's not always pretty). So tendus and degages are always a good option.

I'm sure they'll love whatever you teach them, so don't stress about it.

Kara, I have a friend staying with me this weekend who left a ballet company due to injuries and then danced with a belly dance troupe for several years. She did mostly tribal, but she also did quite a bit of cabaret. So if you have more specific questions, I can pass them along to her.

I haven't really had a lot of time to think about it (the weekend of Valentine's Day is a busy one in the spa world), but I really think the problem is that I don't know exactly what questions to ask. I haven't been doing belly dance for very long and even though I'm picking it up pretty easily, I still don't really have a solid grasp on the general concepts and I know almost nothing about the finer points of the advanced technique work. Honestly, I'm drawing more on my jazz training than on my ballet at this point. My teacher mentioned some chick named Brianna who has an instructional DVD out about ballet for belly dancers, but said she's met her and doesn't like her. I'm going to see if she has the DVD, and if not I might just buy it myself, and see what I can glean from that.

I think the "Brianna" DVD you are talking about is the one found at
www.cheekygirlsproductions.com . . .

I don't have that DVD but I do have the 2-DVD-Set from cheekygirlsproductions.com called "Body Motion: Modern Dance Workout". I just LOVE those modern dance classes! However they are taught by a different instructor.

I have the the Ballet for Bellydancers DVD, and it's OK.. but I didn't think it was anything spectacular to beat the doumbek for.

It covers: Port de Bras, Plie/Releve, Chasse, Pas de Bourree, Arabesques, Turns and combinations. And IIRC (it's been a while since I looked at it), it goes through the ballet movements, then tweaks them for bellydance.

eg: Port de Bras with soft, rounded, balletic arms, then again with bd arm positioning.

It's hard to realy explain, so here's Youtube: www.youtube.com . . .

Yup. I think that's what she was talking about.

I think I'm going to keep this on the back burner for a while, at least until I feel I have a stronger grasp of belly dance technique. In the meantime, though, I'm going to keep collecting ideas to ponder...