Oct 2010
Samantha Emanuel workshops: just be yourself
By Tamsyn Maxwell

Not all great dancers are also great teachers. The best teachers aren't necessarily fabulous dancers (although it helps). Samantha Emanuel is a priceless jewel in that she is both, with an intuitive sense of how to balance personal creativity and technique both on stage and off.
Dancers from the midlands north and throughout Scotland trooped to workshops in the wee village of Peebles, near Edinburgh, last weekend where Sam met our expectations and raised the ante. What surprised me most was how willing she was to share her creative force, and at the same time pro-actively encourage students to embrace their own inner muse. She seems to keenly understand that technique can be learned, but what makes a great dancer is a healthy dose of imagination, the courage to let go, and the space to let personality shine through. You can see it clearly in her performances (watch the video of Sam dancing to the same music she did at the Peebles showcase, and performing the choreography we learned in the second workshop). Even better, it's there to experience in her workshops. Sam showed us videos of exotic sea creatures and had us curl up on the floor to bring those fantastical animals in our heads out of their hiding places and birth them into the room to share them with an audience of other workshop participants. The whole process was liberating, exploratory, and equalised dancers with varying levels of experience in the room (no space for pride when you're crawling on the floor pretending you have tentacles!). As the day progressed I realised it was also uniquely Sam. She was teaching us what for her is such an important part of a performance: embracing your creativity. She was also using imagery and analogy to help us visualise movements and take them inside intuitively - something at which she excels and does in all her workshops. Talking to her later, I could see that she really enjoyed being surprised by students who heard their own story in the music, and relished an opportunity to help them find it. When she was teaching choreography, at first it felt like walking in her shoes. I couldn't be sure whether she had performed the dance spontaneously and then choreographed it retrospectively (much like Delilah did for 'Fire at the Iao'), or whether she had choreographed it specifically for teaching. As a choreography it didn't seem designed to teach moves, as sometimes workshop choreography can, or be part of some cunning master plan to turn us all into mini-me tribal fusion dancers. Talking to Sam later, I realised why. It was choreographed for her to perform and teach to an advanced class, but because our workshop was only two hours instead of the usual three or four, she didn't have time to encourage students to create their own staging, improvisation and stylistic changes to suit their bodies and taste. Sam is definitely not one to spoon feed, but due to the time limit we did walk in her shoes for a few hours. Just a few hours mind: Sam normally improvises live and is still changing the choreography, so if you study with her again (and one of the participants had been doing just that, attending every workshop Sam gave in the UK for about a year!) you're almost certain to get something unique.  Though the short version of class didn't give her much space to challenge us to adapt her ideas, I loved it. I actively enjoy being challenged to break out of my comfortable movement patterns and style and try something new, because sometimes I discover something unexpected that I wouldn't have thought of, and love! I'm going to try 'faking' going into a move more often. But to get the full benefit of Sam's teaching then go, go, go to a longer class! 

It should be clear that for me, her first two workshops were fabulous, but what made me love her most as a teacher was that she could inspire this sort of free-flowing creativity and still teach sterling technique. Our last workshop was supposed to be tribal basics and she opened by saying that she thought our group didn't need the instruction (the class was intentionally restricted in size, and ended up being all experienced dancers), but I disagree. Despite dancing for some time, and having taken workshops with a number of big name tribal fusion artists, a lot of my technique comes from Egyptian teachers because tribal fusion instructors often just don't teach technique. Perhaps it's the result of being a relatively new art form and dancers are still exploring the best ways to communicate moves, or spurred by a focus on combinations and strengthening that students expect. But personally, I love learning subtle variations in technique that make the difference between good and perfect form, like rotating the whole arm in the socket so the shoulder doesn't rise in a sidewinder, rather than just thinking about rotating the elbow, or knowing when to lift your chest with your ribcage instead of your back muscles. The tribal basics class was brilliant; I feel like I've been given a set of tools to reach a new level of performance.
Maybe Sam doesn't appreciate how good she really is, or perhaps we're just on the same wavelength, but I didn't seem to be the only one that felt like I had gained a sister at the end of two days with her. She is so open and encouraging of each dancer as an individual, just by being herself. She has my ultimate respect, and I'm on the lookout for future workshops, whether organised again by the wonderful Doris and Celia of Borders Arabic Dance, or otherwise. In the meantime, I've got plenty to digest.
www.tamsynbellydance.posterous.com

July 2010
Dance Workshops: Sherri Wheatley
by  Elysse Meredith|
A couple weekends ago I went to two workshops in Glasgow with Sherri Wheatley. I’ve been meaning to blog on it since then, but it’s been surprisingly difficult to write on—there’s just something about the weekend that I still can’t quite wrap my head around. Let me note that this is a positive thing!

What I attended were two workshops on two days, with a hafla in-between (there was a previous workshop and hafla that week that I was unable to afford).  Both workshops included a very gentle non-yoga warm-up, which was a nice change from normal yoga-heavy tribal. The first workshop had several really interesting combinations that I will definitely be using, while the second workshop was attended mostly by teachers and pro performers, with a few intermediate students (ok, me) along for the ride. Both classes used a lot of slow moves and material, which inspired me to challenge myself–I haven’t yet been brave enough to perform something slow, feeling awkward and ungainly when I practice such. Sherri also has the most amazing arabic shimmies and level changes I’ve ever seen, a further inspiration! Also, I’m far more shouldery now than before that weekend!

Overall, I felt both challenged and comfortable with Sherri’s workshops and style. Though certainly tribal, her style feels rather intimate and soft to me, which I really liked, as though I like to watch very technical pop-lock-layer bellydance, both in tribal and regional styles (such as American or Russian strains), it feels more natural to me to dance softlywith the pop-lock for accent.

The second-to-last gem that I’m holding on to was a brief moment where Sherri informed that she’s not a natural performer; she didn’t seek the spotlight in her childhood. I am a natural performer (read: mug for attention), but oftentimes I really have to psyche myself up to properly perform–there’s still that niggling in the back of the mind saying “people don’t really want to watch/listen” (first manifesting itself when I took voice lessons). That thought needs to be CRUSHED WITH EXTREME PREJUDICE.

In short, the greatest thing I got out of Sherri’s workshops was feeling comfortable in my own dance.

Now that I’ve gotten far too personal, the HAFLA!! It was fabulous, though I wasn’t able to watch as much as I liked (being far too paranoid about balancing my sword… and that my solos-in-public are still in the single-digits…and picking over Sherri’s costume in my over-obsessive manner, which she was very kind to allow!). We had a wonderful variety of performers on both the Egyptian and tribal sides of things; it was particularly tribal-heavy for a Scottish hafla, which was a nice change from the norm! We even had a bit of the gothic creep in, thanks to the fabulous Bex! Like most haflas, though, it was a “you-had-to-be-there” to really understand the awesomocity of it.

For that purpose, I present to you my last gem: Sherri’s final performance from the Glasgow hafla! Many thanks to her for the permission to post it. Also, a wee anecdote: the last of Sherri’s songs was actually something I had discovered only two weeks before the workshops, and my first response was “Someone needs to dance to that!” Imagine how thrilled I was when she did!

www.dreamhonu.com/lysse-bird
For Sherri's performance in Glasgow check this link     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vrj6UHzEauY

 

Peebles Xmas Hafla 2009
by Shelley Dance