I’m aware that a costuming definition demands a dance style definition.
Tribal belly dance is brand new (more or less 20 years old) and it is still in its early years of effervescent creation which means that there will be loads of changes, a multiplication of styles, and that its future path is not so clear. This new form of belly dance is full of extreme styles and people are arguing more and more over what is tribal belly dance and what is it not.
In order to avoid a long-lasting debates on the specific styles, I will approach the issue by focusing on the goals the dancers are aiming for and the movements they use - within the realm of my most recent knowledge.
Hence, I will split tribal dancers in three wide goal-related categories: the hypnotics, the nomadics and the theatricals.
The hypnotics: They are usually intense and edgy. Their style is sometimes named “fusion belly dance” which can lead to confusion as most of tribal belly dance is issued from a fusion of multiple dances. The hypnotics' dance style feels snaky, hypnotic (obviously), and evokes ritual.
The nomadics: They are joyful and colorful. This style is the core of the “tribal” in the sens of community. The dancers fascinate in the same way a kaleidoscope does. This goal is most often reached in troups rather than solo, as more dancers create a multiplication of the effect on the audience.
The theatricals: They are, obviously, theatrical. Their goal, throughout their dance performance, is to communicate with the audience. They get and maintain the audience's attention with a small and simple story line, intricated within the dance and progressing along with it.
These three goal styles have specific costume needs in order to help them reach their objective or ''goal''.
This being said, I must clarify one point: I am squaring things (ahem, people) into categories only in order to explain and simplify some costumes concepts. When I go watch a show, I do not try to fit performers into boxes and I am very aware that potential blends between these categories can be found in one single dancer, and sometimes in one single performance.
Thank you in advance for not stoning me - if you wish to do so, constructive bricks would be better weapons.
Some of you may be a bit puzzled by my “goal” approach rather than movement based practical explanation. My decision regarding this goes down to the very vision I have of any kind of dance: it's all about the power of the “why am I doing this?”. Picture it as Peter Pan's happy thought: the stronger your thought is, the higher you’ll fly.
I personally think that the main goal of a dancer should never be to “be pretty on a stage” or to “do like Rachel Brice cuz she’s hot”. At least, not after your first show or year in dance. Rachel and all her wild bunch may look like fun girls, but most of them studied a lot in their field and made use of their brains and erudition in more a way that only costume color choices [although costume color is also very important ;)].
People sometimes have a strange vision of artists: they picture them as wheezy bohemians who produce creation only thanks to heaven-sent ideas, without using any defined concepts or techniques, only using absolute talent (when the art is good) or absolute out-of-reach abstraction (when they don't like the art).
The reality is hopefully much more concrete. There are lot of existing concepts about dance, choreography, goals and psychology that sometimes should be taken out of the dusty library shelves.
In short: making concepts and thinking deep won’t kill tribal belly dance's art freedom and inspiration: it will support it.
See you next week!
Gen
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