Moody Veil Moments

This was professionally transcribed, but it probably still has some errors. If you catch any, drop me a line at info@bellydancegeek.com. I’d love to hear from you!

Hi there. I’m Heather Wayman, assistant teacher and team member at The Belly Dance Geek. Today, I wanna share with you three ways to overcome moody veil moments.

Have you ever embarked on what you were sure was gonna be a lovely, flowing and masterfully elegant veil piece and ended up with your veil wrapped around your face? Or maybe that fabulous two-handed veil movement ended up with the corner stuck under your foot, only to raise your hand in a dramatic flick, sans veil? Several years ago, I was competing in my second professional cabaret competition. At the end of my piece, I planned to pick up the veil with my foot, toss it up into my hand and glide off the stage with it.

Hat tipped to Isis of Texas for her trademark veil trick. Things didn’t go quite as planned. Not once but twice. It’s bound to happen at some point, the dreaded veil disaster. But it doesn’t have to be a disaster. You can come out looking like a veil genius by practicing damage control scenarios. In many cases, your audience may never know that you had a mishap, even if you’re dancing in a group.

We’ve all seen it and felt so bad when a dancer is stricken with an unruly veil that seems to have a life of her own. That witch. Or perhaps you had the displeasure personally. I’m raising my hand. It happens to everyone at some point. How the audience remembers you depends upon how you handle the situation. Do you advertise it or comment on it with your facial expression? Or do you simply make it a part of your show?

When a dancer advertises the difficulty, we feel bad for them. We want things to go well for the performer. However, when we see a mishap that is made out to be a part of the performance, we may feel a little twinge of, “Oh no,” for the dancer but it doesn’t stand out in our minds long after the show is over. We’re able to get past it quickly and enjoy the rest of the performance.

A well managed mishap leaves us feeling triumphant for the dancer and we admire her skill. Sometimes, we don’t even know there was a slipup because it was handled so artfully. The best defense for an unruly veil is a good offense. Let’s look at some common moody veil moments and how we can manage them to our advantage.

The first one, the underneath flip that eats your face. Your veil’s in front of you, you’re meant to flip it up onto your neck for a beautiful princess pose but she decides to be the star and covers your face instead. We’ll fix her. If she’s only partly covering your face and not your hair, you could bring both of your hands together in front of your face while you smoothly move your head back and forth to release the veil. Then open both hands again, using tappy or wave hand motions as you reveal your wonderfully calm and triumphant face.

Now, if the veil is too far over your head and you can’t free it with the head movement, you could try releasing yourself from underneath maybe using some willowy ribcage waves as a prep before you lift both hands and emerge from underneath the veil like a monarch butterfly from a cocoon.

Number two. Your veil it’s a turban. Sometimes, she’s just extra naughty. Now you could pull her off like you’ve been set upon by a herd of angry beasts or you could go in from the front and underneath with grand mystery. Add a level change before you slide your fingers along the front lower edge to reveal your magnificent self and continue like the star that you are.

And then the third one is when your flick turns into a flop. You lose your hold on a single or a double hand flick or any other move. No worries, you’re meant to do that and it was awesome. Hat tipped to Nadira for teaching me that handy sentiment. Because now you get to show the world your beautiful wrist circles as you bring your empty hand back down to meet your veil. Take your time, go ahead, milk it.

Then you most likely wanna regain your double handhold. What you do between the mishap and the regaining of your hold depends upon what you were doing when the hold was lost. The choices are infinite. They can include wrist circles, snake arms, dramatic sweeps and flourishes with the upper body et cetera.

Regaining the hold is simple. Bring your free hand in to meet your veiled hand, place your free thumb under the veil, touching the back of your other thumb and your pointer fingers on top of the veil. Pull your veil hand upwards over and slightly behind your shoulder as you slide your previously free hand along the edge of your veil until you get back to your preferred hold. Whatever happens and whichever strategy you employ, don’t rush into it. Take a breath, give yourself four counts or so in the mishap before you emerge.

The natural response, especially if you’re in a group piece or a choreography, is to not miss any of the planned moves. However, that will surely advertise that you had a mishap. So what if you drop an eight counter moves. Unless you’re using humor to fix that misbehaving girl, you don’t wanna advertise the fact that she’s trying to run your show.

But if you are using humor, show her who the boss is. Remember that competition that I told you about at the beginning? The major misbehavior of my veil was in the finale. This was the last impression that the judges and our audience were gonna have of me. The veil did not wanna leave the stage according to my plan and she acted up more than once, I chose to use humor and audience/judge connection to wrangle her in. And it worked. I ended up winning third place in a field of over 25 competitors. I’ll post a video link in the resources below.

So let’s summarize what we’ve learned. How the audience remembers you after a veil mishap depends upon how you handle it. You can avoid advertising the unruly veil by practicing several ways to overcome different moody veil moments. Simply make them a part of your show. Alternatively, you could use humor to redirect the veil into doing what you want.

But above all, remember that you are in charge. Don’t rush, take a breath before you emerge. It’s your show. Rock it.