Summer Video Series on Variations for Improv

Hey everybody, It’s Heather Wayman, Director at Belly Dance Geek and I’m doing something a little different on the More Than Steps podcast just now.  I’ve been recording some live videos on the Belly Dance Geek Facebook page on Mondays at 10:00 am Pacific time over the summer and I just wanted to share them here.  So far there are five videos in the Improv Challenge series all dealing with different concepts for learning HOW to improvise.  Things like how to use just one movement family to make an entire dance by using variation, also timing & traveling patterns and different movement qualities.  

This podcast is a transcript (is the audio portion) of one video from the series.  The topic here is Stage Positions.   All of the videos are available on the Belly Dance Geek Facebook page at Facebook.com/BellyDanceGeek and I’ve also embedded all of the videos on this podcast and you can find that at BellyDanceGeek.com/summerimprov.  New videos will be posted live on Mondays through August, 2019.  And I hope you’ll check them out and post your answers to the Improv Challenge in the comments on those videos.

Okay, I’m here.  Technical difficulties – for some reason Facebook wasn’t finding my camera.  This whole live thing is…may not be what it’s cracked up to be.  Anyway, Heather Wayman, Director at Belly Dance Geek and today we are gonna talk about stage positions for the improv challenge and maybe they’ll be just a little short dancing at the end to kinda demonstrate some of the stage positions.

This will be a quick one.  Last week, we talked about traveling patterns and patterns that you can use to make your dancing more interesting.  We can do the same thing with stage positions to add texture and dimension. 

A lot of dancers, and I used to do it myself, will stand right smack dab in the middle of the stage and not leave that area to save their life.  But there are other areas that we can go to.  The way that you can remember them from your perspective as a performer is… obviously center stage is right smack dab in the middle, and when we think about our stage, it helps me to remember which one is which if I think of downstage as being “downtown” towards my audience. 

OK and then upstage is going to be back here in the back of the space.  So, we have this center line and then the right and the left is also from the dancer’s or performer’s perspective.

So, the left side will be my left and the right side will be my right.  So, we have stage center, up stage left, (my left as a performer), stage left which would be in the center line here, and then downstage left “downtown” towards my audience.  And then of course the opposite would be true for upstage right.

This would be the back corner on my right, (the performers right side), stage right in the center right here and then” downtown”, downstage right on the corner here.

There are reasons to be in different stages, different areas of the stage not only because it’s just more interesting, but it also makes a difference in how you project to your audience and how your audience feels and how they perceive your dance.

If I’m in the center stage, this is where I usually want to be if there is something really “POW” and “BAM” and powerful in the dance and in the music.  If I want to be more introspective, then I would want to come back here and kind of pull into myself.  That would be a good time and place for me to use the upstage portion of my stage.

And if I really wanted to project or like get into the audience’s face, I would come downstage, “downtown” towards my audience so I really get their attention.  That’s where I would go if I really wanna be like “hey, I’m gonna do something really, really cool and I really want you to see it.  So here at it is right now.”

OK let’s see, so there are other reasons…other psychology – I’m not a psychologist, but there are other reasons to use stage positions, and we’re gonna get into that in the Improvisation Safety Net Coaching program, which by the way starts September 7^th (2019) and registration is open now.  We’re going to talk about that in just a little bit.

So I’m gonna demonstrate, and use Raqs Leila, one of my favorite songs, and I’ll use some of the stage positions here.  So here we go.

(Raqs Leila demonstration – has been cut from the transcript and audio.  But you can check it out in the embedded video below or at: https://www.facebook.com/BellyDanceGeek/videos/438086260399702/)

Transcript and audio continues….

So that was just a thing I threw out there, but you notice I used different parts of the stage.  And my favorite was that introspective part in the musical interlude or….  It wasn’t really a taqsim, but back in the back corner of the stage, or the back center of the stage just to kind of add a little bit of mystery.

Anyway…  Oh, dancing is so good for your heart.  So, you can see that there are other places to go on the stage besides just the center.  You don’t wanna get stuck there and you can actually use these stage positions, sort of, even if you’re dancing on a postage stamp.  We’re gonna get into some of that in the Improvisation Safety Net Coaching program.  It’s called a un-traveling. 

You can still give the audience the illusion that you are traveling based on your body language and how you use it.  So anyway, thanks for joining me today and we’ll have another video next week. 

If you’re not on the mailing list for Belly Dance Geek, I encourage you to do so.  Please go to www.BellyDanceGeek.com and sign up for the Clubhouse.  We’re going to have a new Clubhouse call with Davina – Dawn Devine.  This will be the third time she’s been on and I guess that makes her “Davina Cubed”.  She’s going to talk about costuming and how to think like a designer when you buy or make a costume.

You can find that there and you can also find information on the Improvisation Safety Net Coaching program.  That’s going to be at BellyDanceGeek.com/ISN2019.  And there is Early Bird pricing.  I didn’t tell you about that yet.  There is early bird pricing so you can save 10% off of the already fantastic price of the coaching program.

It’s an in-depth coaching program.  It’s not DIY thing there’s a lot of interaction from me and your teammates.  We’re going to have a private forum that we all interact in.  I’m going to be reviewing your videos and giving you specific feedback on what I see and how you can improve your improvisation skills. 

And even if you are a brand new improviser, never did it before, and you’re curious about it, check it out.  Because this program is what gave me the courage to try it and I’ve been hooked ever since.  So go check it out at www.BellyDanceGeek.com/ISN2019 and join us in the Improvisation Safety Net Coaching program. 

The early bird pricing ends Aug.  24^th and there is a payment plan there too.  It’s an investment in your dance.  I invest every week.  I take private lessons with a private coach and it has made an incredible difference in the last year of my dancing.  I would love to help you and show you how you can get comfortable with improvisation.  So, check it out.  Thanks, and I’ll see you next week!