That Moment When...
1/4/2017
If you regularly read my blog, you will know I have a love/hate relationship with publishing my work. I would much rather dance infront of 1,000 people, or teach a room full of strangers than share my writing. I mean, you have read my novel, right? Oh no, only about 20 people have ever read my novel, because I'm terrified of sharing it !! (It has rude bits!) However, I do love writing. That feeling of loosing yourself for 5,6,7 hours as the words come tumbling out and the pages grow like knitting, forming themselves into ideas, concepts and dreams. Its addictive. For the last five years I have mostly written about belly dance, and so my two passions have collided. But the problem with writing all day, every day, is that at some point you have to share your words with the world. I am hugely blessed to have lots of great people in my life who can read and assess my writing. Poppy Maya (The Awesome Poppy Maya as she is known), is always ready to review the quality of my work. I can turn to Dawn Devine for resources, research and validation, plus she understands sentance structure and can turn my words from a C minus to an A plus. Alisha Westerfeld thinks in images, and helps bring my ideas to life, and I have a team of pro and not so pro editors who tidy up the chaos I produce.
Excuse me if I blush and hide for a couple of days. I'll just be here, at the computer, for the next five hours.... writing something that people might someday read !
If you like this blog, go back to my blog page and check out some others like:
I'm Perfect for Belly Dance (and so are you) Why Belly Dancers need to Walk the Line Teaching Belly Dance: Making Corrections Being Part of the Solution Or these Hubposts: "Your First Belly Dance Workshop" The Top Ten Belly Dance Tunes for Performance" "Finding a Great Belly Dance Teacher"
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Counting my (Belly Dance) Blessings
12/28/2016
At this time of year I take a short break from belly dance. Its been two weeks since my last class, three since I performed, and I'm starting to miss my true dance love. I have been belly dancing for 25 years, full time for the last 17. I write about belly dance every day. I teach three times a week, and practice each week day. Most weekends I attend or perform at events. If you are reading this, you are probably the same. Belly dance is addictive and it attracts the most wonderful, caring, loving and interesting people to its world. You may have noticed a little wave of negativity washing through these last few weeks. You can blame the stars, or the internet, Gen X or boredom, but its not how I see belly dance. Belly dance has been a huge blessing in my life and I would like to take a moment to count them. Feel free to join me, either in the comments below, or in your own blog or posting. Lets make the last few days of 2016 a wonderful moment of giving thanks to the dance that brought us together. In no particular order.... 1, - Friends. I have thousands of "Friends" on FB, and many of them have turned into real friends. Every time I attend an event, I look out for people I know through FB and connect with them, so I can meet them in person. I never walk into a workshop without a familiar face, even if its on the other side of the world. I can have coffee, or a meal, with fascinating people, no matter where I am in the world. We always have something to talk about. Belly dance has also introduced me to people that I consider family. Half of my Christmas cards were sent, with love, to families that I would never have met if not for belly dance. As someone who lost her mother way too young, I am lucky to have a place to spend time with older ladies. I love to chat and spend time with ladies of my Mum's generation. Without belly dance I wouldn't have so many wise women in my life. Finally, having a wide range of friends has made me open to new ides and taught me about the world. Belly dancers cover the whole range of political views, the gender spectrum, all ages, classes, ethnicity and religions. I have belly dance friends who can share incites into their lives, and others who are simply happy to dance by my side. thank you belly dance friends, you are a blessing.
3, - Income. It might be taboo, but I am hugely grateful that belly dance has been my main form of income for 17 years. At first I taught multiple classes, and more recently, I make a living through selling my belly dance books. I feel hugely blessed that so many people value my time, energy and thoughts enough to spend their hard earned cash. Perhaps their class time is the best hour of their week, or snuggling up with one of my books is the highlight of their day. People also pay me for the on line lessons, workshops and mentoring. If you ever paid me for anything, I am truely thankful, and I hope you felt it was worth every penny! 4, - Family. Not many people know, but my Mum used to belly dance. Unfortunately she was very ill for a long time, but it gave us a common topic to discuss. When she could no longer dance she acted at MC at my events. My daughter is also a professional belly dance performer. When my children were younger, they attended lots of events, helped out with loading and unloading the venue, lighting, sound and hosting. I think it has influenced them all in different ways. Now they are older they help with tech support and marketing advice. I am very thankful that my job is a family business and that they can all get involved. 5, - Performances. I am not one of those people who only goes to shows if I have a performance slot. I love to see belly dance performances of all levels at any venue. If I have an evening at home you may well find me surfing YouTube to feed my addiction. I dont care what your style is, I just want to see good dancing, a pretty costume, some stage craft and an interpretation of the music. I flip between the golden age classics to art that scares or upsets me, I enjoy the folk dances, Tribal Fusion, and glamorous theater productions. I am lucky enough to live in the SF bay area, which means I can see a show (or five) every Saturday night. I am lucky that I get to pick and choose, dress up, meet friends, and see wonderful performances whenever I want. 6, - Music. Just as I love every kind of belly dance, so I love all the music that comes with it. I enjoy a great live band, or a single drummer. I am lucky enough that my music collection is now so big that I can play anything, anytime, to suit my mood, my dancing or my surounding. I would like to take a moment to thank those of you who have taken the time to record music for belly dancers, or to play at an event, or to teach a workshop about the depths and meanings of the classic tunes. Belly dance has given me the soundtrack to my life. 7, Confidence. For me, this goes beyond the confidence to walk onto a stage and present a dance that I have spent 10 months working on. There is a confidence that comes from being surounded by brave, bold, beautiful, strong and intelligent people. When you take part in a show and see others project the pain and upset of a recent break up into a performance, or see the lady who just lost her job suck it up and spread joy to the very back row, it emboldens you to put your shoulders back and believe that anything is possible. Knowing that others may like your work, also gives you the confidence to truely assess the critisims that always come with presenting art. When I see one of my books in the hands of a new reader, I still hope that they like it - we all want to be liked. But belly dance gave me the confidence to write those books, because I love it so much that I have studied it in depth, talked to experts and drawn my own conclusions. I am an expert. How is that for confidence !! 8, - Beauty. Without belly dance I would never had said that I was beautiful. That is really sad. I still have days when I dont like parts of my body, but they are very few and far between. When did it become acceptable for woman to be modest about their beauty? Belly dance has given me a body with lots of curves. It can shimmy and strut, slide and glide and sometimes it can even do some really complex foot patterns ! I have also learnt what colors suit me, how to wear my hair, I have some pro make up technique and, just in the last few years, I have learnt how to pose for the camera. I can turn heads just from excellent posture. Surrounding yourself with beautiful people, not only gives you the tools, it also helps you to see your inner beauty. The belly dance world is full of people who give unconditionally, love and share without expectation. Every week we set up in the changing room and see a dozen "normal" people blossom into stunningly beautiful creatures. Knowing you are beautiful is a powerful thing. 9, - Knowledge. I am lucky that I have had the time, energy and money to travel in order to take workshops from some of the greatest minds in belly dance. I am also very privileged to have met many wonderful belly dancers who have taken the time to talk to me, share their ideas, send me books, write me essays or simply ask me questions. I am not the scholarly type. I struggle to take notes and to find my references. Dance is a physical medium, we share our history, stories, hopes and desires through movement. I have collected that knowledge too. 10, - Students. I have been abundantly blessed with students. Back when I lived in the UK, I had a different class on every day of the week, and each of them had a totally different vibe. They were all filled with wonderful people, who chose to spend their precious spare time with me. Even when I had to move away, many of them chose to keep in touch, and they still share their videos, photos and dance journey with me. Now I live in the US, I have less classes, but more time to spend in preparing each of them. My US students have taught me all about America, and never laugh at my funny accent. I have been blessed with a troupe of ridiculously talented dancers, who let me challenge them with choreography that is way beyond my ability. They are committed, engaged and ambitious - which means they drive me to be the same. When we love something as much as we all love belly dance, its easy to get passionate. Passion can build bridges, or it can tear them down. The world of belly dance is very small. We are not a rich, sucessful and popular industry. I think we are in a growing stage, and most of us would agree that we have to build our student bases, or audiences and our standards in order to make belly dance accessable to more people and keep dancers and teachers employed. We do that best by being welcoming, sharing knowledge, sharing students, sharing performance opportunties and praising the skills we see in others. I contributed to our last book "Becoming a Belly Dancer" for a very selfish reason - I want to see great belly dance in my retirement! If you would like to add to my list of belly dance blessings, please feel free to add to the comments below, post on FB or write a blog of your own. - Sara x
If you like this blog, go back to my blog page and check out some others like:
Teacher Knows Best Dealing with Difficult Students I'm Perfect for Belly Dance (and so are you) Why Belly Dancers need to Walk the Line Teaching Belly Dance: Making Corrections Being Part of the Solution Or check out my Hub Blogs including: "Your First Belly Dance Workshop" The Top Ten Belly Dance Tunes for Performance" "Finding a Great Belly Dance Teacher" Holiday music for class
12/11/2016
AT THIS TIME OF YEAR, we all want to do something to celebrate the holiday season. One of the easiest things you can do to get your class into the festive spirit is to mix in some festive music to your lesson plan. I've saved you from hours of surfing, by finding my top danceable, festive tunes. Enjoy !
Thank you for reading this blog - wishing you and yours a very Happy Holidays !
If you like this blog, go back to my blog page and check out some others like:
Teacher Knows Best Dealing with Difficult Students I'm Perfect for Belly Dance (and so are you) Why Belly Dancers need to Walk the Line Teaching Belly Dance: Making Corrections Being Part of the Solution Or check out my Hub Blogs including: "Your First Belly Dance Workshop" The Top Ten Belly Dance Tunes for Performance" "Finding a Great Belly Dance Teacher" Belly Dance Shopping Mall !
11/26/2016
Updated and edited 10/25/18This blog post started life as a Facebook post that got too big to handle ! I started listing my favorite small business' that serve the belly dance community and the list just grew and grew ! It feels like its time to set up a virtual shopping mall where we can find all our favorite stores in one place. I have only included business' that I have used and products that I love. My FB friends sent me lots of other recommendations, and once I have made a purchase with them, I will consider adding them here.
Dawn Devine has a huge range of wonderful books available on Amazon. Check out the full range here:
There are three big on-line belly dance stores that I regularly shop, Dahlal, Miss BellyDance and BellyDance.com. Between them they cover almost all a belly dancer could desire !
DVDs and videos ! - There are way too many to mention, but these are the ones that I have LOVED this year :
Finally ! - I would like to offer you a flick through my latest book "Becoming A Belly Dancer: From Student to Stage" written with Dawn Devine, Alisha Westerfeld and Poppy Maya. Simply use the arrow to flick through a few of the 400 plus pages. Becoming a Belly Dancer is the stagecraft handbook for belly dancers and is available now on Amazon. Check out the reviews - it makes the perfect gift for the belly dancers of all styles !Want more shopping ideas ? Check out these blog posts on other pages: If you like this blog, go back to my blog page and check out some others like:
Teacher Knows Best Dealing with Difficult Students I'm Perfect for Belly Dance (and so are you) Teaching Belly Dance: Making Corrections
6/14/2016
Updated 12/13/16
First lets start with a little truth: a correction is only worth mentioning, if the improvement can be made. When faced with a total beginner, who has been asked to perform a figure 8, the teacher will see dozens of problems:
This list could go on and on, but if the teacher points each of these issues out to the beginner student, he or she will become overwhelmed and unable to make any improvements. Instead the teacher must take her time and improve the dancers movements one step at a time. Where to start ? Firstly, make sure you have talked to each student about their existing fitness and injuries. If they have a problem with any part of their body, be sure to encourage safe posture in that area first. Cover posture at the start of every lesson, and focus your initial corrections on postural problems. If their whole posture is off, and they don't complain of a particular issue, I tend to start with hips, back and shoulders. Make it your mission in life to observe posture. Watch people walk, stand, sit and dance. Look for clues to pain, such as favoring one leg, or a dip of the shoulders. Understand how our muscles and skeleton work together to make belly dance movements. When observing your students, first look at them from a distance, watch their whole body movements. Then walk closer to them, so you can see the mechanics in action and observe the root of problems. I like to offer up personal corrections only when I am standing close enough that the other students can not hear. Usually I will set up an exercise and then walk the room, observing and critiquing each dancer in turn. One correction per exercise is usually enough, unless their posture is particularly bad. I use the "critique sandwich" technique: that is I place my correction between two positive statements, such as: "I see you have been practicing! Watch that you don't roll onto the outside of your right foot, keep your weight centered and strong. Your arms are looking much better this week." This kind of correction is easy for the dancer to focus on and usually the correction can be made within a few moments. If you feel that your whole group has a problem, or that an issue needs to be addressed, wait until after the exercise and aim your critique at the whole group, like this: "I noticed that lots of you were having trouble with the weight shift. Make sure that you are passing your weight through your center, and only pushing out as far as you are comfortable. If you feel like your weight is on the outer edge of your foot, or if you start to feel pressure in your ankles, shrink your hip move, so that it is putting less strain on your lower body."
While you shouldn't under estimate your students, it is also worth remembering that some of them will be unable to perform some moves that you can do. Give your students achievable goals and cheer them on to the finish line. Most belly dance students come to class for fun, and while corrections are not a whole lot of fun, improving is the best feeling in the world. Make sure every correction is a step forward that they can take towards being a better dancer. Gradual, achievable corrections, given regularly and mixed in with praise, will help your students improve their dance skills and make your job as a belly dance teacher so much easie
If you like this blog, go back to the blog page, for others you might like including: Or check out these Hub Blogs including: "Your First Belly Dance Workshop" The Top Ten Belly Dance Tunes for Performance" "Finding a Great Belly Dance Teacher" Being Part of the Solution
5/16/2016
Updated 4/22/19 Lets start with a little bit of negativity for a change : belly dancers moan. They moan about the lack of good teachers, the lack of good students, about gigs, no gigs, cheap gigs, they moan about changing rooms, running orders, costume prices, musicians and dirty floors. I am pretty sure its not a belly dancer thing - everyone moans. I bet the butcher, the baker and the candlestick maker all do just as much moaning. Belly dancers want to see better belly dance, done to a professional level at professional venues for professional pay - but most don't know how to make that dream a reality. We have some other issues in the belly dance "industry" that we struggle to deal with that increase the problem:
When I first heard about the Belly Dance Business Academy I saw a parallel in our aims. The BDBA wants to provide tools for those in the business of belly dance to help them make the most of their skills and talents. They want to take the best practice and share it with others, provide motivation, support and practical advice to help teachers, event organizers and touring artists. I was hugely honored to be asked to join their teaching team. The first class I produced for them is already live ' Event Hosts: Setting up expectations of changing room ethics" - its a free class and includes the flyer that I put up at events to explain the "rules" that I expect. Something as simple as putting up changing room rules can help prevent event drama and elevate the standards of expected behavior in a community. I see The Belly Dance Business Academy as the perfect way for me to reach a wider world of belly dancers and continue with my passion - helping others to enjoy belly dance ! Finally, here are a few ideas on how to be a positive force in the belly dance industry:
Thank you for listening to my "moan". With a little positivity and a whole lot of working together we can enjoy watching our industry continue to go from strength to strength. Full disclosure - since writing this blog post Sara has become a co-owner of the Belly Dance Business Academy. If you like this blog, go back to the blog page, for others you might like including:
Being Part of the Solution I'm Perfect for Belly Dance (and so are you) Sara Shrapnell is a belly dance writer, teacher and performer. She has taught more than 5,000 belly dance classes, both in the UK and US. She now teaches in Pleasanton, Dublin and Livermore in the SF bay area, as well as workshops world wide and on-line via the Belly Dance Business Academy. Her classes are known for their humor, detailed breakdowns and cultural context. Students who have studied with Sara have gone on to teach and perform in all styles of belly dance and many have made their living through performance or teaching. Sara has written two books: “Teaching Belly Dance” "Becoming a Belly Dancer: From Student to Stage", co- written with Dawn Devine, Alisha Westerfeld and Poppy Maya. Both are available through Amazon. Feeling Naked
4/26/2016
Hello -
So hopefully that got your attention ! I've had this site for a few years now, but I have been finding it hard to write about writing. Four or five times I have logged on, stated typing and then my post has turned into a dance post. Somehow I think its easier to talk about my dance rather than my writing. Maybe cos I have been dancing for 24 years or maybe its because my mission in life is to share dance with others. I know some of you have been following the course of my third book for the last two years...random Tweets and FB posts with number counts and other frustrations. Writing is actually hard. No one tells you that. People say "I'd like to write a book" and now I look at those people just the same as the people who say "I have a belly" when you tell them you belly dance. There is only one way to write a book. You have to sit in front of the keyboard and write stuff. Lots of stuff. Almost every day. And spend every other hour thinking of stuff to write. Then you get to read your stuff and its rubbish so you bin it and start again. Every month you have to spell check. You may notice spelling is not my thing - oh and I grew up spelling in English and now write in American (You don't think its a big deal until you try and translate). And spell checking and formatting is boring. And you discover you start every sentence with And. And you get to the point where you cant spell. Or construct a sentence. Or anything. So, what many people don't know is that I have a novel that I am sitting on. Every year I read it, make some changes and then put it away to work on more dance writing. My first few readers (friends and family) have told me to keep on it, that it is nearly ready, that it could be good. But I'm not ready to share with the wider world. Its not perfect. It is too raw and too close to me. When I first started dancing I was very self conscious. I couldn't stand dancing in front of others, their eyes on me, watching the bounce of fat or the ugly dance moves. I took a course in "Stripping without the stripping" from the famous Jo King. It changed my life. I understood what others see when they look at me. How I move and flow. I also saw how lucky I was to get to wear a costume, no matter how tiny. Jo can ( and does) control a whole room of drunken men even when naked, she reads who is getting out of hand and who to focus on to get the others on her side. And if she can do it, so can I. When I dance I know that I own the room, that my movements are beautiful and that I am elegant and sensual and admired. People who have read my books say that they hear it with my voice. I guess that is no surprise. While my novel is a work of fiction it is also a glance into my inner dreams, hopes and fantasies. And yes it has rude bits. I didn't write it for others to read. I wrote it because the story kept getting bigger and bigger and I wanted to know the end. I fell in love with the characters and I wanted to know more about them. I wanted to follow them down the street and ask them why they did what they did, why they loved the unlovable or slept with the wrong people. I wanted to watch them drink coffee. But its not a book unless others read it. Its not a story unless its told. Just in the same way as I put a lot of emotion into my dancing, but its not a performance unless someone is watching. And so at some point other people will have to read my novel. Every now and then I remember this, pull my jumper up over my head and blush. Are You Ready to Teach Belly Dance ?
4/25/2016
In my book “Teaching Belly Dance” I gathered a huge selection of advice for the new belly dance teacher. The first question for the advanced student, the team leader, or budding workshop host who wants to move into teaching is "am I ready". Many of us fall into teaching - perhaps when our own teacher moves away or needs someone to cover her classes during a vacation. Maybe you have moved to a new area where no one teaches your style of belly dance, or maybe you want to make enough money to cover your own belly dance expenses. Whatever your motivation, here is a check list to help you make sure that you are ready to teach belly dance. How good are your basic skills ? Its time to take a critical look at your own skill set and abilities. Often in our rush to learn “new” moves we forget to focus on our basics. Assess your hip rotations, hip lifts and drops and your shimmies. Are they perfect every single time? or have you developed bad habits? Take a private lesson with a teacher you respect and work on the moves you plan to teach, to make sure that you don’t pass on any bad technique to your new students. Can you teach to all the learning styles? Teachers often teach towards the learning style that suits them best, after all that is how they learn. Your students will have a mix of learning styles, and each individual deserves the same opportunity to learn. Make sure you can teach the basic moves to the visual learner, the audio learner, the verbal learner, the logical learner, the physical learner and the emotional learner. Remember that most of us learn with a mix of styles and those styles can change week to week and depending on the move we are being taught. Teach to all learning styles, even if you are sure that your students favor one or two. Do you understand the importance of a good warm up and cool down? Don’t just repeat the warm up that your teacher does, but take time to understand its role in a class and how to for-fill the needs of your students. Put your students safety first and learn good practice, so that you can adapt your warm up and cool down to suit your dancers, the room temperature and the content of the class. Do you have enough material to teach a semester (term)? Think about how you can make the 12th class just as much fun as the first by allocating your material throughout the semester. Start by making a list of all the moves, concepts and ideas you want to teach and splitting them between the number of lessons you plan to teach. This will form the basis of your semester plan. Your lesson plans will develop out of your semester plan. Do you have a good selection of music to keep the students interested? Its time to catalog your music collection and purchase new music to fill any gaps. How is your fitness? Talking and dancing may be a new skill for you. Make sure you can complete your own warm up and still talk immediately afterwards. Do you have insurance? This is essential. You will need public liability and to check that your venue has building insurance. If you intend to host workshops or put on shows then you will need further insurance to cover those activities. In some areas you also need a business license and to register for tax before you can take any money. Check with your local small business organization for clarity. Have you picked the right venue? is it warm and inviting? Does it have a good floor? is it handy for a car park or public transport? Can you afford the rent? is it available at the right time of day to suit your students? Will you have enough students? In the early days most businesses struggle and you will probably need another form of income for at least two or three years. For every person who emails you or signs up on Facebook to your classes, assume that half will attend the first lesson and only 1/4 will still be there at the end of the course. You can find new students though flyers, postcards in coffee shops and with on line advertising, but your students will be your best promoters, so make them part of your sales team; offer them a free class if they bring a friend and give them flyers to pass out or pin on their fridge. Finally – Do you love belly dance enough to go out every night in the cold and the rain? Can you teach a figure 8 100 times this year and still make it sound fresh and fun? Can you stand back and let the dancers repeat a basic move for five more minutes when you really want to move on to something more exciting? Can you spend all your earnings on ten veils you will never use, so that your students can learn a floaty choreography ? Are you a people person? Are you the right person to be training the next generation of belly dancers? If so you have taken the first steps towards a wonderful new career. I wish you lots of happy years, filled with exciting (and profitable) belly dance classes! Teaching Belly Dance – The book about setting up, planning, teaching and enjoying belly dance classes is available on Amazon If you need help with lesson planning, Sara has a new book called "52 Lesson Plans and how to write 5,000 more". It includes a full year of lesson plans that you can teach "as is", and instructions on how to develop your own lesson plans. For marketing advice, check out the 4 part video workshop "Starting, re-starting and Kickstarting your belly dance classes" If you like this blog, go back to my blog page, for others you might like including: Or check out my Hub Blogs including:
"Your First Belly Dance Workshop" The Top Ten Belly Dance Tunes for Performance" "Finding a Great Belly Dance Teacher" Sara Shrapnell is a belly dance writer, teacher and performer. She has taught more than 4,000 belly dance classes, both in the UK and US. She now teaches in Pleasanton, Dublin and Livermore in the SF bay area, as well as workshops world wide. Her classes are known for their humor, detailed breakdowns and cultural context. Students who have studied with Sara have gone on to teach and perform in all styles of belly dance and many have made their living through performance or teaching. Sara’s first book “Teaching Belly Dance” was published in 2014. "Becoming a Belly Dancer: From Student to Stage", the stagecraft handbook co- written with Dawn Devine, Alisha Westerfeld and Poppy Maya, is also available on Amazon. And I don't mean "Walk the line", like as a metaphor for life. Nope - you have to be able to walk from A to B by the shortest possible route. This is one of my fundamentals of belly dance performance. You cant own a room until you can walk in a straight line. You think you already walk in a straight line? ok - Simple homework: go stand on the upper level of your local shopping mall, or at an airport or busy train station and track the route from entrance to destination. For example, people arriving at an airport come in the entrance door where their Uber dropped them, and walk to the check in desk. Their next route is check in desk to security. Watch who walks in a straight line from entrance to check in and then check in to security? Now watch who is bobbing and weaving and basically making room for those straight line walkers to get to their destination faster? I'll give you a clue - men walk in straight lines. Women bob and weave. Of course there are exceptions. Notice the female pilots and crew? They walk in straight lines. If you have ever tried to get a herd of small children through an airport you will probably have chosen a man (daddy) to lead the rabble and a lady (mummy) to sweep up the stragglers. Is it human nature or social conditioning? I don't know. I do know that I watch a lot of crowds and the men walk straight and the women walk around them. So what happens when women walk in straight lines? Chaos! Try it... Enter a busy Mall and take a moment to pick your destination. It can be anywhere, a shop front, the toilets, a food cart, but make sure you can see it. Walk straight forward and keep your eye on the goal. Don't move from your A to B route, don't slow down, don't side step. If you feel rude and anti social, go back up a level and watch the other people again. Do you think the other straight walkers feel rude and anti social? or do they think its perfectly normal to walk in a straight line when you want to get somewhere? If I walk through a crowd with my husband and he takes my arm, people get out of our way. However, if we get split up I always get left behind. I watch the crowds open ahead of him and close as he steps through. In the mean time I am making little headway, bobbing and weaving, saying "sorry" and waiting for a space to move forward. After a block he turns back and I am "lost", half a block behind him. Let me tell you what happens when I walk in a straight line. People (men mostly) bump into me. I am not being predictable. I am not acting in a socially acceptable way. They assume I will side step and then are confused when I don't. Some of them get angry, or glare, most just look confused. How do I feel when I walk in straight lines? Once I got over feeling rude, I started to feel powerful! I put my shoulders back, lift my head and glide through space while those around me adjust their stride to avoid me. Suddenly I am in control - not just able to get from A to B, but to get there without adjusting my route to please others. I'm walking like an airline pilot ! And now lets connect that action with belly dance. When I dance into a busy restaurant I need to own some space. Maybe I want 5 foot Square or 50 foot, but I want some space to present my performance. I also want some attention. People may be eating, chatting, looking at their phones, but I want them to stop doing that and look at me. One of the first things I am going to do is to walk around the space I want, with my head held high and my shoulders back. This is a cue to the audience to be quiet, shift their feet out of my space, pick up their bags, slide their chairs back and look at me. If I come onto the stage area and look apologetic for being in my space, the audience will look, and then turn away. I can't entertain them until I have their attention, and I cant get their attention without owning my space. So homework for this weekend - practice walking that line, owning some space, being assertive, confident and self assured. Think of every journey as belly dance practice and every venue as a stage! I'm looking forward to hearing about your A to B adventures in the comments below - Sara x If you like this blog keep scrolling down, or go back to my blog page, for others you might like including: "I'm Perfect for Belly Dance, And so are You!" "Assessing your Performance Videos" "Picking out a Troupe Costume" and "Why Travelling is one of the Best Ways to Improve your Belly Dance" Or check out my Hub Blogs including: "Your First Belly Dance Workshop" The Top Ten Belly Dance Tunes for Performance" "Finding a Great Belly Dance Teacher" Sara Shrapnell is a belly dance writer, teacher and performer. She has taught more than 4,000 belly dance classes, both in the UK and US. She now teaches in Pleasanton, Dublin and Livermore in the SF bay area, as well as workshops world wide. Her classes are known for their humor, detailed breakdowns and cultural context. Students who have studied with Sara have gone on to teach and perform in all styles of belly dance and many have made their living through performance or teaching. Sara’s has published two books on belly dance. “Teaching Belly Dance” is the only book you need to set up, plan, present and enjoy your belly dance classes. Her second "Becoming a Belly Dancer: From Student to Stage", co- written with Dawn Devine, Alisha Westerfeld and Poppy Maya, is a stagecraft handbook for belly dancers of all styles and at all levels . Much as I wanted to include the following in my book “Teaching Belly Dance”, I know that Facebook moves and evolves its policies almost weekly. The information here is based on my understanding of Facebook in 2014.
When I joined Facebook in 2005 it had a nice, simple idea : Post stuff on your wall that your friends would like to see, see what they are posting in return. It was pretty, smart, easy to use and a good step up from Tribe, Bhuz and the MED list. Here was a new way to communicate and connect with Belly Dancers from around the world. Little did I know.... Facebook is now my top means of communication with the outside world. With the mobile app I can check my feed at least once an hour and keep track of thousands of friends I have never met. When I attend belly dance events I post first to make connections, so even though I have moved around the world, I can meet up with familiar faces. When I want to buy or sell a costume, I go to Facebook first. If I want to send a message to my students I put it on Facebook and when I want to advertise an event…. Facebook is my first port of call. Of course not everyone is as addicted as me, and we are seeing a split in the world of belly dance between those in the know (on Facebook) and those who avoid sharing their every moment with a faceless corporation with limited ethics. I want to plead the case for using Facebook to promote ideas, raise your profile and get bums on seats at your events. Please excuse me if I start with the basics : The first thing I am going to suggest is that you separate out your “family” Facebook and your “belly dance” Facebook. Using Facebook to advertise to belly dancers will be boring for your non dancer friends. Split them up. For a while Facebook worked on circles and groups, but that never worked. Have two Facebook pages, or three or four. Yes it breaks the rules, but it’s a small rebellion. You may choose to have a “fan page” instead, but I find that people prefer to be your “friend” than your “fan”. Maybe I’m just not famous enough :) Next you need to get followers. This takes work, is boring, but it has to be done. Find a friend and look on her friends list for anyone else you know. Repeat. Hopefully people will notice you and send you friend requests too. Its up to you who you accept, but I have rules :
And here we start to see the problem with advertising events on Facebook. Nine years ago most of us had 100 friends, posted twice a day and could keep up with each others news. Now I have over 1,000 and I limit my friend list. Many others have ten times that split between different accounts. In order not to bring the facebook universe to a grinding hault Facebook decided to limit your feed to your top friends, and you didn’t get a say in who those people are. Let me say that again: "You don’t get to decide whose posts you see or who sees yours." If for example you wanted to post “Informal Hafla at mine right now, bring a bottle”, some estimates say that 30% of your friends will see that post over the next few days. Not too bad, but that 30% might all be three hours plus away from where you live, while the belly dancer across town who is bored tonight will never see that post. You can influence what you see on your own feed by “liking” posts from the people you want to hear more from. If you like or comment on your class mates baby photos, Facebook will make sure you see the second batch. It therefore follows that if you want more people to see your posts you need to encourage them to “like” or comment on your posts. Some people come right out and ask and that is why you see these kinds of weird fishing posts :
These posts are all about collecting people who will see your next post. There are companies who set up Facebook pages like “Kittens are the best”, fish for highly interactive friends by posting kitten pictures then sell the page on to a company (lets say a Onesie company). A few weeks later they change the name of that page. Suddenly you find that you like “Adult Onesies are the best”, they are filling up your feed with adverts and all your friends are laughing at you. That’s a silly example, but beware, that’s how you get unexpected porn show up in your feed. As a belly dancer you may want to fish for more likes and comments to help promote events you are working on. For example your friends may all like a new video of Rachel Brice that you share, or a photo of you in your new costume. Likes cause more likes. If Facebook sees that most of the 30% of friends they showed your post to liked it, they assume it is important and show it to more. If they also like it, then your message will spread. If your next post is about your event, Facebook sees you as an important person and sends your new post out to more of the folks on your friends list. However if you post the same thing or something simiar, Facebook will limit its access to your followers who don’t want to see the same posts time and again. This is a huge problem for us if we are promoting an event. Say you posted this ;
Let us assume that 30% of your followers saw it. Three people clicked like. If you post it again, word for word, the next day it will only get seen by perhaps 10% of your followers and some of those will over lap. This second post has no hope of reaching your prime market. You feel like you sent it out to everyone on Facebook (twice !), where in reality just a few dozen saw it. We need to do more. The first thing you can do is set up an event on Facebook and invite people. Facebook prefers to send people to its own pages over outside web pages. Put everything on the events page that you would on a web page and post something slightly different to your wall : (See how I'm fishing for comments and clicks !) With an event page you have the chance to invite people directly. I suggest you start a “hit list”. As you connect with people on Facebook make a note of who they are, where they live and how you intend to market to them. It is no different to keeping an address book. I have a list of people who live within an hour of me, who I invite to events I organize. My second list is of people who have shown an interest in starting classes, and I send them an event invite each time a new course starts up. My final list is of people who may host a workshop with me when I travel. For a local event I am going to invite everyone on that first hit list. Event invites go straight to notifications and have a higher chance of being seen. However, so many people send out blanket invites (to everyone on their friends list) that many of us skip over those notifications assuming that they are out of area. Please don’t do this – it spoils the effect for the rest of us ! It also helps if the name of your event includes a location :
The next way you can enhance the views of posts about your event is to tag people. Tagging promotes your post with both your friends and the friends of the person you tag. For example, before I taught in Bristol last month I tagged the host, Sasha, in many of my posts:
Her students and other dancers in the Bristol area where more likely to see that post because she was tagged in it, and it may have helped bookings. It also helps promote her as a community leader and workshop host. She did a great job, and I want other people to know that. Some people are very open to the idea of tagging each other in posts, but limit it to people you are working with on a project. You can’t just tag the most famous belly dancer you know and expect her friends to like you too. Have you seen the posts where a costume designers puts up pictures of new costumes and tags every belly dancer in the universe? You don’t have to help promote their work if you don’t want to. However you should be open to helping out friends by using the tag option. Adjust your setting so that you have to approve any tags others might put on photos or posts. That way you can control how your name is being used, while still promoting events and products you support. Please feel free to share, tag me and comment on any posts about this blog, or about my book ! If you interact with my post it will reach more of my fiends and maybe some of yours might like to know more about me :) Personally I am a big fan of advertising on Facebook. Adverts appear in the main body or side bar of the feed of the people you target. The great thing with Facebook ads is the targeting. For example, before a new semester in Pleasanton I advertise to women over 20 who live in Pleasanton, like dance and are not already connected to me. Over this weekend I advertised to people in the UK,USA, Canada and Noway who like belly dance. That advert helped me find 40 people who liked my book, and 4 people bought it. It cost me $5. I think that is money well spent. Facebook users say they hate adverts, but I think many are more interested in seeing targeted ads. Be honest - you clicked that advert with the pretty yoga pants.... Make sure that all your promotional work links back to one place (most likely your main web site) and remember that people hate to click more than once. If you are promoting an event make sure that when they click on your post or advert they get to a place with all the information they could possibley want. Finally remember to work as part of a community. By sharing other peoples events you help that event information reach more people and position yourself as a “gatekeeper” informing other belly dancers of what is happening. Gatekeepers get more attention and are more customer friendly than those that fish. Your increased popularity in turn increases interest in you, your events and those whose information you share. The more of a community we can build the faster we can get information to people who want it. Post often but keep it fresh and mix up your topics, providing new information and topical news in amoungst your continued promotion of yourself and your events. Too little and you wont be heard, too much and you turn your market against you. Here are my top tips for marketing your event at belly dancers via Facebook: 1, Set up a web page with all the information laid out clearly 2, Set up an event and invite your “hit list” to attend. Make the location clear. 3, Post your event on your wall every few days. Say the same thing with different words, add pictures and make each post new and different. Dont always include the same web site link in the main text:
4, Fish for likes and comments:
5, Advertise on Facebook but target your ads at your prime customers. 6, Ask your friends to share your post. Share other peoples posts. 7, Tag your friends (but ask them first):
8, Don’t limit your focus on Facebook – make a web site, email the local teachers, send out flyers and talk to people over the phone. Good luck with your event, and feel free to share this post, tag me, and buy my book !! http://www.amazon.com/Teaching-Belly-Dance-Sara-Shrapnell/dp/0615980848/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1395867094&sr=8-1&keywords=teaching+belly+dance . Keeping Belly Dancers Safe
3/5/2014
Posted on December 27, 2013 As a belly dance teacher your role may soon evolve into that of an agent, booking dancers for restaurants, parties or shows. In my book “Teaching Belly Dance” I run through some tips for how to do this and still stay friends (Super Tip : use contracts !), but I have also added a chapter on how to keep dancers safe. This is controversial for me. I am the mother of two grown sons and a daughter. I believe that one of my most important jobs is to teach my boys not to rape, to respect women, to be the sober one at the party, to call the police, to take a drunk girl home or to call her parents, to protect her, defend her, to speak up. And yet I spend more time teaching my daughter how to stay safe. Why? I want her to be able to walk the streets after dark, just as her brothers do. She should be able to call on a neighbor to borrow sugar, stand by her broken down car and wait for the repair man, to stay in a hotel on her own…. Statistically all these things are safer than the first few weeks of dating a new man, meeting his friends, visiting his home for the first time. The Hollywood monster maybe the stranger lurking down a dark alleyway, but the real monster is the boy next door, the new boyfriend, the man who wants to ask you for a date. Yet I fear the stranger too. As your belly dance teacher I also become your mum, like it or lump it. I’m going to tell you not to take the booking, cos it sounds a bit dodgy, not cos I want the gig myself. I’m going to come with you, guard the door while you change, stand between you and the drunks while you dance (and pretend to take photos), and drive you home. I know you fancy the man a the bar, but you are not staying to chat tonight. Call him tomorrow when he is sober and you are not the “belly dancer”. Sadly he probably wont be so interested. I am old and grumpy and bossy and a spoil sport. Years ago, I would call on a neighbor each afternoon and take her for a walk. She was about ten years older than me, amazingly bright and fascinating. She had traveled the world and was a wealth of information about the Middle East. She needed someone to walk with her as she was in the last few weeks of carrying her twins. It was a joyful shuffle and sway around the block. I was first choice babysitter to her babies, walked them home from school when she went back to work, spent Christmas afternoons admiring their presents. Today one of those twins posted a very interesting blog about “rape culture”, she quoted feminists, anti-feminists, sociologists and scientists. I’m kind of proud to see that this teenager is obviously studying this subject in depth and feels strongly enough about her views to share them with others. But I am also sad. She is 15. My generation should have sorted this for her. People like me and her mother – strong, intelligent women – we have been teaching our boys not to rape, but its not enough. She sees more work to be done, and she is right. In the chapter “Keeping dancers safe” I list the things we need to do as dancers, and teach to other dancers, to be “street wise”. I wish it wasn’t necessary. I wish I could cut that chapter. I wish that every dancer could feel safe from attack. But in the mean time I’m going to spell out in my book the “rules”. I am happy to be mum to any performer, and if I cant be there then let me give you my voice in your head telling you to be alert – like it or lump it ! Teaching Belly Dance is available on Amazon - Return to Sara's Blog to read more including : "I'm Perfect for Belly Dance, and so are you!" and "Picking out a Troupe Costume".
Sara Shrapnell's new book "Becoming a Belly Dancer: From Student to Stage", with Dawn Devine, Alisha Westerfeld and Poppy Maya is available in summer 2016 |
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