First We Imitate Then We Create!

It is a natural progression of learning an art form, it seems, to imitate our teachers. In dance, through the process of imitating, we develop the movement skills, the rhythmic expression and nuance that we can internalize. By repetitively watching and following our teacher we gain the imprinted skills that allow us to experience our bodies in dance.

Once we develop a more extensive movement vocabulary we gain confidence in our abilities and we experience the desire to expand.

Hopefully, we have a teacher that points us to the resources, such as videos, DVD’s and YouTube, that will expose us to other dancers that will inspire and instruct us in our ‘learning journey’. The more we experience, through observation of the  ’style’ of each dancer, the more inspired we become to express our own unique style.

I thought it might be interesting to watch a current ‘Star’ in Egypt, Randa Kamel. Although she has flavors of Egyptian Super Star Lucy..She is very innovative and definitely has her own unique style of Oriental Dance!

Randa has found her own expression, innovation and nuance within the modern Egyptian style. How much she was really influenced by Lucy it is not possible for me to say, yet the similarities are evident in this somewhat current Lucy  clip. (*Note: We always have to remind ourselves that although the ‘quality’ of the videos sometimes are less than perfect..at least we have them!) Enjoy!

Lucy is always an inspiration! The other thing is that as a dancer you are always evolving and hopefully, changing and re-inventing yourself! As each of us are unique it follows that our movement, musical interpretation and dance persona will also be unique. If you follow a dancer through the years you will find many ways in which her dance has changed and yet her signature ’style’ remains .

Here is a Wonderful Clip from an Egyptian Movie..when Lucy was young, that is a demonstration of how much we change yet remain the same!

Lovely Lucy!

So, How do you find your own style? Just keep dancing, expanding your horizons, FEELING the music and following your ‘Muse’ !

You ARE your own Style!