The Work of An Oriental Dance Teacher
Today, I want to share with you what emcompasses the work of an Oriental Dance teacher (besides teaching). I think the work of the professionals of this art, unfortunately, isn’t valued as it should so I’d like to let to know more about it:
With the dancer Aida Bogomolova after with Technique workshop, in Oriental Dance Weekend 2018.
1. The bellydancer and teacher invests a lot in his studies. This is a dance that has few relevance in Portugal and it has an arabic origin, so, to be able to grow and evolve, we necessarily have to travel to other countries. Besides that, it’s a dance with a strong cultural component and wide history (it is believed it has emerged in 5000 A.C.), having a lot of content to know and study. The professional invests a lot of time and money in his training.
2. Arabic Dance is not like other modalities, where you have several teaching courses available with several certificated methods or books with the content of the teacher very well structured. For that reason, who wants to teach will have to organize it’s own course and content, something that takes a lot of work.
3. Many Oriental Dance teachers offer performing opportunities to its students, organizing shows. Since it’s not a social or even ocidental dance, the students have more difficulty in putting in practice what they learn in the classroom in a performance, and to give them that opportunity is very demanding for the teacher, specially in terms of time and effort.
4. The Bellydance teacher also dedicates a lot to the promotion of its work. Unfortunately, there isn’t a great appreciation for this art. If the professional doesn’t take some work sharing and dignifying the dance, he won’t be able to gather students. If you want to know more about this theme, read the post 5 Indispensable Things To Build Your Oriental Dance Business.
Workshop in Raqs Ireland 2019 festival, em Limerick, where I lectured the theme ‘Tarab: Emotional Interpretation’.
5. The Oriental Dance teacher, as a teacher, does a personalized attendance of his student, he teaches him and challenges him to overcome and keep evolving. We constantly create choreographies for their students, we correct and give them feedback, and we also provide study material so that you can learn and progress out of the classroom.
For all of these and more reasons, the work of an Oriental Dance teacher goes beyond the hours in the classroom. I hope I have contributed so that more people understand the work of this type of dance professional - in which I include myself - and, consequently, contribute in value it more.
Did you know all the work an oriental dance teacher has? Share your opinions with me here in the comments!