Jamila's Blog

Not many of you out there would know that our Sirocco "music man" Farouk, was an accomplished dancer when we first met way back in the late seventies (see the gallery). With a background in Irish dance, and later the "macho" folk dances of Eastern Europe and Turkey, belly dance seemed an unlikely progression. However, when one of our fellow folk dancers told us about a belly dance try-out class being run by a lady called Belyssa we thought it might be fun to give it a go. That event was, quite literally, life-changing (as happens with so many others who discover Middle Eastern music and dance) and led to an exciting up and down existence, trying to juggle everyday life with our exotic alter egos for the next twenty or so years.

Although Step was a dancer in Belyssa's original group and later partnered and supported me when I struck out on my own, he would be best known as a troupe member of the Perth based Arabian Nights Dancers, not as a dancer in his own right. It was therefore inspiring when revisiting some old videos recently to view one that featured Step, aka Farouk, dancing a routine that was taught to him in only two days by Belyssa. It seemed to me amazing that he could be taught such a complicated routine to performance stage in only two days but then I remembered that Belyssa was a skilled teacher as well as a talented choreographer and this was what made it possible.

In the often ego-centric world of belly dance it’s easy to lose sight of the real teaching talents of some of the earlier teachers like Belyssa. Although it’s flattering to have someone come up after a performance and say "I really enjoyed your dancing - do you teach?" being a performer doesn’t always equip you for teaching. I'm sometimes surprised, nay , shocked, to see the web bio of someone’s ex student who offers classes of her own, often as a by-product of entertainment. Often the bio is a list of open dance workshops she has attended over a couple of years since being a beginner herself, which is hardly the stuff to give you the skills to patiently and safely work through technique with beginners, design choreography for different levels, and research music and new technique.

As a teacher I started small - two Egyptian girls, who wanted to broaden their party dancing repertoire – and moved on to a group of four Australian girls who wanted to learn for fun. So far, so good - do-able, but my stress levels increased in direct proportion to the growing class numbers because I had to spend more and more of my precious after work hours breaking down basic technique and designing dance routines for class instead of drifting about in front of a mirror with my own solo practice. My own performance started to take a back-seat at this stage (aided and abetted by some dramatic changes in the demands of my "real" job) and my life as a belly dance teacher had begun.

The message here ladies is just because you enjoy doing something and are good at it don't unselfishly run out there offering to teach your skill. Teaching is a serious business. We are not all good at it and there are plenty of good teachers available at the moment. If you are not really cut out for teaching, at best you will feel seriously "used" sometimes and at worst you will send some ladies out into the entertainment world with inadequate dancing skills.

By the way, I really enjoy teaching these days now I have had counselling!!