Choosing a Middle Eastern Dance Instructor

By Sedonia Sipes, © 2004,2006, 2008

If you like the taste of Middle Eastern Dancing that you have had, and wish to continue your study with additional classes, other teachers, or classes in another city or part of the country, here are some tips for choosing a teacher with satisfactory qualifications. Don’t be afraid to interview your potential instructors carefully, either over the phone or in person, and don’t be afraid to ask pointed questions regarding his/her experience and qualifications. After all, it is your valuable time, money, and body.

As an important aside, I would also like to remind all of you that, as students of this dance, you control your dance education and no teacher or studio “owns” you. You are a free agent. Be very wary of teachers who pressure you to study exclusively with them or withhold information about qualified local or regional instructors and events. That being said, there are good, bad, and mediocre belly dance teachers. Choose wisely.

With “belly dancing” taking off as a new craze, more and more students are flocking to sign up for classes. Unfortunately, history has shown that whenever our dance form becomes trendy and popular, we also see an upsurge in less-than-qualified instructors (and less-than-qualified performers, but that’s another story…). The term “10-week wonder” has been coined to describe “instructors”, who take a single beginning belly dance course and then set themselves up as instructors. To provide an analogy of how ridiculous this is, can you imagine if I (with > 10 yrs of belly dance training but absolutely no ballet background) took a single beginning adult ballet course, worked on my own for a while in my living room and then expected a reputable dance studio to hire me as a ballet instructor? Not all examples are so exaggerated; dancers with a couple of years under their belts may also launch prematurely into the teaching realm, but are also unlikely to provide the quality of instruction as a more seasoned dancer.

An incompetent teacher can be detrimental to your learning experience in several ways:

• You could waste your hard earned money and valuable time.
• You could pick up harmful and potentially injurious posture, alignment, or technique.
• You could be exposed to inaccuracies regarding the culture and history of the dance.
• And possibly most likely and worst, you could get improper or suboptimal technique entrenched into muscle memory that will take much time in the future to unlearn.

So how is a student shopping around for belly dance lessons supposed to choose a good teacher? Below are ten points of consideration that I hope will help you in this respect.

1. Can the instructor teach? Attend a class before committing a large amount of time to a potential instructor. The instructor should begin the class with a warm-up that gets the blood pumping, warms the muscles, and mobilizes the joints. For a safe learning environment, the warm-up should not consist of passive stretches (gentle active stretches are okay) or extreme stretches (splits, etc.). For beginner and early intermediate levels especially, it is important that the teacher repetitively stresses posture and breaks down complicated movements into simpler components. For all levels, the teacher must be offering correction and feedback to students on an individual basis. If the teacher is not walking around making comments and helping each student individually at least a few times during the class, he/she is not really allowing students to progress at their optimal level.

2. Has the instructor had sufficient training in Middle Eastern dance? It is not enough to know how long the instructor has been dancing. He/she may have been dancing (poorly) for ten years with little actual training. Ask specifically how many years of instruction the instructor has had, when this instruction occurred, and with whom. You may even want to do some research on the instructor’s instructors. Your teacher should have, at minimum, five years of serious study with qualified instructors in Middle Eastern dance. As you progress, you will need teachers with even more experience. If the teacher has studied other dance forms (ballet, Flamenco, Latin, etc.) or other skills (aerobics, Pilates, yoga, etc.) that is great, but does *not* replace the need for Middle Eastern dance training. Middle Eastern movement is fundamentally physically and culturally very different from western movement and dance, and it takes years for a person from a western culture to develop an understanding of the subtle nuances of these differences, even if they are already accomplished dancers of other genres.

3. Does the instructor teach traditional props (finger cymbals, veil, cane, balancing)? Proficiency in at least one of these is another line of evidence that the instructor’s training has been adequately broad. Finger cymbal proficiency especially, demonstrates at least a passable understanding of Arabic rhythms. I would be very wary of any Middle Eastern dance instructor who can’t play finger cymbals.

4. Is the instructor knowledgeable about Middle Eastern music? The study of Middle Eastern music and dance go hand in hand, so the instructor should be able to provide students with plentiful, detailed information regarding the music of different regions, rhythms, maqamat (maqamat are somewhat like modes or scales in western music) instruments, folkloric vs. classical vs. popular music, and well-known 20th century musicians. Moreover, the instructor must know how the dance movements are put together and used within the framework of the music’s rhythm, phrasing and texture to create dance. Every Middle Eastern dancer that I know worth his/her salt has a huge music collection. A “10-week wonder” is more likely to have only a handful of music CD’s, and these may be mostly pop or new age music. Now, obviously, merely purchasing CDs does not make one a good dancer; but the lack of an extensive music collection should send up a serious red flag. Ask the instructor if he/she can teach you the different rhythms (and their names) used in Middle Eastern dance, if he/she can teach you the difference between Egyptian, Lebanese, and Turkish music, or the difference between classical, folkloric, and popular music. Ask if he/she can teach you to interpret the various musical instruments used in M.E. music: the drums, oud, ney, mizmar, kanoon, etc. These each invoke different dance movements.

5. With whom does your instructor study currently? Every dancer, regardless of level, needs coaching and correction. When a dancer ceases to train, grow in the dance, and learn new things, he/she will stagnate. A good instructor will still consider his/herself an ongoing student of the dance, taking advanced workshops, master classes, and private coaching in Middle Eastern dance on a regular basis. Generally, as a dancer progresses, instruction becomes less frequent but more intense (i.e. annual trips to Cairo, intensive dance camps, or monthly private lessons rather than weekly classes). To give you an example, I have been dancing for over eleven years; I have had interactions with instructors in one form or another this entire time. Currently, I take workshops with master teachers 3-4 times per year, depending on the availability in this area. I rehearse with peers on a weekly basis. I also study privately on a regular basis with more experienced dancers that provide advanced-level coaching to me, and I specifically choose teachers who themselves are still training.

6. Can the instructor’s students dance? Or at least, do they have good posture, do they correctly execute simple movements, are they being coached as to tasteful costuming, cultural information, etc? Of course, most instructors will have students who vary in skill, natural ability, general fitness, etc., but the general trend will be informative. If all her students have bad posture, or are doing something unrecognizable as belly dance, what does that tell you?

7. What style(s) of dance does the instructor perform and teach? Egyptian? American? American Tribal? Folkloric? Turkish? If you have an idea of the styles you like, you will want to choose an instructor who specializes in that style. An unqualified instructor is unlikely to have an accurate idea of the style he/she dances, or even what defines the styles. Unfortunately, there are countless teachers across the country claiming to do Egyptian, Turkish or other ethnic styles when in fact they are not. Ask around to get opinions from trusted dancers, or utilize a large online community like bhuz.com to solicit reviews and opinions.

8. Can the instructor dance? If you have been watching videos of great Egyptian, Lebanese, and American dancers, you will have developed an aesthetic for judging the dance. Ask if the instructor will be performing in the near future. A good teacher will excel in technique and musical interpretation, and will communicate passion and emotion to the audience.

9. Is the teacher's pricing structure for classes in line with local/regional norms? Underpricing and undercutting are virtual sure signs of an incompetent, unprofessional, and inexperienced teacher. Good teachers will value their time and expertise enough to command a fair price. Free or ultra cheap belly dance classes are likely to be worth exactly that.

10. What about certifications and degrees? Belly dance is derived from folkloric dances from other parts of the world. In contrast to baratnatyam or ballet, belly dance is not a classical dance form. In its native cultures, the dance is not formally taught, nor is it broken down or codified. What this means is, there is no standardized terminology for the dance, no standardized curriculum, no set standards for what makes a “pro”, and there is no supreme certificate-granting organization for teaching belly dance in the U.S. There are a few dancers who offer certification in their personal styles (i.e. Suhaila Salimpour of San Francisco CA), but many highly qualified teachers neither grant nor have earned paper certificates. Degrees in western dance genres contribute in a very limited way to qualifications in eastern dance forms, because the two are so different. Moreover, ballet, which tends to be considered basic to other western dances, is NOT basic or fundamental to belly dance (or to any other non-western genre, for that matter). Some of the very best and most authentic belly dance teachers do not have ballet training.

There are several internet sites that provide directories of Middle Eastern dance instructors and performers. One of the best can be found on Shira’s site.