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parasitegirl) wrote2009-08-31 12:07 pm
Ahmet Ahmet Ahmet (August 14-16)
I was exhausted and wild-eyed when I got to Fazil Studio NYC for the first of three privates with Ahmet Ogren. I vented more than a bit with Gonul as we drank coffee and gossiped/networked/shared information. Ahmet entered and asked me where my color was, after all, I was on vacation…and vacations are in part about getting out into the sun.
As you all know, if I don’t look like the visable woman, then that IS my summer tan.
I’d done two days of workshops with Ahmet (hosted by Tania Luiz) in Osaka last year. I don’t think I wrote much about the content of those workshops because between I had been suffering from bronical-asthma issues (the start of three months of problems and a couple attacks that led me to getting a lung specialist and daily bronchial dialators and emergency inhailers). By day two I had coughed my voice away and had tubes full of watery phlegm. I ended up on six different prescriptions a few days later.
What I did say was this:
Ahmet Ogren is wonderful. I realize that it's the first time that I have studied Turkish Romani style from a Turkish Romani person. It's not about blood lines, my enthusiasim, it's the fact that this is the least filtered from an "Oriental dance" perspective approach I've been taught. It's still comes through that filter, me being who I am and the fact that some fusion and stylistic changes happen when you takeit out of a social context and bring it to a stage or teach it.
I’d revise this now. I think that Reyhan presents Turkish Romani in the most unfiltered perspective I have seen thus far. Reyhan gives one a good idea of how the dance would be viewed in its original social context. Ahmet isn’t coming from an Oriental Dance background, but he is more of a structured “Dancer/Artist” than Reyhan. He is presenting movement for the stage and an audience. I can’t imagine what he does happening organically in a social environment. He is isolating moves and amplifying them. It’s hard to describe. Where Reyhan is many small layers with a lot going on, Ahmet still layers, but the layers are fewer, larger and more pronounced.
Both Ahmet and Reyhan resonate with me, but in very different ways. Reyhan gave me a context for the movements, much food for thought, and ideas for how each part of my body can relate to the music as I “followed the bouncing butt”. Ahmet gave me clear breakdowns, many verbal cues for following the music, strong structural ideas and combinations for how to move on the stage.
Reyhan is “follow the bouncing butt” in a living room and Ahmet is a dancer in a studio. Reyhan is an unfolding scene in a movie and Ahmet is a training montage.
It makes more sense for me to try to tackle writing about Ahmet’s lessons all in one post.
What I said in November, 2008:
I've felt recently that I have gotten weak in my footwork and this workshop has proven it. I've pretty solid, but with enough evident flaws that Ahmet sometimes will simply grab me by the arm, tell me to stop panicing and working so hard, and with stand next to me doing the steps until I get the right feel and timing for them.
He tells us all to stop panicing a lot.
Oh. No Panic. My three days with Ahmet were often punctuated with this. I am pretty sure I often looked like I wanted to cry each time I reached the point of frustration in which I would blurt “I know what I need to do here! (pointing at my head) but for some reason I am not doing it here (pointing to my legs)”
Ahmet Luleci also talked about this in his intro to 9/8 for dancers. Ahmet Luleci tended to stress the 1 and 3 (which is often heavily emphasized in Turkish Romani) as a starting point for people trying to hear and react to the music, sort of a “If you’re only going to react to one thing, start with this” approach. Ahmet Ogren also tends to have different movement demarcations for the 1 and 3 (in comparison to using them for the 1-3-5) but the 8-9 also has a large emphasis on 8 and strong the reaction/prep for 9.
Footwork is still a problem for me, as is anticipation. My anticipation problem became clear when I was able to time some moves more correctly if I performed them on my left, less dominant side.I had also drilled some moves from Ahmet’s workshops incorrectly and thus had taught myself a few bad habits.
Day one was primarily about getting the Turkish 9/8, a rather slow one (a tulum?), into my body via lifts and drops (and variations). Over the last year I’ve worked on not “cheating” pelvis lifts by using relying on glute muscles instead of my abdominals. Using too much glutes prevents you from being able to layer movements over lifts very well because the layer has to battle the glutes and abs. On day one I had to bring the glutes back into the action a little to keep my lifts from looking mechanical/muscular /front-oriented. The gultes were essential in loosening up the look.
One-hour privates were the way to go. Each day I would eventually hit a wall and need time to absorb and process before more progress could be made. I started to dream about 9/8. Day one I reached a point where I understood the basic layers individually (pelvis, footwork, upperbody…) but would get messed up in layering them.
I practiced listening to the 9/8 and verbalizing the movements as I did them in the privacy of my hotel room.
Day one would be when I asked if I could pay for all three lessons at once so that I could make sure my budget was going well. This was when I realized that I’d calculated his fee in Lira instead of in Euros. This meant the difference of having about 22 Euro(33 USD) for my food and activities for the next few days instead the 120 Euro (170$ USD) I thought I had. I could have canceled a lesson at this point but figured that lessons were what I most wanted from my time in Istanbul and that breakfasts were free and I knew where to buy 4lira (2.60USD) fish sandwiches. I gulped, thought, and paid.
Day two, I found the things that had been impossible toward the end of my first day’s lessons were making more sense. We progressed to more complicated combinations, more traveling with pelvic movements and so on. I started hitting the wall when level changes came in the form of being up in releve (because Turkish Romani is usually very grounded) for accents 1-3 and coming back down to very grounded and traveling. This was three days after my Princess Banu privates lessons, when damage I’d done was at its most painful. It became clear that mental struggles were being compounded by physical pain.
I had suggested that we do one one-hour lesson and one two-hour lesson so that I could have Sunday free but we ended up doing three one-hour lessons. It was the right choice.Had I tried to push through another hour in one day I think the second hour would have been a waste.
Day three was when things started clicking into place.
I previously said Ahmet is the training/learning montage. It was very Fame/Rocky/Dirty Dancing/Insert Dance Movie Here.. Each lesson had a mix of me being commanded to stop panicking, frustration on both of our parts. There were moments where I was clearly taking my frustration, willing it away, and starting again, fresher despite being watched and critiqued. Each lesson had odd moments of both of us dancing in unison together, or moving across the studio in being led/following, or reacting to each other. It would be easy to edit and had all the struggle and triumphs needed for good cinema.
I don’t think I can write about Ahmet without addressing the ever present sexuality of dance and the existence of gender roles. Which is often also at the heart of dance-training montages.
It is hard not to fall for good dance-related teachers. Be it in the form of girl crushes by otherwise straight gals, girl crushes by the not-so straight girls, boy-crushes by the otherwise girl-oriented dancer, or the crushes straighter dancers get on the few men teaching us. It’s natural. Here are people into something we care about deeply, who get it and know it in depth, who are sharing their knowledge and bringing us to a deeper love of the dance and understanding of it’s complexity. It’s emotional. Because dance is, essentially, about the body, these emotions can have a physical/bodily/carnal tinge to them.
I am guilty of crushes on male teachers. GUILTY! There is no need to name names in the comments! You guys know this. SHUT UP! They vary in intensity and most often fade into more realistic but still warm-n-fuzzy realms. These feelings must fade because these instructors each deserve to be appreciated on their own merits without mental fantasies projected over them to the point of obscuring them. I get girl crushes on female teachers and all (Oh, Aziza, how much we love your smile) but women dancing together doesn’t have as strong an implicit cultural sexual subtext of romance for me.
Wanting to please you teacher is not always a bad thing, but it can get out of control.
There was lighthearted sexual subtext, but without any outside the studio interactions that would make me mistake this experience of being a female student with a male teacher as a romantic storyline. I could see why other women would be all “Ahmet ahmet ahmet ahmet ahmet ahmet!!!!” When Sema complained of a former student of hers spending all her blog space to talk about Ahmet and barely mentioning her, Sema blamed that student’s sexual drives.
So, while I had no desire to fall in love with Ahmet or dance the night away with him in a flirtatious haze, I was always aware of the fact that both of us, as dancers and as people, have that “sexual vibe” thing…(although I do try to tone it down for travel and work)..and have very expressive faces. This made moments in the lesson highly amusing.
Ahmet has a couple moves I don’t think I’ll ever present on stage without laughing due to sexually suggestive they are. I think I can pull off the “hand alternately come down and indicate the pelvis as it bounces” but not the pelvic lifts and drops with both hands staying near the crotch and V-ing in and moving out slightly as if to say “this? I present this loveliness to you.” (some Madison friends should imagine this as a variation of the “ladyshave” dance). I would often break out laughing when we both did these moves facing each other.
Those of you who know me as a dancer know that some of what I do is presented with “Oh, yeah, this rocks…uh huh. I know it. Pretty ‘ffing hot, eh?” attitude. You also know that once I grasp a basic move I do try to practice it as if I were performing it..…to confirmed as correct by the eyebrows-up, approving male gaze and nodding that in any other context would be an “awwww, yeah, that’s right” sort of gesture. Comedy gold.
Gender rolls were also an issue. On the third day Ahmet and I were both approaching the studio at the same time but from different directions.
Ahmet looked at my strong walk (which was exaggerated by the fact I was slower than usual and coming down a steep incline with still sore legs) and asked “You Turkish Mafia?”
“My walk?”
“Yes, Turkish Mafia walk” Ahmet said, and presented a rather slow, strong amble.
“Japan Mafia, Yakuza have the same walk!” and I demonstrated my best “taking up room, strong chest, amble.”
“Yes. That.” He laughed.
This was the perfect lead-in to the fact that on day three we sometimes reached a point where, once I got a move, I would present it in a manner that struck Ahmet as too masculine a presentation. Those of you who have seen me dance live many times know that a certain level of aggressive masculinity IS sometimes part of me. It’s not always or usually there, but at times it is very much there. I took his desire for me to take the moves and make them mine to heart. It wasn’t like he was asking me to make the moves all giggly-girlie, just modify them enough to read as female and powerful/aggressive instead of female tackling gender-rolls in dance.
I enjoy dancers who can be girlie, because I know that is a part of their natural selves. “Golly, is this my hip? Doing this?” flirtatious dancers? Some of them are good friends on mine (cough-Eshe-cough)...but it's not a persona that I can honestly present. My personality is more in the “Yeah, this is my hip, pretty goddamned cool, isn’t it? (laugh)“ camp.
I look forward to Ahmet coming to Japan next March and will probably make the trip down to Osaka . I should inquire if he’d got time and energy enough after the traveling to do a possible private lesson, because it might be more worth my time and money than a general workshop.
He’s a wonderful teacher and is good at critique, breakdown and feedback. In private lessons he’s expressive enough that when his English falters he can make his point. The time this can take is negligible in privates but for groups I’d suggest having a translator to speed up critique/breakdown time.
His style is very polished and is Turkish Romani elements as shown to you and interpreted by someone who comes from a “Dancer” viewpoint instead of a social layman. I am sure that many people looking for a more “authentic Turkish Romani” experience might be turned off by that. I’d urge them to still give him a try, because what we as dancers need is to see and learn a wide range of style (even within the same genre) before we chose what works for us, what we thing is a authentic, what changes we will have to make based on our own background and dance path
...and, dancers looking for the Authentic Romani Experience? Be realistic. We’re outsiders. We’re gajde. goodluck on getting that “authentic organic experience.” The Romani are a real people, with real variety, not some sort of cultural exhibit... (but do book lesson with Reyhan to help you find context)…
Dancers who are good with 9/8’s in general and with the Turkish Romani view point of them in particular are still a minority in the general Belly Dance scene, and dancers like me who are going down a more Turkish Style path need all the instructors we can get.
For dancers looking to get deeper into Turkish Romani inspired dance I would recommend him but suggest that you keep in mind he is coming from a stylized “Dancer” place when thinking about where to place him on the messy spectrum of Turkish Romani dancers we keep in our minds.
For dancer of other styles, or Turkish Oriental without a heavy emphasis on more Turkish Romani inspired approaches, I recommend Ahmet Ogren. He’s a good way to start tackling 9/8’s, your able to ask for clarification/break downs, and he is able to simplify and bult back up to complex. He presents basics and combinations (or in workshops, moves, combinations and a choreography through which to work on them).I also recommend that those dancers would do very well having their “first time” be with Ahmet Luleci (but he’s got so much going on his workshops aimed at belly dancers are rare and are a sideline for him).
I do have great moments of doubt in my own technical abilities as a dancer…I had some this weekend in fact but am working through them. Some of what helps is buckling down and drilling more, practicing more, identifying my weak spots and tackling them. Time in Istanbul really drove home to me the fact that private lessons need to start being a larger part of my dance life. I’ve transitioned well from weekly class lessons to more performing and monthly workshops, but I think in the next year I’ll need to be better targeting my weak points and finding the opportunity and cash to do private lessons dealing with those points. This week Tania was here in Tokyo and I was unable to do workshops with her due to a few mistakes on my part, but I did get to see her perform. When I was in Osaka and suggested in the future that I’d like to do some privates with her she turned me down because she said she didn’t think I needed them. Next year, when Ahmet is in Osaka, she won’t be the sponsor, so I think I’ll need to redouble my “Privates please” request effort.
I don’t think I am ready/want to teach regularly, but I should be ready to start constructing workshops. I’m a good teacher in general and I’ve had a wealth of good teachers who work in Turkish styles to draw from. I’ve had one or two so-so experiences with things taught under the banner of “Turkish style” and they mostly involved skirt work taught with no context. These experiences have been far out-weighed by the following: Mishaal, two years of workshops with Artemis, Workshops with Eva Cernic, two years of workshops with Ahmet Luleci, a private lesson with Elizabeth Strong (my first private), workshops and privates with Sema Yildiz, workshops and private lessons with Ahmet Ogren, and a private on floorwork with Princess Banu…and I don’t even know where to start naming names when it comes to live and filmed performances I have been inspired by and learned from.
I’ve got other dancers on my list of who I’d like to study with (Turkish, Turkish styled, and otherwise) but all in all I think I’ve been in the right place at the right time for a stunning amount of good teaching (Turkish and otherwise!)
Anyway, back to Ahmet ahmet ahmet ahmet.
Me when I was very sick and Ahmet reacting to an off-stage comment.
And and Fazil Studio NYC. This was the third picture taken. The first two involve us reacting to comments shouted from other dancers in the studio.