"On Our Minds"

By Zahirah

I can't count the times when I have seen a dancer enter--her costume exquisite, her hair and makeup perfect down to her flawless pedicure, her movements graceful, precise and completely breathtaking, and then her music starts, first as a loud hissing of a 2nd generation tape, then the irritating sound quality of music that is dull and flat. Somehow her performance doesn't seem so flawless and magical anymore.

Music is a crucial part of our dance form. We represent the music and bring it to life so that our audience may visually experience it. The music that you dance to is 50% of that package, you are the other 50%. However, I have noticed that many dancers are so focused on their dance that they neglect this important aspect. The music is what moves you, what brings your dance to life.

Of course dancing to live music is the ideal. This gives a perfect representation of the music and sounds beautiful. Unfortunately, most of us do not have a live band to perform with and often dance to our own compilations of music taken from our collections of CDs, records, and tapes. This can be done very successfully and sound terrific, and it can also be thrown-together and sound pretty bad.

Treat that music with as much respect as you would treat an expensive bra and belt. You wouldn't wear an outfit if it was too big and half the sequins had fallen off would you? Yet some people have no problem dancing to music that is substandard quality. We spend hundreds of dollars on costumes and makeup, but flinch at the thought of spending $30 to have a professional producer put a performance CD together. When you're giving yourself to an audience, give them the whole package.

Maybe some people think that their audience can't really tell the difference between a professionally mixed and recorded CD and a cassette tape that you dubbed over and over again in your 1982 tape deck. Well, we can. It makes a huge difference and it is distracting from the quality of the performance when the music isn't up to par. Your performance will have so much more impact with professional grade sound quality. If you don't have the equipment at home to do the recording yourself, then there are tons of professionals in the area that will work with you to deliver a quality CD. Many dancers have old tapes and records that they couldn't imagine performing without. Most producers are able to work with those antiquated media to take out the hissing of tapes and the pops and snaps of records and re-master them to sound as good as live music.

And for those of you who own a computer and think that all you have to do is burn songs onto a blank disc... for a truly polished effect, there is more that goes into making a CD than that. A producer will be able to adjust the levels of your songs. I've made CDs in the past at home where one song is so quiet that you can barely hear the rhythm and the next song contained an ear-piercing zurna that almost blew the speakers. There are also special custom touches that professional producers can do such as beginning your set with a minute of your entry song, fading it out into another, then bringing it back at the end to finish your performance. This 'wraps up' your performance, giving it a recognizable ending that will appeal to your audience and make it 'your set'.

As a dancer and a member of the audience at many performances, I wanted to bring attention to this important issue in our art form. Please pay as much attention to your music as to every other aspect of your performance.

Zahirah is a co-founder of Baltimore Bellydance and a professional dancer in the area.