Aziza Sa'id's FAQ - Dance Styles - American Tribal Style (ATS)

Fat Chance Belly Dance
photo copyright Chuck Lehnhard 2001

Natasya K: American Tribal Style Belly Dance has been made most famous by Caroline Nericcio and Fat Chance of San Francisco California. Basically, the style is a fusion of Egyptian hip work with Flamenco arm positions and Turkic torso undulations / stomach movements. Dances are usually done as Group dances in a highly structured improvisation. Costuming is a strange fusion of Central Asian and Anatolian folk dance costume elements (silver jewelry and cotton or wool tassels) with East Indian Choli tops and full skirts with wide shalwar. It is a lovely style that requires much skill, but it is not an "authentic" dance form. Tribal Style mixes many authentic elements in a modern fantasy fusion.

Peter White: The notable features of ATS (I believe) are (1) lead & follow for large sections of a performance, (2) a limited and precisely defined dance vocabulary, (3) costuming (and music) that uses many traditional/ethnic elements.

Najia: Since we seem to be interested in origins of Tribal dance, I would like to add that from Jamila Samimpour came a break-away student with design and creative talent who had a long time troupe in San Francisco and who created much of the current look (including the turbans and tatoos) and some of the initial mechanics of "Tribal". That student was Masha Archer who eventually left dance to become a successful clothing and jewelry designer in S.F. and N.Y., leaving her San Francisco troupe leaderless. That is when Masha's student, Carolena Nericcio, created her "Fat Chance" troupe. (I ran into Masha at a museum celebration at the Palace of the Legion of Honor in S. F. about five years ago and she still looks astonishing-- artistic in hair and make-up, clothing and jewelry.) Masha should not be left out of the loop of dance history for she was a talented innovator in her own way and set the course for breaking away from Jamila's Rennaisance Faire dance-troupe style.

Stephanie: I have a web site that might be of interest to you ... It is the home page of "Read My Hips," our Chicago based American Tribal Bellydance troupe http://members.aol.com/starkana/tribal/rmh.htm My links page is devoted entirely to informational and commercial sites of interest to the Tribal style dancer.

Aziza Sa'id: For me, the magic in tribal comes in two ways: First - I respond on a visceral level to the music and the movement - there is something about it that just seems so essentially 'true' - makes my body say "YES!" That has nothing to do with it's historical authenticity, but it has a feeling of being an "authentic" dance nonetheless. Perhaps that is why many people want the info distributed with the dance - This is Not Authentic (historically) .... because it Feels authentic on some essential level, and it is a priority for many of us that we, and our selected version and style of expression, be accurately understood.

Second - The syncronicity and limited vocabulary that may be seen as a limitation are, for me a source of magic - watching a tribal group do their thing well can be spell-binding, hypnotic, trance-inducing. Like watching a flock of birds that all shift and turn at once, with no visible communication. Now perhaps not everyone finds the hypnotic magical, but I do. Anytime someone can send me SomeWhereElse, it feels magical to me.

Maia: The difference is in the use of the moves, the erect body posture borrowed from flamenco, and the stylized arms. When I've seen ATS performed by FCBD, a step is repeated a significant number of times, then a quick transition to another move, which is then repeated. The arm movements are always the same to the same hip movement, and a change in arm movement (by the leader) will signal a change in step. It is actually a very formalized, structured dance and is stunning done by a troupe of dancers who really know the steps so they can do them without a hitch.

Often, two or three dancers will take the center surrounded by a "chorus", and perform a group improvisation. The chemistry of the dancers, when it is working, it a blast to see. In a sense, ATS depends on that chemistry. Even when a FCBD dancer is soloing, she is backed up by the rest of the troupe -- their energy is flowing through her. So the movements are essentially the same -- but the context in which they are performed is different.

Natasya K: Some of us define TRIBE in a post-modernist urban sense. We are folks who come together for a common goal. We socialize together and help each other when times are tough. Many of us live thousands of miles away from our blood families. To people who live in the same area as their relatives and have a true support system from their own families, the American "tribalism" may appear stupid and trite. *BUT* to those of us who strive to create community when we are cut-off from our blood families, post-modern Tribalism is a valid way of life. Post-modern tribalism as I have lived it is not based on co-opting indigenous tribal cultures--rather it is based on creating community and support for our artistic and social lives.

Roya: This sense of tribal connection to me is what American Tribal dance is all about...not the costumes, nor the movements, but the overall "feel" of dancing in community, the interplay between dancers and knowing the other's next move so well that your following looks like choreography. The energy cannot be choreographed nor taught, but has to be experienced over a length of time for it to work well.