I have been in Beijing for nearly three weeks now. Saturday was my final dance lesson at the Golden Dancing Academy in Chongmenwen. I was much better suited to the Daizu dancing than the Menggu dancing. From my limited experience thinking about the principles of the two styles, it seems that the folk dances are formed out of the landscape and area that they are in. For example for the Menggu dance I had to keep my head up as if always looking across the large ever reaching landscape whereas the Daizu dance required a neutral head position as this is in the southern province where there are mountains. Mary (the owner) explained that the Daizu area is always in spring where everything is beautiful and green and you climb one mountain but cannot see very far as there is always the next one in view. I learnt gestures that represented birds' beaks, butterflies and fish and the dance is about welcoming people to their beautiful homeland.
The costume looked more like a belly dance costume to me, however tonight I watched a Chinese choir programme and their were some women in similar costumes with bells and coins. I performed for the video today and Ben the teacher said I did very well. Lets hope the video is good when it arrives towards the end of September.
I had a wonderful time at the dance school and was made very welcome. Mary talked about the possibility of me taking students in the future, they could learn Chinese dancing, Chinese language and also see the sights. How wonderful that would be...
The next stage of my Beijing stay is to see all the sights and learn about the history of the temples and key places. I look forward to keeping you informed and putting more photos on the Blog. For now I will have a couple of days relaxing before hitting the crowded sights!
The costume looked more like a belly dance costume to me, however tonight I watched a Chinese choir programme and their were some women in similar costumes with bells and coins. I performed for the video today and Ben the teacher said I did very well. Lets hope the video is good when it arrives towards the end of September.
I had a wonderful time at the dance school and was made very welcome. Mary talked about the possibility of me taking students in the future, they could learn Chinese dancing, Chinese language and also see the sights. How wonderful that would be...
The next stage of my Beijing stay is to see all the sights and learn about the history of the temples and key places. I look forward to keeping you informed and putting more photos on the Blog. For now I will have a couple of days relaxing before hitting the crowded sights!
