What I Learned From Dancing In Bars
It’s pretty common for oriental dancers to perform in Arabic Bars as a way of earning extra money and as a mean of promoting the dance and their work. Nowadays I do not perform in bars as they offer low pay to the dancers, nor I feel the dance is valued and considered an art form by most costumers and bar owners. However, in the year of 2015, when I started teaching and performing in events, I decided to perform in a bar as a way of promoting my work.
Considering the experience I had in that year, I want to share with you some advantages of performing in bars and new skills I have gained by doing so:
1. Generally, the dancer is improvising all the time, as it’s hard work to choreograph every dance and you never know where the customers will be and what space you will occupy. Doing so, the dancer’s improvisation skills boost tremendously. I got super comfortable improvising in front of an audience, which is super handy nowadays when I perform in events and different shows.
2. Also about confidence: I got super comfortable looking at the audience in the eye. I also started being ok with rude audience: those who are looking at their phones just ignoring you, or looking away the exact moment you look at them, the girlfriends who cover their boyfriend’s eyes so they don’t see the dancer,… and the list goes on. You just learn to ignore and be ok with it.
3. You practice getting ready in a short time. My make-up and hair would be done in no time which again is super handy now as I save time before events and shows. It was a great practice for starting my career.
4. I improved a lot my “show skills”, that is, props mastering. In a bar you want to give a dynamic show to the audience (veils, fan veils, wings, cane, sword, veils, sagats, etc). So the bars also give you great prop practice (in a narrow space with people walking by).
And that’s it. I believe performing in bars can be a good way of evolving if you are starting your career and you are ok about earning a low pay for your performances. And if you’re interested in knowing more about the benefits of dancing in events, check out the post Advantages of Performing In Private Events!
Have you ever performed in a bar? If you have, what have you learned from these experiences?