Oriental Dancers excel in their use and variety of hip movements. Gaining control and exploring the possibilities of these movements brings virtuosity to the dancer in her expression of the music. Creating the movements with absolute assurance comes with practice, practice and more practice! Shimmies, drops, side accents, twists are only some of the hip movements with which you can express rhythm. This month we are discussing the hip shimmy.

    You can make your shimmies have a beat!  Indiscriminate shimmies, where you are moving your hips as fast as you can, are fine but to move with more finesse and grace as well as broaden your movement vocabulary, you might want to give the hip a meter. When you bring the hip to its down position, think about hitting a drum with your hip. Each hip has a count as it hits the bottom of the movement. Try to stretch it into the position as opposed to a fast arrival. With a moderate speed of music ( Shashkin from Mystical Gardens is perfect) stretch each hip down to a slow count of eight (8). Double your speed and half the movement; i.e., with the full stretch the hip moves about 2 inches, with half the movement is about 1 inch. Again, double the count and half the movement (1& 2&) and one more time (1a&a 2a&a 3a&a etc.). This should produce a loose shimmy that relates to the rhythm with which you are working. Keep the gluteal and thigh muscles loose while shimming; there is a difference between a freeze and a shimmy! To build the stamina necessary to shimmy as long as we want, take a piece of music you enjoy and shimmy the entire length of the piece. It may take a while before you are able to do this but with repeated trials you will soon find that you can shimmy comfortably.

Back to  Dance Movement of the Month