HEADS UP





By Norma Westover

Spring is here and everyone’s busy; so you should appreciate this month’s mercifully brief feature, correct posture of the head.

Even though understanding the mechanics of head posture comes quickly, getting it right in practice often takes time unless you have a strong background in some other style of dance.

That being said, we come to our first point. The erect head posture is a feature of belly dance that’s absolutely universal to all dance forms. The head, held up and animated by the passion evoked from the music, engages the consciousness of one’s audience on a deeply individual level, building and keeping interest throughout the performance. It is the dancer’s art of enchantment!

Now let’s get to those mechanics. We’ll assume that you’re in the correct knee, hip, ribcage, and shoulder positions. Your neck should first be moved back towards alignment with the shoulders as far as is comfortable. If you habitually stoop your shoulders and hang your head forward and/or down (a BAD habit that has a real possibility of leading to the dreadful “dowager’s hump”), you may find this feels really strange, but good, at first. Be sure that you focus your awareness on moving the neck’s vertebral column, rather than the head; simply allow the head to ride along naturally atop the neck.

Once the neck has moved to its optimum position, we then thrust gently upward with the head, lengthening the neck gracefully and releasing any tension from having the neck in a pinched posture. Feels great! Be sure to guard against tucking the chin in and back. This creates an uncomely, uptight appearance, and possibly a nasty double chin if you’re inclined to them.

That’s all folks! Simple, but demanding in terms of perfecting a look of ease and grace; practice is the magic key!

Now that we have covered correct basic body postures, each month we’ll feature a study of a particular move or body part placement. LOTS of great stuff to come; Happy Dancing!