welcome new members

Well, Joyce, that was the question I asked. You can read the entire discussion on the FC's tribe's Tribal Fest thread.

What I gathered from Carolena and others is that if you are employing any movements, any costuming, or any music that FC is not currently employing, then, you are not ATS. What I understood--and again, read the thread for yourself--is that that working within the framework of ATS is no longer considered acceptable, for Carolena wants to have ultimate control (as an artist) over every aspect of her artform. Apparently, those who achieve sister-studio status will be allowed to innovate within the framework IF those innovations are approved by Carolena and then, shared with all other ATSers. The result will be a solid and clearly defined ATS repertoire with no deviation or derivation from troupe to troupe (ideally).

I don't know if these sister studios will be allowed to pursue other danceforms (e.g., Bhangra) as an aside to their ATS studies/teachings or not.

love.
ali

Joyce, the thread is called "TF 7 Performance" in the FCBD tribe.

We've been going through the same confusion. We thought it was OK to call ourselves ATS even though we do a few FC moves differently due to the "telephone game" as Ali put it and added a handful of moves picked up from other dancers. Now we're left scratching our heads as to what to call ourselves. "Fusion" kind of implies the stuff that Rachel Brice and her associates are doing and we don't want anyone to come to us expecting that. Rita, last I heard, said she was just going to call her classes "tribal style" and try not to worry about it!

Heather:

Thanks for your thoughtful post. You've asked a few questions that I'd like to try to answer--and perhaps destinkify the whole issue, for again, I didn't mean to cause a stink or cause people to smell a stink to begin with.

The issue for me was entirely personal for it directly affected my troupe, and here it is again, hopefully clearer:
I understand and respect Carolena's attempts to keep her ATS vision free from dancing done poorly (which, let's be real, there is tons of) and dancing done outside the ATS framework. For me, it's very clear that BSBD and GC and certainly UG (and most others!) are not ATS, for they've _intentionally stepped outside the ATS framework_ to innovate their own styles.

However, what I didn't understand, and thus, asked about was this:
What about those troupes, like n.o.madic and like Devyani back in the New Orleans' days, who are/were _intentionally working within the framework_ but nonetheless, innovating? For example, during our time with Devyani, we instituted new costuming, new music, new movements, and even new formations, but we did so with the utmost respect of the ATS framework, wearing (to use Deanna's expression) our What Would Carolena Do (WWCD) bracelets. We've continued this practice in n.o.madic, but by the definition FC is ATS and ATS is FC, the results of the innovations are not ATS. So even though we've spent our dance lives honoring the ATS framework and uplifting the ATS flag, we have recently learned that we cannot continue to claim ATS as our own. I speculate that if this information had come to light back in 2002, Meg would have been just as confused or hurt.

And, again--and I don't think I should apologize for this part: It made me sad. I wanted to hear Carolena say that FC was one work of art that resulted from her amazing creation of the ATS movement, but that as long as troupes were working within the ATS framework, that many differing works of art could result and still claim membership in that movement. Her answer was simple: No. Because I do respect Carolena and Meg and FC and Devyani, I've accepted this news. Again, my original "stink" had nothing to do with challenging Carolena's directive, but had everything to do with making sure I'd understood it properly.

I hope that clarifies my position. Please let me know if you have any further questions about where I was coming from.


To clarify my comments about young dancers and cult of personality, I'll say this:
By young dancers, I meant those who've been practicing for a short time, and by practicing, I mean a devoted study of the movements, the music, the costuming, the history of the dance and those difficult to define qualities that give ATS that je ne se quois that drew us to it in the first place. (If you have studied with Meg for any duration, you are NOT a young dancer; she makes sure of that!)

By cult of personality, I mean those whose arguments rely entirely on appeals to emotion rather than logic.



------------
In closing, two points:
I want to be reiterate that I don't blame Carolena, Meg, or any ATSers for attempting to define nor defend their art. I also don't blame those who've been clearly cordoned off for feeling a bit left out.

I also want to clarify that I wasn't attempting to enflame some sort of secret anti-ATS rally over here in the n.o.madic tribe. In fact, my intentions were utterly benign: to welcome the 20+ new members who'd joined as a result of the thread in question. That welcoming post is nearly exactly like all other previous welcoming posts I've composed in the past (most often privately to new members)--including the part about freedom of speech. Moreover, my welcoming post was composed before the thread was deleted, and like you, I didn't see the ugly part that caused it to be removed so any seeming connection between my opening post and the deletion of the ugly thread are just that.

Finally, as moderator here and supporter of free speech, let me say that I welcome your and everyone's contributions. I honestly believe that discourse can happen on the Internet if fostered and I obviously believe that discourse is valuable. But unfortunately, you're right, Heather, some people fall prey to appeals to emotion and logical fallacy. Such is the nature of our beast. Hopefully, though, if we allow all biases and prejudices to be aired, the most noble ones will gain strength.




love.
ali

STINK? STINK? I'LL GO SMELL THAT IN A ....(oops cap' lock)
i'll go smell that in a minute. but from what i've read here... i'll just say that i avoid the term ATS... and have for a long while. we do improv... or improvisational tribal style dance. or improvisational tribal style belly dance. what ever.

but yeah - I saw some writings that alluded to ownership of the term ATS a while back, rubbed me the wrong way a bit ....so as an avoidance tactic I don't use it. plenty of alternatives...

all this labeling... shhheeeeeshh!







ps
( there are so many english teachers on this tribe - i feel like I am being graded...lol...)