Urban Tribal Dance Company – Workshops in Germany with Heather Stants and Lorraine Hanson

We can look back at a wonderful week with Heather Stants and Lorraine Hanson in Germany! It was their first visit in Germany and Gabriella and I were very pleased to host their workshops at our studio, Tanz-Oase Dillenburg, near Frankfurt am Main.

Heather und Lorraine taught three workshops on the weekend, each was four hours with a 15 minute break after two hours. We all agreed that four hours is enough for one day. There were about 25-30 students in each class, so people still got some personal attention, feedback and corrections from both instructors. Everyone in the room could see either Heather or Lorraine but students were also rotated to give everybody the chance to be closer to the mirror and our instructors for awhile.

The workshop topics were:

Friday: technique for urban tribal bellydance. heather and lorraine share their approach to isolations, pops locks and modern tribal movements.

Saturday: fast and funky combinations for tribal bellydance choreography and improvisation.

Sunday: smooth and slinky. urban tribal's innovative slow style taught through
technique drills and combinations. bring knee pads for floor work.

The warm up for each workshop was fun and prepared all muscle groups needed for the movements that were being taught. I had a problem with my hip flexor at the time and Heather gave me extra instructions on what I could do and what I should rather not do. I found this very helpful. Heather has a strong yoga and pilates background and uses this knowledge in her classes.

The amount of stuff Heather and Lorraine taught in each workshop was just right. It was challenging, you really had to concentrate but people were not dropping out or getting frustrated. Heather was very aware of what people could do, how much drilling was necessary and how much more material students could cope with. We could take short breaks to drink water and take notes, too. Every now and then Heather let us stretch out our muscles so most of us didn´t have sore muscles the next day.

Heather´s way of explaining things and breaking down complex movements was very accurate and easy to understand. None of the students was a native speaker of English but we could follow her instructions easily. When asked to show or explain a movement again, Heather was able to describe it in a different way. It also helped that she showed common mistakes and how to avoid them. Questions were always welcome and answered patiently.

The combos Heather and Lorraine taught were a lot of fun. Heather also showed us how they could be adapted to different belly dance styles. Many people found this useful and I´m sure people took a lot home from this. I personally find it often hard to learn complex choreographies/combos in a short time, but in this workshop I was comfortable. Heather would break everything down into manageable bits, drill it, add a little more, drill again, add some more and so on. Before I knew it I was doing stuff I never would have thought possible for me!

Heather and Lorraine also took enough time for a thorough stretch and cool down at the end of each class. It felt wonderful and completed these well balanced and informative classes in a very nice way.

Heather and Lorraine are just wonderful, they even put on a small performance for us during one of the breaks. We enjoyed our time with them very much.

I can warmly recommend Heather´s classes. We all took soooo much home from this wonderful weekend workshop! We got a lot of nice combos and dance technique. I feel that I understood a lot of things, how certain movements work, which muscle groups are engaged etc. With this understanding and my notes I will be able to practise things at home. There is enough material to keep us going for quite awhile. And we want more! We very much hope that Heather and Lorraine will come back for more soon.

I am also posting this on behalf of Gabriella who runs the studio Tanz-Oase. I hope other workshop participants will post as well.

Katja & Gabriella