I absolutely suggest you take a GS intensive. Those that think FCBD is limited have simply not learned either all the moves or all the variations. Are you a soloist or do you have a troupe? Dancing FCBD style with others is never limiting in my opinion. Even after dancing this style for several years I am totally inspired each time I watch FCBD perform and the GS intensive weekend taught me even more ways to use the movements! I can't wait to perform this weekend!
And by the way....you MUST purchase volume 7!! :) It has some wonderful combinations, new movements and the performance will give you some new ideas as well.

Personally I feel that if you begin including other dance style movements into your performances then it is no longer ATS format. New combos with existing moves are always great and please share them so we can all try them out, new movements I would run by Carolena to be sure they fit with the format, etc. But using other style movements with your ATS movements "fuses" two or more styles and then becomes "fusion".

Just my humble opinion here, and I don't want to start the war of words again..but......ok, I'm not gonna go there. First, get volume 7. There are (runs to get the DVD so I can be exact)...21 new moves on it, and many of them have turns and flourishes too, which add even more variation. Once you learn those moves, you cannot possibly get bored with the millions of possibilities...why, you could do a whole song with Arabic Shimmy w/Arms and Turn, Fade and Circle up, and never get bored for sure.

Second, one of the beautiful things about ATS is that we all learn the same moves the same way, with the same cues. I can take my ATS vocabulary anywhere in the world, find another ATS dancer, and dance like we've been together for years. If you throw in something else not ATS though, that beatiful moment of synchronicity and energy will crumble apart and one of us will be left trying to figure out what the other is doing.

I know this sounds hokey, but I'm gonna share it anyway. At our haflas, we always have a drumming/dance jam circle afterwards. Very casual, just jump in and have fun...At the last hafla, something just clicked. There must have been about 8 drummers maybe, and something like 20 dancers on the floor at one time..OMG, it was incredible...The drummers were drumming in that way that just catches your heartbeat...and 20 dancers were on the floor in this huge circle..and everybody was doing the same moves and cues and circling with everyone having the chance to take the lead...the energy level was just incredible and no one wanted to stop. What a magical moment. Now, all those dancers did not come from our classes...I have no idea where many of them were taught. But the moment was possible beause we had the same vocabulary. That moment was more breathtaking than the show itself. And without the shared vocabulary, it would not have happened. So.... for me, ATS is the only way to go...Oh...and I should say we still come up with our own combos...we just stay true to the ATS moves and cues..no need to pull in anything else..if Susie Que does a Resham-ka forward, she might be moving back with a wet dog..awesome moves, BTW...and everybody knows when I do a Sununda, I'm probably gonna take it into a ChicoFour Corners (but maybe not, so stay on your toes) ..you don't have to let yourself be limited...the possibilities are endless..

I really can't add anything to what has already been said so well....so I'll just echo it and say that yeah, you need to get volume 7, and no, I don't think I'll ever get "bored" with ATS.

Anybody else tried a Chico outta Calibrated Spins?

I haven't been on Tribe in ages and am distracting myself from work, so thought I'd offer a slightly different perspective.....

No, I don't get bored with FC moves and I don't find the vocabularly limiting at all. However, my troupe, n.o.madic tribal, incorporates our own movements and combos. When we do so, we attempt to (and I think are successful at) incorporating movements/combos that fit with the FC repertoire and that uphold those spoken and unspoken rules that make FC so fab.

Warning: Extreme opinion ahead:
I don't like to see groups who've simply mismashed various movements from various stylings together (FC + Domba +GC + Indigo + ??) without retooling them to all follow a certain standard that governs the look and feel of the entire repertoire of movement. To me, this mismashing is a recipe for slop.

However, I *do* enjoy watching troupes who've retooled various movements and fused them well. In fact, that's how at least a few of the new movements on Vol 7 came to be. Meg and Devyani (New Orleans) took a workshop with an Indian dancer, and then we came home and retooled some of them to fit with the FC repertoire. I speculate that they've gone through an even deeper retooling with Devyani (B'ham) and Tribal Pura. I'm excited to see.....

love.
ali
www.nomadictribal.com

This is an interesting thread and touches on a question I've been struggling with. According to Carolena and the FC gals, if it's not FC movement vocabulary it's not ATS. And yet at least one other troupe, Devyani, HAS expanded the FC vocabulary. So I wonder why THAT was acceptable and all others are not.

I'm currently organizing a Tribal Pura workshop here in my town (YAAAY!!!) and one of the master classes offered is this:
Use Your Inspiration Wisely
Movements developed by Megha to fit with the FCBD format and how to make it work.

So does this workshop teach us how to develop/modify our own movements so that they also work with the FC format? And if we do that, are we still dancing ATS, or will it then be something else (Improvisational Tribal Style/ITS as someone proposed)?

I have been dancing ATS for a long time and have never become bored. I feel that some of the finest performances are sometimes where there Is repetition. (watch volume 7 with the repeating laybacks breath taking!) Also, I feel a "busy " performance can take away, "more" is not always better. Your audience can appreciate repeated movements because there is already so much going on (costuming ect to look at) that they may miss it the first go round. I feel quite strongly about sticking to the roots of ATS. A lot of time and thought, trial and error has gone into this style and that's exactly why it works so well and in my opinion very elegant and poised.

Lastly, by working with fewer movements and doing them well as opposed to doing many and just getting by. Enjoy the process of digging down deep to develope the wonderful nuiances that comes only with time in this lovely style of dance.

Suzanne