I'm curious to see how other people answer this one!

How do you get on stage and what music do you generally pick to do that?
It depends. If we're performing as a group (with the band), we may "process" onto the stage (this is good for outdoor venues & large spaces where we're the only act - or the only act like us - so it signals that The Show Is Starting Now, People) where we've set up the band's amplified instruments, but they drum through the procession or have the band set up on stage & either play a song alone or start to signal the dancers to come onstage. It depends a lot on how we want the dancers to start. If we're dancing to canned music, we'll tend to start onstage, or start part of the group (especially chorus) onstage & have others join. And it could be any kind of recorded music - we'll often start slow and build for a small stage show, or start loud & fast to get attention.

If we are completely improvising with the band, they will invariably start fast, and we'll generally all start in whatever the space is (we don't do completely unplanned sets on stage - we do those on street corners and such).

How do you get things going?
If there's canned music, we start with the music - either we make an entrance then, or we're already standing on stage at "satz" (active rest/neutral position) and the lead will start moving. If there's band, we cue the musicians & they have a couple of different startup approaches. Dancers either start with the band - if we're entering & playing together - or start after the music begins.

Do you introduce the dancers?
For a stage show, yes - if other dancers are being introduced (often there is just a program). For other shows, we generally have someone introduce us rather than intro-ing ourselves, and we don't give all the performers' names - if there are TWELVE people, that takes awhile. :)
Something fun, that we haven't tried yet, would be to have someone mic'd (probably our saz player) and have them intro the dancers and musicians as each person does a tiny little solo, like we're a rock band. That would be cool with the Zeppelin (see below...)

What are the general lengths of songs, the tempos, etc?
We like shorter songs, like 3-5 minutes. That tends to be longer AND shorter with the band, especially for longer sets - there might be an intro song, a dancer-entrance song, 3 5-or-6-minute songs of different styles and tempos, a bow song, an exit song, etc. All the non-main-performance songs will be a minute or less. Our general pattern, excluding the entrances and exits, is medium - slow - fast. Entrances vary in tempo & dynamic depending on the vibe we want to create. Bows are usually slow. Exits tend to be insanely fast. Encores usually involve Led Zeppelin, thanks to our wannaberockstar saz guy. We haven't mastered the art of coming BACK for an encore, cause we just started doing them. Anyone else do encores?

How do you arrange your group's short, medium and long sets?
A long set (20-30 minutes or more - keep in mind we're a large group when we have musicians) could be anything. Usually a long set is either basically an enormous jam session where we talk to each other & shift mid-dancing/playing or it's extremely planned & has a specific purpose & venue in mind.
A medium-length set (about 15 minutes) will tend to follow the medium-slow-fast pattern I mentioned above. Same goes for parties, though with parties we spend much of the time on solos. Although we've also done a couple of very structured short sets with entrances & exits - when we've danced in shows with a lot of other performers.
A short set will be one or two songs, probably 5-10 minutes, one song slow & one fast.

How do you exit?
We may all bow, then dance off. We may bow, then wait for a curtain, or simply walk off gracefully. And then there's the thing with the encore, where what usually happens is the band doesn't quite make it off stage, so the dancers come back once they start playing again.

Amy Sigil works out Verbatim's sets for major gigs, but we often work out sets according to who is dancing that gig amounst ourselves. We know what she wants of us, she can say "Do tribal and Rama choreo piece around 15 min. long", and I'll create an "On-the-Go" play list on the IPod and were ready to go.

What have you found to be the most satisfying way to arrange performance sets in general, for your group?
It depends on the Venues and the context of the gig. The Sacramento City Block party sets on a raised stage are different from the birthday party set done in someones back yard.

Some specific questions I have are:

How do you get on stage and what music do you generally pick to do that? If set is over 10min, we dance on with slow tribal, but some gigs are all high energy and we like to dance on with fast tribal.

How do you get things going?

We just do Amy's choregraphy and people pay attention. Sometimes holler at the audience, and they still stand there dumbfaced, month open, unable the disconcern how to properly outwardly react to a bellydance performance.

Do you introduce the dancers?
No. We like our Host/Hostess to introduce the troupe as one before we start our set.

What are the general lengths of songs, the tempos, etc?
Yes, this is part of the selection of the set as we want to fill the time we are hired. Always some fast, always some mid tempo makes the cut.

How do you arrange your group's short, medium and long sets?
May get in trouble with Amy if I give much more away, not sure how many more details I could put down beyound what I, ve already included.

How do you exit?

No tips, end set on stage, wait for applause, then gracfully walk off. With tips dancing tribal with baskets, collect tips and then dancing off.

Anything else?
We do not use Solos in Verbatim, it's all group work. However when we team up with Unmata, we sometimes incorporate their solos (mostly for Fire shows) into our sets by alternating between solo and group pieces.


Dose any of that help? Number one thing, have fun, number two make $

Clarification:

Regarding the question about introducing the dancers, I meant in a non-verbal way... I've seen groups come out, do a circle and have the front person do one move, then shift the circle, then the next person does one move, then shift the circle, etc. and I consider that introducing the dancers in group.

I'm so excited about the answers ya'll are giving! Wow! So helpful. Makes me want to get up and dance! LOL

Andrea. :)

hi Andrea,
I'm just answering a couple -
Usually our SET LENGTH is around 15 minutes, but can be 10-20 ish depending on the venue (just us, or we're part of a larger show, etc.). That could be one or two long songs or 3-4 shorter songs, depends on what music we're currently using in class.

Almost always it goes something like "fast - slow - fast" probably because of my nightclub-style background; that seems to work well though.
SOMEtimes we start off slow, but quickly go up-tempo. And probably for the same reason, we often do Veil dancing in the middle (slow) part.

We ENTER to our music; when we're finished, we don't usually BOW either, we just exit playing finger cymbals (no music). I hate tacked on "exit music" as a rule!

We haven't gotten into any "solos" yet, but that will probably happen in time - we just do duets, trios, quartets, or whole group dancing.

We usually do 20minute sets, so I'll elucidate what we do in those situations:

we usually stick to "the formula" of slower entrance music, slow song/mid-tempo song, fast big finisher. I've always stuck to the idea that slow/dramatic songs shouldn't be an ending piece as usually it leaves the audience wanting more, feeling incomplete. I had another dancer talk to me about how she's found that western audiences generally respond best to a progression from slow to fast when sets are concerned and I've found that observation to be dead-on.

So, we usually start with a slower song to get us onstage. We generally don't like to start from the audience, as that can lead to all sorts of foibles. Instead, we usually walk on from backstage. Our onstage music is usually fairly short, only about 1/2 minute or so. That's our introduction in a sort.Then we place and segway into a mid-tempo song. We usually like to start with all three of us coming out, then save our second song for solos/duets/pass-offs. The solos help to demonstrate our individual strengths and styles, while the duos show that we can trade off lead often AND also take a moment out to observe. We then like to come together again for our ending piece, usually something ultra sassy and varied rhythm wise. We're at the point in our dance experience where we like to really challenge ourselves, so we'll pick a final song that isn't a basic 4/4 and mix things up- Raquy, Gogol Bordello, etc. We really love to have our audience clapping and going nuts in their seats, so we like to choose something really upbeat and energetic.

For medium and short sets, we think about our venue and the other acts that will be there. If it's a very trad. bellydance show, we'll choose a 5-7 minute traditional song, usually mid-tempo and keep it toned down. For wacky/fun gigs, we'll choose something random and fun... like March Fourth. We love dancing to bizarre, stand-out songs. However, we always try to fit our audience and their understanding/experience with tribal. If they don't know anything about Improv Tribal, we'll stick to something more traditional so that they can be focusing on the dance movements and the earthy, traditional flavor.

That bring us our strict rule of experiment/silly music to trad music. Our rule is that if we have a multi song set, we always save sillier stuff for the end. Firstly, because the silly/really different songs should be like encore pieces. Secondly because it's important to demonstrate that you CAN dance to traditional music before doing something silly. Basically, proving you've got the chops to experiment and take it further.

And that's about it!