Rock-metal dance is a type of belly dance? What about tribal fusion, ATS, gothic dance? Find here a quick overview about the rock-metal dance roots…
So far, the rock-metal dance has a virtually nonexistent path. Nevertheless, there are some artistic roots that can confuse the new rock-metal dancer. Let´s clarify them. Some typical questions a person who is interested in the matter can have in mind, following the information you can find, are: rock-metal dance is a type of oriental dance? What are the American Tribal Style (ATS) and Tribal Fusion? What in hell is gothic dance? And finally, and above all: what is the rock-metal dance?

Here you can read my answers to these questions from my own experience.

Belly dance, ATS and Tribal Fusion

The absolute experimentation the community of bellydancers is living since more than one decade has shot down any barrier to artistic creation. Innovation and the desire for differentiation are in vogue.Every season new steps, new dance fusions, new elements to dance with, new kind of costumes, etc…are created. The oriental dancers, including myself, began to adapt their dance to their particular tastes and aesthetics. In this context American Tribal Style (ATS) and Tribal Fusion emerged, combining oriental and occidental ideas.

Belly dancers and tribal fusion dancers started to adapt their dance to their particular tastes.

Gothic dance

When Tribal Fusion dancers decided to use dark themes in their choreography, gothic dance was born. It can be defined as the fusion of the art of dance with the Gothic culture in the broadest sense of the word. Specific international dance festivals have even been created like Gothla, which has annual editions in several countries (USA, UK, Italy, Spain, Brazil…). For years I believed that natural musical base of gothic dance was the metal, dark music in its own definition, and so used it in all my choreography creations. However, I noticed with surprise that the rest of dancers barely used, choosing electronic music or B.S.O soundtracks for their creations. That´s how I understood rock & metal dance should be studied in a musical context, instead a subculture one.

Rock & Metal dance

Rock-metal dance is a dance style developed from the characteristics of rock and metal music. For that, specific steps, costumes and artistic analysis are proposed. Since the birth of heavy music in 70´s, for some reason or others, dancers have not been interested in bringing to the stage their metallic choreographies except anecdotally. And so it will remain if it is also anecdotally the existence of dancers to develop their career within this musical genre. From my point of view, rock-metal dance will be created by women…or it won´t be created. That´s why I´m also promoting the project “Women in Metal”, which encourages women to go on stage.

It´s now or never …