Android Goddess: Tribal Fusion Bellydance and Robotic Movement

Created by New York City-based star of Tribal Fusion Belly Dance Fayzah, the Android Goddess instructional video blends the precise isolations and fluidity of Tribal Fusion belly dance with two unique and colorful movement stylizations: The Goddess and The Machine.

The Goddess is characterized by fluid, sophisticated, expansive movement, with majestic poses inspired by the cycles and flow of Earth, wind, water, and volcanic lava. The Machine, or Android, features robotic movement, waving, ticking, hitting, and dimestopping, coming from popping styles, mime, street performance, digital music, and illusion effects.

In the instructional sections of the video Fayzah builds the Android Goddess style step-by-step. She teaches the Goddess and the Android portions of her dance vocabulary separately, drills the moves, and then weaves them into combinations.

The Android Concepts section explores ways of imitating mechanical machine-like motion through body angles, ticking, hitting, dime stopping, transitions, effects, and other types of robotic movement. Then Fayzah demonstrates and breaks down a series of moves from the Android style dance vocabulary, and leads you through Android drills, practicing each movement again and again, working toward creating an illusion of machine-like motion. You can repeat the drills as many times as you need to, to get these moves into your muscle memory. Some of them will be easier, while others may require a lot of practice and muscle conditioning.

Next Fayzah demonstrates and breaks down a series of steps and poses from the Goddess style movement vocabulary. These movements embody natural elements and explore different types of fluidity, muscle control, and extension. Goddess movement drills help you tune into the full-body, expansive, powerful and confident style of Goddess movement.

Finally, Fayzah blends the Goddess and the Android movements with steps and accents of Tribal Fusion bellydance in a series of combinations you can adopt as part of your personal dance vocabulary to perform individually or as a sequence. Each combination is introduced step-by-step and drilled through a number of repetitions. You can also practice all the combinations in a sequence, like a choreographed dance.

Android Goddess also includes a muscle conditioning warmup and a few other sections to help you master the Android Goddess style. There is a dance-along practice where you can work on Soul, or your groove, while doing isolations and waving. Groove is the heart of rhythmic movement often overlooked when we learn and practice dance. Feeling the beat, confidence in moving with it, and the ability to express the rhythm gives a distinctive and effortless pacing to your dance. Another dance-along section is the Goddess Flow which brings about body awareness, using imagination, and introduces different ways of initiating and performing the movement.