Chinese Silk Fan Fusion

Chinese Silk Fan Fusion presents a 5 minute choreography of 6 combinations choreographed to the melody of classical-style violin music. Mirabai focuses on concepts and techniques she has learned after using Chinese silk fans over 5 years.  This fusion choreography is based on traditional Chinese silk fan metaphors. The music used for the choreography may be too classical for some dancer’s taste, but you can always string the combinations together in another order to better fit a more modern piece of music. The combos and their descriptive names help you to remember how the combos fit with the music, but it doesn’t mean the combos only work with one song. The choreography interprets the violin music well.  She says at the end that she hopes you’ve been inspired to create your own fan veil choreography. You will need to know some belly dance basics to learn this choreography.  She doesn’t explain the belly dance movements, only the fan veil technique. Some floorwork is used in one of the combinations. It isn’t super physically taxing, but you could always perform this combo standing up with some simple modifications. You will need a medium length fan veil to be able to do the choreography.  Long fan veils will get tangled during some of the moves.  Short fan veils will not have the same dramatic effect as the medium length fan veils. The choreography uses both a single fan veil and a pair of fan veils, so you will need a pair of van veils.

How to Hold a Fan Veil

Before starting to learn the choreography, Mirabai recommends that you become familiar with your fan veils. You can do this by spending 20 minutes flipping them open and closed, using different grips, shimming, and lofting them around. Practicing these movements 20 minutes a few times a week will help break in a new fan veil and allow, and you will come to understand how your fan veils move. She demonstrates the following different ways to hold a fan veil:

• Fist grasp
• Splayed finger grasp
• Pinched grasp
• Shift grasp from center to edge

She then demonstrates the following simple fan veil movements

• Fan circles
• Fan shimmies
• Fan wafts

Fan Veil Care

Mirabai offers tips on how to prepare new fans and care for your fans.   New fans have loose threads and wrinkles. She recommends to cut the loose threads and iron or steam the wrinkles out, but not to hem the fan.

Buying Fan Veils

Read our review of the top fan veils we’ve used.

Combinations

For teaching the combinations, she wears tribal style pants and black tank top, so the fan veil patterns are easy to see. The studio backdrop is wood floor with white walls and a decorative room divider as a background.  There is no mirror to see the movements from the front and back at the same time, but she does demonstrate the moves starting both front and back. She first explains the combos with no music.  She repeats the combos both starting facing the camera and facing away from the camera. The she repeats the combo with music.  The violin solo has 7/8 timing, but she favors the melody in this choreography. Mirabai’s explanations are not rushed, making her easy to follow along with.

Combo #1 Frames and Poses

Mirabai explains the frames and poses give the audience time to savor the music, fans, and movements.  Her movements are adapted from Chinese dance movements. These moves are mostly in place, but she uses a barrel turn and a simple turn. The frames are done with her facing the audience and with back to audience. Poses include sun hat and peacock.

Combo #2  Fans as Elements and Animals

Chinese dance often interprets the elements like fire and sun as well as animals like sea creatures, birds, and butterflies. This section is described as a sea goddess awakening from a slumber to the sea life around her. Movements include fish pose, seaweed and jelly fish.

Skill Focus Time Breakdown Infographic

Chinese Silk Fan Fusion is 50 minutes long.  The following infographic is an approximate breakdown of how many minutes are included in the DVD for various belly dance  skills.

Combo #3  Fans as Calligraphy Pens

In Chinese art fans and calligraphy are forms of art. Fans often are decorated with calligraphy.  She uses the fans as calligraphy fans.  Moves include fan drag and barrel rolls, which may be difficult for a beginner dancer.  She uses the fans to write in the air above and below near ground like writing poetry.  She uses descriptive words to describe the movements that are in the combination.

Combo #4 Fans as Frames

She uses movements such as secret garden and sun hat that frame her with the fan veils.  She does roll the fans around each other, which is difficult move.

Combo #5  Floorwork and Single Fan

This combo includes some floorwork with fans and some single fan work by putting one fan on the floor.  The floorwork includes a side plank with a hip circle, which may be too difficult for some dancers. She uses a frame to disguise her transition back to standing. She gets up from the floor in a relatively easy way, but it still may be difficult if you have bad knees.

Combo #6  Iron Fans

Chinese fan dance history contains love, poetry and idealistic beauty.  But also, the iron fan, which makes one’s enemies squirm and run away.  She uses a single fan holding it one an edge to make a snapping sound and swinging like a sword blade or cane. This combination uses  urns to hide the hand grip changes.  She also uses fan shimmies.

Follow Along

The follow-along section is a great way to practice all the combinations strung together as a choreography once you have mastered each combo.  The follow along is mostly done with Mirabai’s back to camera, which is like if you were following a teacher in class.

Performances

The first performance has Mirabai in a pastel blue modern cabaret style costume with blue fan veils.  She does not use he combinations taught, but you will recognize some of the fan movements. A second  performance with red modern cabaret costume with yellow fan veils. This is music used in combos taught. A bonus third performance has Mirabai in tribal pants with hip scarf and crop top with yellow fan veils. This is a different choreography and music.

Music Used

The following are Amazon links to the music used in the Mirabai’s Chinese Silk Fan Fusion  DVD.

• Music for Choreography:  House Of Tarab’s album Beledi  song is “Adaption by Sallah Ali“.
• Bonus Performance Music: “Darigh Nur” by Mario Kirlis from the Album Junto a Saida.

10/05/2024 01:21 pm GMT

Dancer Skill Level – Beginner

Because Mirabai explains basic hand grasps and fan movements and doesn’t use any advanced belly dancing technique even a beginner should be able to learn most of the choreography. For the intermediate student, she provides concepts and combinations to practice and expand upon for developing a dancer’s own choreography.

DVD Review Rating – 3.5 Stars

We give this video a rating of 3.5 stars because there isn’t a whole lot of technique presented about chinese silk fans and the individual movements are drilled extensively.  However, there is plenty of time to practice each combo. Explanations are clear, not rushed and presented from both the front and back views.