🌊 Me & My Big Skirts 🌊
FAQs: Ripples & Ruffles & Spouts, oh my!
Since we’re currently in the Water Element:
🌊 “What kind of big skirts do you dance with and where did they come from?”
My multi-tiered dance skirts range from 10 to 25 yards.
Two of them are even bigger: my Mexican Folklorico practice skirts that I sewed myself.
Here is the pattern:
As for where they come from when I don't make them myself, whuff...all over! Ebay, Etsy, and other shops you can find just by Googling them.
They are made of satin, polyester, brocade, cotton or gauze. Some are embroidered, others are decorated with fancy ribbon trim, and I have one that is cotton with thin mirrors and cowry shells weighting each tier. Boy, does that sucker fly!
🌊 “Any advice for dancing with these big skirts?”
YES.
SKIRT SAFETY
Reinforce EVERY. STINKIN’. ONE. Of those cowry shells with heavy upholstery thread, because when you spin, they WILL fly off and you WILL put somebody’s eye out in the front row.
Always practice a bunch in your skirts (or any costumes) prior to dancing in them in public to discover their hazards, flaws and weaknesses BEFORE you seriously kill somebody and/or yourself. Or…you know…show things you don’t want to show.
Vertical hip work requires a bend in the knees. This means that while you’re dancing, you’re shorter than you think you are.
Never hesitate to roll the waistband of your big skirts in the front (or all around, if it’s better) and pin or sew it down if you have stubby legs like mine. This way, you will reduce—not eliminate, but reduce—the amount of times you step on the skirt.
Never hesitate to use big diaper pins to synch the skirt tighter to your hips if it’s too heavy for the waistband elastic and keeps slipping down beyond your plumber’s crack. Or you can sew in tie-tabs or a tied waistband if you don’t like the risk of safety pins.
You still might step on the fabric and/or shells mid-dance, sliding on the super-slippery marley floor, and winding up on the ground. This is your chance to perform spontaneous floor work. Go you!
(Didn’t know I had to completely blow my choreography in 👆that dance👆 because the shells tried to kill me off, didja? MUAhahahah! Improv skillz are your lifesavers, because your costumes are out to get you.)
(You didn’t know your costumes are out to get you? Well, they are.)
~This has been a Public Service Announcement from your friendly neighborhood Izadorkable.
LIMITATIONS OF ALL THAT FABRIC
Big skirts with multiple layers of ruffling are NOT your friend for tiny, intricate, delicate hip work. All of that gets lost beneath the loose hang of the fabric and the thickness of the gathers. Save those moves for your mermaid-licious sheath-skirts, circle skirts, split or petal skirts.
In these ginormous skirts, heavier, bigger hip work with chunky ornaments, big tassels, thick layers of coins, and tucked skirt ruffles will be much more visible.
BUT! If you absolutely must do fancy hip work, some big skirts have less gathering in the top layer.
Certain belts can also draw that fabric in closer to your hips and show them off.
Wearing layers of dangling ornaments from the tiny to the large, from the top of your belt down to your butt and thighs (or beyond) can give you access to a wide variety of hip moves.
Your fast, little shimmies will make the tiny stuff shiver if you put them in the right spots.
Your big juicy hip-swings will make the big, long tassels sway.
Your hard-hitting hips will make the shorter tassels swish and pop, while making the shiny coins chink and twist.
It’s not impossible. You just have to get strategic in your moves and ornamentation.
What?! You mean we have to wear multiple layers of crap on our hips? Awwww, darn. (Heh-heh-heh.)
OOH-AHH: MAKING WAVES & RIPPLES IN YOUR SKIRT
To really make those ruffle ripples stand out, I recommend using some sort of contrast fabric on or near the bottom edge, or sewing on a contrast trim to the hem.
If the skirt is of uniform color or pattern, pairing it with a coordinated, but starkly contrasted under-skirt will provide the same effect.
If you go the layered skirt route, making sure that the under skirt hangs just a touch longer than the top layer will help make the contrast ruffle more visible.
GRASPING THE SKIRT
You’ll get the biggest bang for your ruffle-unfurling buck if you grasp the skirt at the seam where the bottom ruffle is sewn on. (Example: In the black-with-white skirt above—grab it at the seam where black meets white.)
If you have a large, full skirt, running your hands down the sides of your thighs to grasp it symmetrically—so there is as much fabric in the front as there is in the back—will produce the nicest unfurling in the greatest variety of moves.
If you’re more short on fabric than you’d like to be (hey, man, bigger skirts are more expensive), grasp it a bit toward the back, leaving more fabric in front of you. It’ll pull more tightly across your butt, but those butterflies and water spouts will look better with access to more yardage.
If you’re flinging all that fabric up in a spout behind you, obviously grasp it more toward the front.
If it’s somebody else’s choreography and you have to quickly switch back and forth between front and back moves…eh…experiment with your skirt and the choreography, and do the best you can. If the choreographer doesn’t like it, hopefully they can loan you a skirt big enough to let you do their dance justice.
Grasping the skirt by the very bottom edge produces a softer, more delicate look. It flies prettily, and is great for framing and spinning moves, or gentle ripples. I like to give my grasp a more delicate look too, using fingertips or fewer fingers, rather than a nice, tight fist for whipping & thrashing it around. (Still hold on tight though because it’s heavy. Just make it LOOK like it’s more delicate.)
Once you want that fabric to really beat the air and swirl, you’ll want to get ahold of it at that bottom seam again. You can either let go, do some groovy dance stuff, and get ahold of it from scratch, or toss it in your hands and re-grab it higher up—obviously the riskier move.
The sweat in your palms and repetitive grasping in the same spot can help to train your skirts, if you tend to grab them the same way most of the time.
I do not. Go figure. Instead, my skirts kinda train me. How To Train Your Beastie.
I mean Bella. 😜
DRAMA, CONTRAST & INTEREST
Holding the skirt in your hands is not the only way to make the ruffles fly and un-furl. Your knees, legs, and feet can do it, too. Time this with your footwork for the greatest flow and ka-POW!
To really give skirt work the dramatic flair that you’re hoping to achieve, use it more sparingly throughout the song. Provide plenty of sections in the dance where you…you know…just dance. That way, when you make the skirt fly in ever more creative and jaw-dropping ways along with the build in the music, the rippling ruffles will stand out as the highlights of the dance, rather than just one long, great, ripply sea.
Linear skirt flicks, pops, and slices can also break up all those curling infinities, butterflies and swoops.
Working the skirt out to the sides and in front is not your only swirly real estate. Swirl them and toss them up behind you as well.
Drape them across your body.
Grasp the skirt by its furthest edges, then pull one side over your head to drape it behind you. You can do this only on one side, or pull both behind you to make a criss-crossing effect. Unwind it the same way you got there, or just drop it. This one does require a lot of yardage and good shoulder flexibility.
Tuck up one or both layers into your belt. The cascades of the ruffles will add flourish to your hip moves and show off all those stripey colors.
Do this on one side or both.
Tuck up the front or pull it up during a dance to show off an underskirt or your fancy footwork.
While holding the skirt out at both sides, give it a vigorous toss like you’re drawing a really fast circle from your hips to your ribs with both hands. This flips the skirt up in the front (similar to making front-wings with a veil). Now your pants and feet are visible, and they have a pretty ruffled frame around them.
Pull one side out and wrap it halfway around you, tucking it at the opposite hip. Or wrap it fully around you and tuck it where you started, to create more of a sheath-skirt look. (This is nice with circle skirts, too.)
You can also do this on both sides - wrapping one side to the front and the other to the back, tucking them at the hips if you want both sides to have cascades of ruffles. Again, the poufs add flourish to your hip work, and provide nice pull-tabs for when you want to untuck the skirt and fling it around.
The Bustle: Grasp the skirt either at both sides, or a little bit toward the front, depending on how mermaid-ish you want the front to look. Tuck up both sides of the skirt at the small of your back like a bustle. This gives your hips an hourglass framing for yummy serpentine moves that are normally obscured by all those gathered, heavy layers. You can also see certain shimmies and hip pops better with the hips framed this way. You can easily untuck the bustle for all the skirt-nanigans.
Bonus: if you’re wearing a tassel belt with long dangles in the back like a tail, or flowers at the small of your back. You can frame these on either side with the bustle.
Oh, yeah. Did I forget to mention? Big skirts are not only big skirts. If you reach between your legs and grab the center-back of the skirt, pulling it up to the front and tucking it into your belt, you have big, floufy, ruffled pants. If it’s a circle skirt with no gathering, the pants will be much more streamlined.
Unfurl them with a couple covert tugs and voila! Insti-skirt!
WIELDING TWO LAYERS OF SKIRTS
When trying to get ahold of 2 different skirts so you can see that gorgeous contrast ruffle flashing from beneath the top layer, this is best done backstage where you can manually smash the two layers together, then tuck them into your belt for a pretty drape or bustle.
Make pull-tabs of the bottom ruffle seam grab-point. That way, when you pull them out of your belt, they’re already right there with both layers in your hands, voila! Hopefully the two layers will stay together.
Be warned: Skirts will plot against you at every opportunity.
Try not to take it personally.
The other easy way to get these two layers flying in synchronicity is to stick your leg out a little and dramatically smooth the skirts down the side of your thigh like you’re petting a cat. (Most skirts like this. They might even purr. Seriously, you have to make a dramatic act of this if you do it during a dance because it takes time, precision, and lots of practice to get both layers nice and smooshed together.)
The more dramatic way, and actually the simplest way—provided your skirts are not having a hissy-fit—is to spin vigorously and grab them on the fly. All that momentum will snug the bottom layer up under the top one, allowing you to get ahold of both of them.
Ideally. In theory.
Alas.
Skirts are temperamental assholes.
Never forget that they are easily slighted and will betray you for…breathing. Existing? Even if you’re super-duper sweet to them, sometimes they just like to throw you under the bus for the entertainment of it all.
Often they will give you one perfectly layered side, but withhold the bottom layer from your grasp on the other. Worse is when you are actually grasping both skirts, but the bottom layer decides to hide beneath the upper. Maybe it’ll play peek-a-boo for a second just to tease you. Otherwise…nope.
At this point, you have a lopsided butterfly.
Annnnd all the skirts point and laugh.
Jerks.
That’s okay. If you just go with it, it’ll still look fabulous…enough.
So there ya have it. If you have any other questions about my skirts, please ask! I love to nerd out about this stuff.
Also. I could be enticed to dictate this entire post and shoot real-time footage of what the bleep I’m talking about for those who learn better by seeing the fabric in action. If you’re super-duper hoping I’ll do that:
© 2025 Hartebeast
More about historical Skirt Dancers and my discovery of swirling fabric around in college:
Ugly Ducklings, Swans & Birds of Different Feathers
BellaDancer takes Ballet in college - she finds Loie Fuller, Isis Wings and Skirts Dancers instead.
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