Zorba

Chryssanthi -

No doubt whatsoever. And I certainly am the very LAST person you'll ever hear saying women shouldn't do the Zembekiko (Sorry Maria!). What, after all the carping I do on the subject of male Belly Dancers?

I too have seen some very good women Zembekiko dancers. You go girl!

-Zorba
"The Veiled Male"
Zorba, "The Veiled Male"

Maria_Aya

.... raising her glass with wine and throwing it to the 17 year old dancer with the mini skirt that dance zeimbekiko and all men around look at her underwear !!!!
Well, when something takes the bad road you never know how it will end lol

Maria Aya

chryssanthi sahar

Come on Maria, there are not only 17 year old girlies in mini skirt, who dance Zeimbekiko They cannot dance it anyway. Same as the 17 year old boys. They look cute, when then try to dance it, but what they dance is just the effort of Zeimbekiko, not Zeimbekiko itself. You have to have life experience (and not only good experiences in your life), in order to be able to express Zeimbekiko. Do you understand, what I mean?

__________________
Oriental dancer and instructor of Greek origin, living in Germany
www.chryssanthi.com

Maria_Aya

I know but I still find it a very mascular dance

xoxoxo
Maria Aya

Aisha Azar

Dear Group,
I will just be making an assumption here, but this seems to be a masculine essenced dance in the same way that belly dance is femenine essesced??
Regards,
A'isha

Maria_Aya

Well.... every nation have a different culture,
We have men dances, women dances and group mixed dances.
For me (and its me personal but with me the 90 % of Greeks) its same "wierd" to watch a woman dancing zeimbekiko, as a man dancing greek chifteteli.
How can I say it, the psycological "income" (what am I writing here? lol) of viewing a woman dancing zeimbekiko is not the same as watching a man dancing it, even if he is a bad dancer. The same goes around for chifteteli.
Its a feeling as audience. And the general public here feels the same.
Even if we cheer our friends when they dance, and even if we dance sometimes (after glasses of ouzo, lol), its just not the same.

Ofcourse as life change and women is part of the working life, many lyrics of zeimbekiko adapt to women life's also, but traditional its for men.

Even with modern zeimbekika (the last 30 years written) for me the feeling is mostly for men.
Just posting here one of the best in lyrics to understand what i say, its a deep man pain in it. And yes a woman sings Sotiria Bellou, but... its Sotiria

With airplanes and ships, and with the old friends
we are runing in the darks but YOU dont listen us

You dont listen us that we sing with electric voices
in the underground roads
until our roots to meet your basic orders

My father Batis, came from Smyrna at 1922,
and he lived at a poor ground house 50 years of secrets

In this world the ones that love, eat dirty bread
and their desires follow an underground root

Last night I saw a friend, like a ghost at the road
on his bike and dogs following him

Stand up my soul and give me light
set fire on my clothes
but on the instruments fire
so our black spirit will jump
and our loud voice

Lyrics, music: Dionisis Savopoulos
Song: Sotiria Belou

Just an example, of the lyrics.
Ofcourse many speak about the lost love of a woman etc.

Maria Aya

Aisha Azar

Dear Maria,
Thank you so much for sharing the lyrics of the song. Its deeper and masculine meaning is clear even to those who are not Greek. I think this kind of sharing a can only lead to positive understanding for those of us who really want to "do it right". The feeling of the man who has struggled to survive and has suffered as no human being should suffer.... its so THERE in the song. It is about physical and psychological anguish.
Once I listened to a speech by the then president of South Africa. He said in one part of his speech that the black men who came to the cities to work did not need to have "superflous appendages as wives and children" to keep them worrying instead of paying attention to their jobs. The government had taken the wives and children and put them in what amounted to concentration camps. As I realized what this creepy president was really saying in his speech, I began to understand a little that the men suffered apart from the wives and kids, and their masculine qualities were a part of the reason for their suffering.
I see this same quality in the song that you translated for us and now understand the meaning of the dance much more. Thank you again.
Regards,
A'isha

Kiraze

It is interesting to read about these Greek folk dances - again a good reminder that dances in Mediterranean area have a lot in common

This is exactly the same way Turks think about dancing zeybek: it *is*very masculin dance and it can have either very sad and strong undertone or then it just can be very cocky - of course also in Turkey you can sometimes catch women dancing it but it is not very common. In Turkey there is also some different type of zeybek danced by women but they do not have that similar feeling as movements and music are much softer.

Yasmine Bint Al Nubia

This is a great topc and I'm learning so much.
Yasmine

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www.visionsofthenile.com

chryssanthi sahar

Well ladies (and gentlemen), I will disagree with my dearest friend Maria again. Zeimbekiko used to be men's dance one century ago, but it has become also women's dance already since the 50ies. It is very very common for women today to dance Zeimbekiko and there are thousands of songs with "female" subjects, sung by women, partially composed and got the words written by women for women. There is almost no Greek woman today who doesn't dance Zeimbekiko (except my dear Maria I suppose ). By the way Maraki, the song of Savopoulos you quoted, is originally not a Zeimbekiko, but a political ballad. I don't know when he brought it out as Zeimbekiko and had it sung by Sotiria Bellou. The original version of the song is from the early 70ies and I remember when it came out. I was a very young teenager then and I couldn't understand what the song was talking about. Anyway this song is not a typical example for Zeimbekiko. There are thousands of others which are more typical.
By the way, a typical "female" Zeimbekiko from the 60ies (or 70ies), sung by Doukissa (I think), says:
Eimai ego gynaika fina, derbenderisa,
pou tous andres san ta zaria
tous beglerisa
Which means:
I am a fine and tough woman,
who plays with the men like with dice

Questions?

__________________
Oriental dancer and instructor of Greek origin, living in Germany
www.chryssanthi.com