janaki

Hi all,

Has any one seen arabs dancers doing sword balancing??

Do Gawazees dance/danced with swords???

I haven't seen any arab dancers doing any balancing dance other than shamadan. Am I right???

Are there any historical references to arab dancers doing sword balancing??
( I have seen middleeaster men dancing with daggers and sowrds but not balancing. BTW,b My durmmers and his brother do an amazing dagger dance!!!)

I think this dance style is more loke ATS. What do you think???

What exactly you call this dance?? Sword dance?? Sword balancing dance? Sword Balancing Bellydance???

What do you think of this dance?? BTW, my egyptian drummer thinks it is load of show off crap. Very rude indeed. Very typical expressive eqyptian guy!!!

Cheers
Janaki

teela

you have asked a very good question. I don't think I've ever seen Egyptians use swords. I'm wondering if its strictly an American thing. I learned sword dancing from an American Cabaret teacher who did it as part of her act and when she had us do a dance with it for the troupe. I hope the people with more experience and knowledge give answers

Salome

This is something that has been discussed, rather passionately, around here before If you are asking me, no, according to my research, it is not an authentic prop to oriental dance.

Some people point to the paintings, depicting sword dancing, by women that came out of the 1800's during the touristic European influx to the Mid-East as historical proof that this prop is authentic to the dance.

But respected historians like Morocco, Artemis and others have explained that much of the art work, photography... of this era was fantasy, or contrived according to the Europeans vision of Eastern women. And really shouldn't be relied on as an accurate representation of the history and culture of the time.

Another piece of information to consider is the culture itself and its very defined roles of men and women and what is and is not acceptable behavior. This is a message I've heard time and again from Arab (men and women) in the Mid East.

If we look at the folk dances around today, like some of the men's dances, in the gulf, where they dance with swords, nowadays with AK47's. It's a macho, manly, show of power... The women's dances - gliding steps, sways with the hair, soft delicate movements. Consider too Tahtib from the Said. Another, quite manly, dance. The woman's counter, raqs assaya, soft, flirtatious, fun - not an aggressive display of weaponry.

Balancing, showing off a dancer's skill and dexterity is not a western innovation. There is the (brief) balancing sometimes done in assaya, the shemadan, dancing on goblets, dancers standing atop a tabla... But when we are talking about what is authetic to Oriental dance in particular - it would be inaccurate to cobble different elements together over a vast region (weaponry used by men in some dances, balancing in general, European fantasy) and apply it as a truism.

Too, if one Arab dancer did it/does it, does that automatically make it a customary part of the dance? IMO, no.

Clearly, I wasn't around in the 1800's so I cannot definitively say sword dancing didn't occur. Maybe there were some more isolated situations where it did, maybe it was something 'working women' did for the tourists - catering to the fantasy... I also don't know as much about the history of Turkish Oriental, so I could be missing out on something there. What we can say for sure is it's not a prop used in Oriental dance in countries of origin today or recently.

What I was told was that Leona Wood, a contemporary of Jamila Salimpour's, was inspired by the European paintings of the "Orientalist" age and brought the sword into her dancing (and I think her dance company too?) - this was in the mid to late 50's I believe. Jamila then went on to use that idea in the company she created, "Bal Anat", that was showcased at a Renaissance fair in Northern California. With various folks witnessing the act in "Bal Anat", ex
troupe members moving on and teaching/performing it... it spread over time to become a common prop to American Oriental dance.

As an American style Oriental dancer myself, I have done plenty of sword balancing. Though in these last few years I have not incorporated it in my performance so much. But it is a prop that works very well in this style. It can be very dramatic and American Oriental has the spirit of drama!

slinks

I did read elsewhere that sword balancing is not the done thing, as is floorwork and veil dancing, in true authentic Oriental .. I'm not right into the history of things, I just like to dance and I love the American Caberet dance a whole lot better... I really like your ending words ***American Oriental has the spirit of drama!*** and this is the reason I dance it ...

Kharmine

I have a magazine from 1893 -- The Illustrated American Special Number -- which was dedicated to the 1893 Chicago World's Fair and Columbian Exposition.

In it there are details of some of the Algerian and Tunisian performers of the Algerian Theater troupe. One sketch shows a woman in a high-waisted dress,a light headdress, and coins around her neck and forehead, a long sword (not a scimitar, more like an epee or light saber) in each hand. She may have been one of the Ouled Nail who were in the troupe, as mentioned by Donna Carlton in "Looking for Little Egypt."

The article about the Algerian Theater performance mentions a "gorgeous Arab girl.. holding a sword in each hand which she swung in threatening continuity to the heads of her crouching, yelling admirers." She comes in at the end of the various performances, does a dance with the swords as the Algerian orchestra performs, and the writer says her act gets the most applause.

At no point does she try to balance a sword on her head and, judging by the style I see, it would have been difficult as they're too heavily weighted on the handle end to stay balanced.

Unfortunately, the article only describes what the performers do from an American's perspective of seeing this for the first time, and while the dances sound like things I've seen that are at least close to traditional Middle Eastern dances, it's impossible to tell where this sword dance came from originally.

Algeria and Tunisia were French colonies for some time before this fair, and these are definitely professional entertainers (they also included jugglers, contortionists, musicians and "torture dancers" who swallowed weird things like scorpions). Savvy pros will always be ready to adapt to their audiences, and they may have picked up on this sword act strictly to please Western audience -- who knows where and when.

__________________
What if the hokey pokey is really what it's all about?

Salome

Floor work actually does have a basis in authentic Oriental dance. More so in the Turkish style and to a lesser extent Lebanese. Due to the legal restrictions imposed in Egypt on Oriental dance in the early 50's floorwork was banned. Though when performers do a folk dance, Shemadan for example, they can get away with it since it's 'folk' and not 'Oriental' and floorwork is a common part of the Shemadan performance.

Like many basic building blocks that differentiate one style from another, American Oriental has it's own stylization of floorwork...

chryssanthi sahar

Well, almost, but not 100% There are dancers in Egypt who balance a shisha (water pipe) on their heads and there are traditional dances in Morocco and Tunisia where they balance a tray with candles while dancing (Zahra, a famous Tunisian belly dancer here in Germany does this when she performs, for example)

Haha, he is right And still it is a fixed part of my performance programme Actually I almost hate it (I have been doing it for almost 20 years now), but the audience loves it, therefore I'm still doing it One has to use all possible tricks to fascinate the audience. But I never do sword dance more than one and a half minutes. Just a short show off and then the real dancing goes on

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

janaki

[quote=
Haha, he is right And still it is a fixed part of my performance programme Actually I almost hate it (I have been doing it for almost 20 years now), but the audience loves it, therefore I'm still doing it One has to use all possible tricks to fascinate the audience. But I never do sword dance more than one and a half minutes. Just a short show off and then the real dancing goes on[/QUOTE]


Me too. I love balancing. I used to dance with water pot and fire tray on my head when was younger. So balancing wasn't difficult for me. That is why I picked up sword balancing act. As you said it, people get fascinated by it!!!

Is anyone seen egyptian dancers doing it??? I heard Randa was dancing with Isis wings recently!!! May be you think sword is on the way.

My egyptian friends tell me, many people in arab world can balance things on their head. In thier daily lives they carry pots, shopping, bags and other stuff on their heads. My egyptian drummer says it is no big deal to balance a cane or a sword. Once I was danicng with cane on my head (saidi), he I asked me not to do it. He said, egyptian think it is no big deal.

Moon

Lol I think they're right about that! I've seen people in North Africa and Turkey balancing extremely heavy bags with bananas and other stuff on their heads and they can even run with it!

chryssanthi sahar

He is true again Balancing is nothing special, if you can isolate. Also in Greece we balance all possible stuff on the head while dancing. For example a glass of wine while dancing Tsifteteli or even Zeimbekiko. I balance also one single candle, as well as a glass full with wine (or whatever dark liquid it just has to be visible that the glass is not empty). I usually just take this stuff from some table, if I happen to dance in a restaurant. This whole balancing thing is funny, but it is just show. But as a professional dancer you need to impress your audience, even the part of it which doesn't understand much about the dance

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