Khaira

Hello everyone!!!

It's been ages since my last posts. Now I'm here with some new thoughts. The last weekend was festival weekend here in Tallinn. Me and my troupe Müstika debuted with a 17 minute dance performance called Evolution. Hopefully clips of it will soon be visable in Youtube. It featured the main eras of egyptian oriental dance.

My task was to make two parts, the golden era and the 80's. For that I spent weeks behind clips of Samia Gamal, Tahia Carioca, Suheir Zaki and Naqua Fouad. The first one was somewhat familiar to me, because I have takes a workshop about the soft style of Samia and my personal style is time-to time look-a-like. Thats what people tell me. Now it was up for me to interpret these great legendary dancers and make full 3minute dances inspired by them.

I run into difficulties, more like into surprises The problem is, most of these dancers are without special dance training(oriental/classical/etc). As they say in Cairo, every girl is a born dancer. That's true! But me, trained in dance for 15 years, I had to go back to being more stiff and cornerly and less soft. It's a different kind of softness that they have, something like the inner womenlyhood that makes a woman graceful, but can be SO much more when trained.
I saw many moves that I tell my students it's big NO NO. Like keep your shoulders down, isolate the lower moves from upper ones....... None of it is true in the legend cases. I had to tell my self repeatedly to turn my toes bit inwards while doing hip-drops

But still this un-trained woman body was a holy symbol in the golden era or the 80's. Admired and appreciated then and now. Some explain this as being extremly natural! And the I understood, I can never be natural again, my body is so dance trained, it fits into the category of a 21st century dancer standards. And in the end when I want to educate myself more in the old styles I just have to let go, let go of the control

Your thoughts on the subject?

Kaidi

Aisha Azar

Dear Khaira,
I think it sounds like you have been initiated into the western of concept of "isolation", which means something different in western thinking than it does in Middle Eastern dance. Isolation in the West seems to mean something along the lines of "Hold everything else really still and do this one thing so it looks like nothing else is moving. So, we end up with these very crisp, clean, robotic movements, and that, along with a strict choreography and a detachment from emotional content, has made the dance unrecognizable as Middle Eastern belly dance when performed by many western dancers. This is not to say they are not talented and well trained dancers, only that what they are doing is now something different from the authentic dance.
"Isolation" in terms of Middle Eastern dance is rather like the wave that is isolated from the rest of the ocean as it comes to shore. ( I have used this metaphor before, and I think it was successful, so I am revisiting it.) Just as the rest of the ocean behind the wave is not holding still, the rest of the body is not holding still, but instead moving in subtle ways to support the movement the dancer is making the focal point of her/ his efforts. It is "isolation" Middle Eastern style, more free in its basic idea.
I would also not say that dancers like Carioca, Gamal, etc, were not without dance training. It just did not fit so well into the box that is western formal dance training. ( And it still doesn't, even when Nagwa or Randa takes ballet or whatever, because there is always the cultural filter through which that training is being absorbed!!) They had to change the folk and family stuff considerably to make it acceptable and glamorous in the clubs and in the movies, and that DID take special training. We need to step out of the western cultural boxes in order to take a closer look at them and what they do!
Regards,
A'isha

Khaira

Indeed! But don't get me wrong, I'm not at all trying to make clean isolations, I'm not fond of it at all, more like trying to align myself and my students so that the body moves more fluidly.

Suheir

Earlier this year I took a Masterclass with Farida Fahmy in which she reiterated that the Western concept of isolation is incorrect - the whole body flows along. It *is* especially evident that this is true from watching Samia Gamal. When someone stands stock-still and just moves one part of their body they're again reduced to the muscle man showing how clever he is by flexing one set of muscles in isolation.

Aziyade

I think when, at least Americans, refer to "isolating the movement" they're trying to help beginners who seem to be unable to move their hip without their whole body behind the movement.

I'm always surprised at how beginners throw their whole body into a movement. They often can't lift a hip without the shoulders and torso going along for the ride. I can see this is probably how the term "isolation" got invented...

Kharmine

That makes sense. We're still building a vocabulary here, aren't we?

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

Lydia dubai

Dear Khaira...I think you are a lovely dancer that is first...i dont know if i understand correctly what you mean...But i will tell you what i see a lot...many dancers are coming to my classes to learn more and more and specialy if they are trained dancers (other styles) jazz classic ballet enz ...they have difficulty to relax when they dance and it shows...i have to tell them all the time to soften and not try to look like a ballerina...i know it sounds weird but i tell them relax the body but cary your skin so your posture stay,s beautifull...but inside your skin relax...than things come out much better and look more round ,relax ,and natural .....perhaps you can think about this and it helps you a bit to ,,feel,, the way it sits nicely and easy on and in your skin when you dance...have a great danceday Lydia

Khaira

Yes, the american purpos of isolation in dance lessons sounds very reasonable. Sometimes students do shimmies, but their fingers(!) shimmy along And this is where they do have to isolate the fingers.

To Lydia.
Indeed, I had the same issue when I started, I was too tense from my previous trainings(russian body school basically). So now I have found pleasent freedom and softness in my dance. I recently gave a choreography workshop. But it was with a direction to the essence of dance. It was for students who already have the technique and are learning dances. How to make moves have essence and how to really feel dancing? So the things I explained to my students, one of my principles, was:

Performative dance is a mixture of control and freedom. For that we did improvisational exercises. Example: While doing a basic figure eight, we tried how would the upper body organically go along, what happens if you let loose and what do you feel when you are completly stiff. And what happens if you are inbetween. So the key is to maintain a basic contol but to find the space in the body to play in and have fun and to invent.

Kharmine

I think this has a relationship to what "choreography" means in Oriental dance. Unlike ballet, jazz, even modern dance, it's not about a fixed set of moves decided in advance -- it's more of a kind of general plan (basic control) that goes along with improvisation to the music (freedom, play, invention).

Or am I comparing apples to oranges here?

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

Khaira

This all is true when we speak of choreographed dance, because one may obviously dance jazz-ballet-modern with improvisational tools. But generally, when watching a ballet performance, I can see everything is fixed and previously agreed on. In oriental dance case, it can be both. If I dance in a troup I don't have as much freedom in moves as I would have as a soloist. If I dance someone else's choreo. I should be a style-clean as possible if the teacher hasn't stated otherwise(sometimes they let Your instincts quide You, and say for exapmle add some arms you are most fond of). If I dance my own choreography then it's the case of basic control and immense freedom at the same time, because I know the music, I know my ideas and I can play with the old and the new(spontanuous). And if I do 100% imporvisation it's the same with control, but the mind is in the state of a clean paper, I do what I do, decide in the secisions of 1/1000 seconds, that means play has extended it's limists.