Aisha Azar

[quote=Aziyade;82789]Egyptians are doing Tribal and I'm seeing more and more Lebanese students living here exploring Tribal style.





Dear Aziyade,
Which Egyptians are doing Tribal and can you direct us to video?

Nur Al Leyali

Thank you sweety !!!!! I usually get made fun of lol . I speak funny in my texts because i was taught in a catholic shool with italian nun since i was little lol Sooooo thank you hahahah. But , It is seriously how i feel about that form ... Its beautiful In its own Facination.

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Nur Al Leyalitmagill@ymail.com

TribalDancer

Just so we're clear, RB is not specifically "tribal". SHe really is her own animal, and tribal ain't it. But tribal FUSION is the closest anyone has come to aknowledging that. So when you see the hip hop fusiony, dark, serious, pop-n-lock stuff, you are seeing a tribal derivative called tribal fusion, not tribal.

It always gets me a bit irked when I hear people use Rachel as an example of "tribal", because it is simply not an accurate representation. Entertaining? Yes. Mesmerizing? Yes! She is incredibly beautiful and talented. but tribal...not much...

Aziyade

Egyptians involved in Tribal:

Nashwa in Berea has a group doing ATS. I have to make sure of my facts here, but I'm pretty sure she learned ATS Fat Chance style from Carolena, who frequents the Lexington area a lot. I know she knows Carolena personally, so I'm assuming she was her teacher.

This is a montage of their student show last year -- there's a little ATS (BUT - this may actually be choreographed stuff, I'll have to check.)

YouTube - Nashwa: Sharqi meets Tribal

(and to pimp her, cause I love her, here's a clip from Nashwa's Sharqi performance dvd from the Hakim tour -- available on her site.)

YouTube - Nashwa Egyptian Bellydancer Opens for Hakim


Yasina (sp?) (we know her as Yaz) studied in LA with the Dance Garden ladies and came back to teach ATS Tribal in St. Louis for a while before moving to the DC area. I only have a show video of her, nothing on line. She came to America when she was in her late 20s and is now, hmm... 50 something, I guess. She doesn't have a website, and I don't know of any youtube video of her. I think she might be on one of the MEDINA dvds though.

Miriam (Reem) Metegar in Nashville is part of an ATS group. She is Egyptian, but went to school and was raised in Syria, so I don't know if she technically "counts." I don't think I've ever seen her perform anything other than ATS, but she may also dance Sharqi.

Some of the members of the Coptic Society in St. Louis were taking ATS classes for a while and had a mother-daughter troupe. Most of the daughters were born here, but the moms are native Egyptian.

There was a blended "pan-Arab" troupe in Ann Arbor that had at least one Egyptian in it, but was mostly Lebanese, I think. There's also an Atlanta-based music and dance society for Muslim women, and they sponsor an ATS class. Not all the members are Egyptian, but at the very least, I know 2 or 3 are. They have a yahoo group that discusses what they like and don't like about American belly dance.

My former neighbor was taking an ATS class for while before their son got involved in soccer. They were both born and raised in Cairo before they moved here in the early 2000s.


I used to wonder if Arab women were interested in ATS because they seemed to be a little more covered-up in performance, but these days I don't think that's actually a big factor. I guess they like it for the same reasons everybody else does.

Aziyade

I know we've started referring to group improv style Tribal as ATS -- and I suppose Fat Chance style ATS is now Tribal Pura? Is that correct?

But you're right that people new to the dance sort of think "Tribal" = TF and Rachel style dance.

One other thing: I was watching "Underworld" the HMC dvd, and one of the performances was listed as "Group Improvisation" -- which you could tell SOME might have been improv, but the vast majority of the piece was obviously choreographed. That bugged me. Group improv should be group improv, not long sequences of pre-memorized combinations. That's just my grumpy old 2 cents, and I might be off-the-mark, but it doesn't sound like the latter would be much fun to actually dance.

Aisha Azar

Dear Aziyade,
So, basically, you are talking about American dancers, or Egyptians who are living here.... not Egyptian dancers in Egypt??? That would make a little more sense. In all honesty, I don't think any of the Arabs that I know, including Egyptians, consider it to be belly dance. From the young Arab girls here who are doing something akin to belly dance, they refer to it as their own creations. "I do my own thing" is a common phrase.

Aziyade

Yes, the only Egyptians I know personally are those who are either living here now, or were/are temporary residents here for school, work, etc.

I'm not sure they would consider themselves "American" though, even after having lived here for several years. If I were in their position, I would probably consider myself an expatriate. I'm sure there is a similar, non-Western term for the same situation.

Makeda Maysa

Well, that's a bit of a sticky wicket. (Tribaldancer, if you know more, please correct if I'm wrong.) Lately, Carolena has been saying that ATS is only what is performed by FCBD (and Megha, I think). As the creator of ATS, IMO, she has the right to say what ATS is and is not. Any other group improvisational tribal style, is just that, group improv. Some people have started using ITS, for improvisational tribal style, and there are other acronyms floating about.

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The Niraja Dance Company www.thendc.net

Aisha Azar

Like many Americans, they hang on to their heritage. I know third and fourth generation Arabs of my acquaintance still consider themselves to be Arabs. They rarely marry outside the Arab community and they still retain a lot of Arab ways on some levels. Many of hem by the 4th generation can not even speak the language but they still consider themselves to be Arabs. I have seen this same behavior in Russians, Asians and other groups of people who manage to have strong affiliations within their own cultural community. In the Eastern U.S. you find it among French speakers and in California among Spanish speakers. In Florida you find it among Cubans, etc. The cultural affiliation is important and alive, and often is stronger than any nationalism.

Tribal Belly Dance Malta

When I first started "Tribal" I called my self an ATS Dancer, but over the years this has changed and evolved. When I first became a teacher, I taught in a very strict style, taken from FCBD and Gypsy Caravan, but as time flows so my teaching style changed and I found myself teaching more "Fusion" with choreography, until I felt a thousand miles and a decade away from my tribal belly dance roots. But having said that, my troupe class has suddenly become enthusiastic about cues and improve again, to them its all new, and its exciting them.
But if we really consider tribal,.......... its a concept, that stole all the best bits from around the world and fused them into a "authentic" mould to our liking and so really what is ATS?
And please tell me if I am wrong but my memory is not great! But the debate at the beginnings of ATS was, who created ATS, Caroleana is quoted as one of the originals, but she was herself inspired from her teacher? (cant remeber the name)

The wheel turns and we are always changing back to the beginning

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Atlantis