Jane

"I invite you to attend this exciting CHOREOGRAPHY workshop for Turkish Gypsy Karsilama 9/8 with Skirt and Tambourine. Can't make it, you can order the DVD. The Kasilama is a style of dance, a rhythm, a religion in Greece and a traveling step. Turkish Dancers end their shows with this exciting dance. You were not considered a Belly Dancer if you could not master 9/8, it was the finale of all our shows in NY"

I got this in my e-mail. Kasilama is a religion?

Marya

Ok, Jane, you have to reveal who this came from!!

I have heard a lot of BS about 9/8 rhythms, but that one is right up there with Tsiftetelli being a temple dance. Everything in that statement reveals that the writer knows only fake Turkish dance or more kindly, Americanized Turkish dance.

it is true that 9/8 rhythms were the finale in the 5 or 7 part BD performances of the 60's and 70's, and they called the rhythm karshilama but they weren't dancing the dance known in Turkey as karshilama (which is a traditional folk dance.)

I have been told by people with whom I have studied various 9/8 technique, such as Morocco and Helene Eriksen, that skirts and tambourines are not part of authentic Turkish dance of any sort.

I guess it is true that you can travel across the floor with a number of movements that are appropriate for 9/8 rhythms.

I had hopes that some of this BS was dying out.

Marya

Jane

AMara Al Amir

Amara Al Amir

Marya

Well, looks like ordinary Belly Dance BS on her web site, I didn't see anything about Karsilarma as a religion, maybe that was a joke.

Marya

jenc

you have to click on newsletters and it's all there in the latest one, (with a link to Shira),s zills for 9/8

Oh and the dvd seems to be from the 1980s

Marya

Yep, the newsletter had it all plus a little more.

One thing that I learned quite a while ago when I was researching 9/8 rhythms is that Americans tend to call all 9/8 rhythms karshilama. karshilama is only one version of (maybe 40 or 50 versions) of 9/8. Tamzara for example, is actually a distinctly different type of 9/8. Greece, Turkey, Armenia, Bulgaria, and other countries (and cultural groups within those countries) all have music in 9/8 where the accented beat is on a different count. This is one of the many fascinating things about 9/8. Each version of course has a traditional dance that goes with it. Life long learning!!

I wanted to add that I have studied with Dalia Carella (who is referenced in Amara's website) in workshops a few times and she is the one who coined the term Dunyavi Gypsy Dance. She is very good about explaining that her dance style is Fusion and how she arrived at it and I don't think I ever heard her call it Belly Dance, or Turkish, or Spanish, or Indian, although all of those styles enter into her Dunyavi or Mundo styles.

Marya

Jane

Yes, I agree. I took one of Dalia Carella's Dunyavi workshops too, and she is very clear about it being her own invented fusion style.

Where could the religious idea about Kas. have come from? Maybe a misprint or a misstranslation? I'd like to give Amara the benifit of the doubt if possible.

Maria_Aya

I admit, i am greek and we dont discuss religion subjects, but i was in the karsilama sect, and now i'm at the masmudi sect as it is closer to my soul !!

Ofcourse Karsilama is not a religion in Greece !!!!!!!!!!!

Maria Aya, Athens

__________________
... www.orientalexpression.gr

Jane

Can I join your commune? Just kidding! I wonder if there's a baladi sect, I might like that one...

I never thought it was for real, I was just wondering where she could have gotten such a notion. I hope it was just a simple mistake. Does anyone know her to ask?

chryssanthi sahar

Dear Jane.

Karsilama is definitely NO religion in Greece, I wonder who fantasized this bullshit (Sorry for my bad manners, but sometimes I get mad, when I hear stuff like this).
As about authentic Turkish Roma dancing, look on youtube for videos of Serkan (Turkish male belly dancer, living in Belgium), or Ozgen or a bunch of other great Turkish male and female dancers who do "Roma Havasi" or "Romani" and you will see what is AUTHENTIC Roma dancing.
As about 9/8, it is indeed a misunderstanding, based on ignorance of some American belly dancers, to think that 9/8 is always Karsilama. It is not! The Greek Zeimbekiko is also 9/8 but it has absolutely nothing to do with belly dance, nor with Roma dances. It sounds completely different than Karsilama and you also dance it completely different. It has no relationship to Karsilama and even less to belly dance.
By the way, maybe somebody should tell this lady you are referring to, that what she writes on her web page about Karsilama is ridiculous

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