Caroline_afifi

A general answer to the slow dancing part.

Has anyone seen the UZUME?

They are classed as tribal/fusion and not usually something I follow with interest but these girls are amazing. They work the clubs of Amsterdam with very unusual pieces of music and a majority of it is slow.

A club make not want someone to wear their 'heart on their sleeve' etc. but all other performance venues provide an opportunity for something different.
As performers, we are in danger of getting caught up in the whirlwind of fast dancers with tricks and feel that what we do may appear boring.

Audiences in my experience actually tire of seeing fast paced constantly moving dancing, and the one who comes on with slower dliberately placed expression can stand out even more.

Organisers of shows need to space performances correctly as spacing and progression is very important (few people have a clue about this), and not everyone in a red costume in the same half.

Providing these things are in place I would suggest anyone think twice before always being audience driven and guessing what they want all the time.
We are not childrens entertainers. If your audience and employers dictate what you do, then your artistic integrity maybe being compromised.
This is were we enter the art versus entertainment debate (alive and well on another thread).

Andrea Deagon

One of the things that is exciting about seeing dance performance -- not the only thing, but one thing -- is seeing power in the dancer -- just that physical juice that is flowing and growing and exceeding its barriers and moving through the performer's body. Tito has that in abundance. That "liquid, growing" energy is very Dionysiac -- very ecstatic, with its own ability to get you out of your self and your concerns, as an audience member.

Peppy stuff is par for the course with the average professional dancing situation, in my experience -- as others have commented, no one wants to see your deep emotions while they are having their nice dinner.

OTOH, that really powerful energy, is also not recommended for the average restaurant gig; you will tire them out.

Bummer about that sort of limitation.

OTOH there are some places, like a baladi taqsim, where you can achieve some sort of interiority if you care to, without overtaxing the patrons.

I think by interiority I mean a kind of removal from ordinary interactive relationship with the audience, and moving from a place where they become observers of an experience that is lived emotionally from where you are, not from where they are. They come along on your ride. Now you are not necessarily ignoring them and their emotional vibe, you are responding to it, but you're doing so by adopting a kind of intensity that gives the illusion of coming completely from inside. I'm not saying it is a conscious deception -- it is a natural response to the performance situation. I think we also think it's "Expressing deep emotions" or some such, whereas actually you are adopting a kind of transparency.

In any case, I do think this is feminine in one sense: the patriarchal cultures in which all of us live have an extensive network of images and expectations that tie females to interior emotional experience. Female genetalia: interior. Women's traditional work: interior. Women's emotional lives (in the eyes of the dominant culture): interior, obscure, unseen.

But the clarifying of this interiority is very sexual, even if there is nothing overtly sexual about it. If someone is really enjoying sex in a deep way, completely lost in the sensation and the moment and the mutuality, you often have the same sort of emotional clarity that comes out in a good baladi taqsim.

While our audiences are male and female, the female members have (in most patriarchal cultures) learned to "read" culture from the masculine standpoint, and to experience similarly, far better then men have learned to read from the feminine standpoint.

So a mixed audience, or an audience of men, will respond much more favorably to this kind of sexually-charged interiority from a woman rather than from a man. A man might feel it, but I think that in different ways, both Middle Eastern and Western cultures make it hard for an audience to receive that energy from a man. So men are discouraged from giving it.

I think in the case of singers, the "plot" of the song gives a context for the man's expression of emotion, so there is a plot, a frame for the kind of emotion he will get from the audience. The plotlessness of belly dance makes the interiority and emotion of the male performer take shape only with relation to the audience (though maybe the men should work with really intense songs by male artists to bridge that gap?)

__________________
"I am not contradictory, I am dispersed." (Roland Barthes)

taheya

Caroline you wont be disappointed- I thought he was wonderful doing Oum Kalthoum!

cathy

Dear Andrea,

I read this post thinking "Yes! True! YES!" to every sentence! I LOVE the growing Dionysiac energy thing! I love just sensing that certain dancers not only have this vast potential at their disposal, but also have the ability to CONTROL it and not just certain settings so to speak--trickle, medium, full blast. They can adjust it infinitely, almost lazily, if you know what I mean.

Also I totally agree about how it's a bummer that there aren't a lot of venues and situations to really express the full potential of all this, for people who really want to see and appreciate it. The "don't distract people from their dinners" thing.

I love being pulled into a taqsim--I now understand what you mean by interiority and how it is more accepted or approved as done by women.

Totally agree that women are trained to "read" culture from a masculine standpoint.

Very interesting that the "plot" of songs is told from a masculine POV and yet it's women who are the approved emotional conduits of same.

I think Tarik made the point elsewhere that in Arabic music it's more OK for men to express deep tender emotions (crying over heartbreak, it primarily seems to me) than it is in Western culture. But we have usually a woman dancing these lyrics. Interesting.

P.S. Tito has a great butt. And I like the women performing in drag thing too.

Cathy

Suheir

Absolutely. There is a tendency for some audiences here to be of the opinion that a dancer "isn't doing anything" unless they're rushing about the stage, arms and legs flailing. I've heard comments from "experienced" teachers and performers here which would indicate that they have no understanding and no appreciation of the subtleties and nuances of Egyptian dance; they are *always* the performers who are, themselves, completely "dead" in the abdominal area when they perform, believing that emotion is expressed onstage through grimacing and mock-anguish. And, of course, their students can be heard expressing the opinion that *their* teacher is a better dancer than Randa or Dandesh or whichever Egyptian has just performed!

Caroline_afifi

Someone somewhere has to initiate change. Audience education is an important aspect of what we do.
At some point we have to do what is true to the dance, it's essence, heritage and culture etc. We must resist the urge to be driven by an audience who either dont know what it is about, or are students watching to learn.
Nobody wants to be bored watching dance but this has no relation to speed and people need to learn this. Sometimes I feel we are stuck on a wheel and cant jump off on this one.
I love high energy pieces but I have no fear of expressive pieces either.
Clarity is so important in dance. We need to see the 'full stops' when people dance, we need time to absorb what they are doing. How can we get this if everyone looks like a wasp around a honey jar?
Feeling has to be called upon like an actress in a scene. You cannot fake emotion and 'put on a face'. When we dance for a living (or because we made a commitment to someone etc.) we dont always feel like dancing, there maybe personal problems etc. so we have to draw on an emotion we have experienced which relates to the muisc. Some people only conjour up the last image of themselves having sex and recreate it to music..Porno face. Either this or they think it is authentic and looks like Dina? the mind boggles.

Aisha Azar

Dear Caroline,
[quote]I have found this to be entirely possible, especially if we talk about what we are doing before we do it. People like to hear an explanation for what they are seeing, as long as it does npot go on too long.


And until we are truthful with OURSELVES about that, we can never be truthful with our audiences.

Nuance, subtlety and texture are three of he most important aspects of a sharghi performance. The changes in tempo, feeling, and movement are all necessary to a good performance. Slowness is not boring, but a never ending slowness against the wrong music, or a totally frantic endless set of movements without attachment to the music, or even great technique without any emotional input are all boring. I danced in a restaurant for 12 years and did not alter the dance to fit any specific criteria, and .... well... as I said, a full raqs sharghi performance was popular enough there for me to be the house dancer for 12 years in an Arab restaurant. We had mostly American customers with about a fourth to a Third ARabs except on nights when we did Arab parties.

Yes, there are nights when we just don't feel like it. But often, once the music reaches in and gets to your soul, problems are forgotten and the dance is all that matters in the moment. You might get off the stage and remember every problem in your life,but for the moment, it all just goes away and I am dancing.
Regards,
A'isha

lizaj

Back off holiday and late to answer.

I heard it from someone he is...blah blah.. sounds like passing on gossip and that is not necessary in a discussion and very wrong.
You could do harm although I dare say a dancer of his calibre is far too busy to read your gossipy tit bits.

You are supposed to discuss a dancer's skill, style etc. surely ?

Their private life is none of your business and irrelevent anyway.

lizaj

ER just to clarify, I wasn't teaching then and I might have got the hot flushes but that's not down to any man only the bl**dy hormones.
Khaled does affect me in that he made me realise belly dance wasn't just for women and I reckon I have learnt more from him than any other teacher. I don't lust after him..my lust is reserved for Sean Bean and Johnny Depp and last week had I been single and 30 years younger ( er no 40) I would have taken up the plea of the mother of Mahmoud (the delicious taxi driver from the West Bank)to find him a wife.Dear Lord it's a long time since I have seen so handsome man.

Aisha Azar

Dear Lisaj,
Being gay does often affect how someone dances, just as being male of female does. I did not think of it in terms of it being anything to do with his private life any more than I would think of me being straight and female has anything to do with my private life. It is who I am and there for all to see. But.... you are right. I forget that the word "gay" is considered by many to be a derogatory term. I have some people that I love very much who are gay and it usually does not occur to me that it is a bad thing to say about someone.
Regards,
A'isha