what do you consider to be damaging to the future of Middle Eastern dance? - Page 23

Caroline_afifi · 07-21-2008, 09:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by masrawy

I wonder if the people here are familiar with this term, I would think the belly dance word is driven form that term some how.
raqs sharki vs. beledi/shaabi, well it's the deference between people who speak colloquial Arabic vs classical Arabic also what you ware in your dance galbia or badlh.
as for raqs shaabi it's more understood to be folclor kind of a dance it could be many thing. for example Freida Fahmi and here group did raqs shaabe. no one would call it raqs sharki but some of here solo is definitely raqs balady she never ware badlh. Regards~Mahmoud

Haz el west...shake your hips
Haz ya wiz..shake like a goose (said to anyone in the street who walks like an 'Egyptian')

Sah ya mahmoud?

Caroline_afifi · 07-21-2008, 10:07 AM

I have personally given up on making definitions as a room full of Arabs will all say something different as well as a room full of belly dancers.

If you know what they all mean and explain the problem then this will help with understanding the confusion at least.

Raqs Sharqi is used in Egyptian newspapers like the 'the star of Raqs Sharqi from the semi Ramis...etc' but not in conversation.
Try and define Shaabi, folklore, baladi etc. then that is were you have to be prepared to tie yourself up in knots.

Yesterday a male dancer gave a presentation about male dancers in the Arab world and lumped them all together under the heading belly dance. A dancer is in my experience always called a belly dancer whatever style she is performing.

All the reasons why I gave up..

Kharis · 07-21-2008, 10:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jenc

Well one thing that doesn't help is teaching entirely through choreography, particularly if it is the teacher's own. If progression through the classes then depends on how well you dance your teacher's interpretation. If you never see anyone else dance with passion............
In one way I am lucky that I got out of that............. but then I no longer have a teacher ................ but then again I never had one who wold look at me and think about how I dance!!!!!!!!

And this is why teachers should insist their students do at least some portion of the class in improvisation. After a year of tuition, I always teach students to improvise for themselves....and this means I step out from the front of the class and they're on their own for at least two pieces of music. it does them good and makes them use their own brains and creativity.

Aisha Azar · 07-21-2008, 02:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Caroline_afifi

I have personally given up on making definitions as a room full of Arabs will all say something different as well as a room full of belly dancers.

If you know what they all mean and explain the problem then this will help with understanding the confusion at least.

Raqs Sharqi is used in Egyptian newspapers like the 'the star of Raqs Sharqi from the semi Ramis...etc' but not in conversation.
Try and define Shaabi, folklore, baladi etc. then that is were you have to be prepared to tie yourself up in knots.

Yesterday a male dancer gave a presentation about male dancers in the Arab world and lumped them all together under the heading belly dance. A dancer is in my experience always called a belly dancer whatever style she is performing.

All the reasons why I gave up..

Dear Caroline,
I have noticed that Arabs do call it all "belly dance" if the think their listeners may not know that there are other styles of dance, etc. I may have said this already somewhere along here. But, for example. I have a friend who is Egyptian from Alexandria. he worked in hotels where the famous dancers dance and has seen many professional shows. He is an amazing street dancer and I have approached him about teaching some shaabi for me. He agreed that he might like to do so, but that I must make it VERY clear that he is not a belly dancer.He is by far not the first guy I have met who has cautioned me against thinking he is a belly dancer. I have noted over and over again that most Egyptian men do not want their dancing to be equated with belly dance.
Usually though, these men know me a professional dancer and they know me pretty well, not as a casual acquaintance. They also know that I know the difference between one style of dance and another, so they feel okay about using correct terminology. Women on the other hand, may refer to what they do as "belly dance", but will not usually cop to being a "belly dancer". they make a distinction between what they do and what the professional do even when they refer to their party dancing as belly dance. Like I said before, it is a complicated issue.
Regards,
A'isha

Aziyade · 07-21-2008, 02:15 PM

[quote=Caroline_afifi;80128]I have personally given up on making definitions as a room full of Arabs will all say something different as well as a room full of belly dancers./QUOTE]

YES! I've noticed this just in visiting different communities -- Arabs who go to the shows in Atlanta (and the Atlanta area dancers) say different things than the Louisville Arab show-goers (and dancers) and the St. Louis area contingent, and the Chicago, etc. And depending on the political/religious leanings of the person, they can say something completely different!

I've been working with a friend who is Moroccan and a chef. He's worked in Las Vegas, Atlanta, Orlando, etc -- at some of the biggest restaurants and convention centers, and he's worked around belly dancers for about 30 years. We were talking last night and I mentioned I'd just gotten back from another workshop, and he laughed. "It's good that you study, but it's just DANCE, you know," he told me. I told him I just wanted to represent the Arab culture as best I could, and to be as good a dancer as I can be. "That's great," he kept saying, "but you know it's JUST dance. It's not medicine. You're not daVinci. It's just dance."

This is about 99% representative of the Arabs (and Turks) I've met.
"Chill out; it's JUST dance."

The sun doesn't rise and set based on how well I can do a hip drop. Sometimes I just need to remember that.

Andrea -- your post (as always) makes SO much sense. And I can see it directed to people like me, who strive for technical perfection, often at the RISK of a loss of soul. I work to find a balance between great technique, great stage presence, and great "soul sharing" in dance. I just hope I'm getting there

When I mentioned about "stylizations" I mean the little persnickity stuff you see in some Tribal Fusion workshops -- don't let the arm undulation start in the shoulder, but rather in the elbow. Keep the elbow lifted to shoulder level. Every time the arm changes direction or velocity, do a little wrist floreo with it. When you end a reverse undulation, always end with a chest down or drop. THAT kind of stuff -- the "rules" that make so many of the TF student dancers LOOK so much like their TF mentors.

Aisha Azar · 07-21-2008, 02:43 PM

Dear Andrea,

Quote:

Originally Posted by Andrea Deagon

Since I'm coming to this late, I'll return to the original question -- what might be damaging to the future of Middle Eastern dance. And by "Middle Eastern Dance" I am understanding "belly dance," and belly dance I take more inclusively than some to mean both raqs sharqi and the dances that have developed from and around it in the West. Having defined my terms (sort of) --

How does your definition differ from all the other forms of fusion? I have always been curious about where and why people decide to draw the line other than at the ethnic dances themselves. Without the cultural connections that create that certain something, for me it is not belly dance.

Quote:

I have been in this for a long time -- about 34 years at last count. What I miss from my early days, and what I see creeping in that was not there when I began, is dancers who are very well trained -- yet utterly bland. They have learned the "correct" way to do things, and that is just how they do it. In the earlier discussion about teaching "stylizations," what I found puzzling was the idea that the dance exists in some pristing form that stylizations can be removed from. Every Egyptian (and for that matter Turkish) dancer of any quality that I have seen, had absolutely her own way of doing things. These ways arose from the excellences and sometimes the flaws of thier individual bodies, which were formed within their cultures and individual lives. Technical similarities? Yes. One right way, one classic form? Never.

For me if it is utterly bland, it is not the dance at all, but an excersize routine in a pretty suit with music. A dancer who dances this way is not a well trained dancer, she is a robot and since the dance is very much about life it misses the point. Perfect technique, as you say, does not exist in belly dance, but as westerners have worked toward making the dance all about movement, that has been the focus, and it is completely incorrect.

Quote:

Isn't it a factor of Western arrogance about this dance to think that we can somehow distill the "correct" way to do this dance and teach the Platonic "form" of the dance, as if we had somehow figured out how to hone down one right way from the many individual modes of dance?

I believe that there are "correct" ways to do movement in order retain a certain look and feel of ethnicity and cultural reality. Since you do not feel that the dance is based in ethnicity, nearly as I can tell from the opening statement of your post, you may not agree. But the thing is, that there are many variations and "correct" ways, not just one. And there are also incorrect ways. One reason why I am not so much in favor of a universal way of talking about the dance is because it would in all probability led to there being "one correct way" to make movement happen.

Quote:

Even more than fusion or "poppers and lockers,' I find it troubling that there are so many well-trained dancers who have not had to go the last distance on their own. They can be trained into being excellent dancers, without having to figure out the last bit, the place where their own soul takes over, all by themselves. I've seen more accomplished dancers in the past 5 years or so than ever before, but I see very few who interest me.

I would agree that I find few dancers who interest me, and for me a great part of the problem is that loss of the ethnicity that expresses something deeper than the dancer's needs and wants, that expresses an entire cultural outlook and reality. If the dancer refers to what she/he does as something other than "belly dance" when they are out there popping and locking, I can often appreciate the technical training, If they refer to it as "belly dance" it totally ruins it for me because I know that belly dance uses movement as a vehicle for expression and does not rely on movement alone be the whole picture.

Quote:

I would rather see a soulful, messy, dancer bubbling with life and mastery than a pretty, perfect ballet -belly girl any day. And this is not saying "I'd rather see a happy hobbyist than a soul-less professional," though I feel that too. This is saying, I want to see professional quality (or semi-professional) dancers who have found their movement through the lives lived in their bodies and have taken it to the very top, in the individual form their bodies and life experiences shaped for them, rather than gaining their expertise from a learning process that mimics all the flaws of the Western systems of dance.

I would rather see a holistic dancer who understands what she/he is doing and refers to it in such a way as to make sense in context of what she/he is offering the public. I can appreciate very robotic, technically perfect movement if the dancer clarifies for me what what she/he is doing. Calling it "belly dance" is a farce.

Quote:

I've sat through a number of show lately where I've thought as each dancer performed, "She's quite good, well-trained" and couldn't remember a one of them or any move anyone had done by the end of the night. And I didn't cry once. That is what I don't want our art (or our form of entertainment) to sink to.

For me, these dancers are not well trained, because belly dance does not mean executing "perfect" movement in the western sense. And I do not need a belly dancer to make me cry, but I do need her to tell me through her holisitic dance what she feels and to make me feel what she is feeling.

Dear Aziyade,
Well, if you speak to most people about most professions that they are not in they can take a much more casual attitude toward it. Its just cooking, or its just gardening, or its just ice skating to those who are not deeply involved in it. I would not expect to hear the same answer from an Arab professional dancer.

Regards to you both,
A'isha

masrawy · 07-21-2008, 02:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Caroline_afifi

Haz ya wiz..shake like a goose (said to anyone in the street who walks like an 'Egyptian')

Sah ya mahmoud?

laughing so hard .. I have to clean my monitor, splatter coffee all over it baaaad Egyptian do they say that to you. This would be sexual harassment in the US.~Mahmoud

Caroline_afifi · 07-21-2008, 03:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by masrawy

laughing so hard .. I have to clean my monitor, splatter coffee all over it baaaad Egyptian do they say that to you. This would be sexual harassment in the US.~Mahmoud

Glad I made you laugh... this is the milder form of sexual harrassment!

Caroline_afifi · 07-21-2008, 03:15 PM

A fairly well known Older Egyptian dancer once send to me..
'the West always neatly package things to sell it, here it is different'.

It is confusing once you get into details and it is not always about how much people think you know. I think we as dancers in the West often need to define more than perhaps your average Egyptian citizen. If you ask them directions they will always tell you which way to go even if it is wrong, the culture is to be as helpful as possible in my experience, but not always accurate.

Aisha Azar · 07-21-2008, 03:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Caroline_afifi

A fairly well known Older Egyptian dancer once send to me..
'the West always neatly package things to sell it, here it is different'.

It is confusing once you get into details and it is not always about how much people think you know. I think we as dancers in the West often need to define more than perhaps your average Egyptian citizen. If you ask them directions they will always tell you which way to go even if it is wrong, the culture is to be as helpful as possible in my experience, but not always accurate.

Dear Caroline,
I have noted that also, or I might say that accuracy means something different in Arab culture than it does in western ones. I have also found that it gets less confusing the more time I spend among Arab peoples from various nations, but not less easy to explain!! Some things even begin to take on a certain logic that I would not have been aware of 15 years ago!! It often takes being willing (and able) to step outside our own way of looking at things, setting aside our own worldview to try to see through another set of eyes.
For example, when I was in Cairo, I began to understand how Caireens view the begging situation. One day we were driving past a spot where every day a woman sat, eyes closed, propped up against a utility pole of some kind, no matter what the weather. She was very traditionally dressed in black and nothing was visible but her face. I spent considerable time worrying about her, actually. One day I mentioned to my friend's assistant who is Egyptian, that I saw this woman every day no matter how hot, no matter what, she always sat in the dirt by the pole, begging. Poor thing. She considered a moment in order to say just the right thing to me about it to try to make me understand. Her reply was "Do you go to work in America every day? I work every day at my job and this is her job. She comes here every day. It is like her office or her shop. It is where she works and this is her job." I began to
understand that it is possible to see beggars differently than I do. She did not see a poor creature, but a woman doing her best to make her way in her own world.She had a much less pathetic view of the woman than I did.

Regards,
A'isha

07-21-2008, 10:07 AM	#222 (permalink)
Caroline_afifi V.I.P. Join Date: Mar 2008 Location: Liverpool UK Posts: 1,285	I have personally given up on making definitions as a room full of Arabs will all say something different as well as a room full of belly dancers. If you know what they all mean and explain the problem then this will help with understanding the confusion at least. Raqs Sharqi is used in Egyptian newspapers like the 'the star of Raqs Sharqi from the semi Ramis...etc' but not in conversation. Try and define Shaabi, folklore, baladi etc. then that is were you have to be prepared to tie yourself up in knots. Yesterday a male dancer gave a presentation about male dancers in the Arab world and lumped them all together under the heading belly dance. A dancer is in my experience always called a belly dancer whatever style she is performing. All the reasons why I gave up..

07-21-2008, 02:15 PM	#225 (permalink)
Aziyade V.I.P. Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: Cornfields of Evansville Indiana. Posts: 1,050	[quote=Caroline_afifi;80128]I have personally given up on making definitions as a room full of Arabs will all say something different as well as a room full of belly dancers./QUOTE] YES! I've noticed this just in visiting different communities -- Arabs who go to the shows in Atlanta (and the Atlanta area dancers) say different things than the Louisville Arab show-goers (and dancers) and the St. Louis area contingent, and the Chicago, etc. And depending on the political/religious leanings of the person, they can say something completely different! I've been working with a friend who is Moroccan and a chef. He's worked in Las Vegas, Atlanta, Orlando, etc -- at some of the biggest restaurants and convention centers, and he's worked around belly dancers for about 30 years. We were talking last night and I mentioned I'd just gotten back from another workshop, and he laughed. "It's good that you study, but it's just DANCE, you know," he told me. I told him I just wanted to represent the Arab culture as best I could, and to be as good a dancer as I can be. "That's great," he kept saying, "but you know it's JUST dance. It's not medicine. You're not daVinci. It's just dance." This is about 99% representative of the Arabs (and Turks) I've met. "Chill out; it's JUST dance." The sun doesn't rise and set based on how well I can do a hip drop. Sometimes I just need to remember that. Andrea -- your post (as always) makes SO much sense. And I can see it directed to people like me, who strive for technical perfection, often at the RISK of a loss of soul. I work to find a balance between great technique, great stage presence, and great "soul sharing" in dance. I just hope I'm getting there When I mentioned about "stylizations" I mean the little persnickity stuff you see in some Tribal Fusion workshops -- don't let the arm undulation start in the shoulder, but rather in the elbow. Keep the elbow lifted to shoulder level. Every time the arm changes direction or velocity, do a little wrist floreo with it. When you end a reverse undulation, always end with a chest down or drop. THAT kind of stuff -- the "rules" that make so many of the TF student dancers LOOK so much like their TF mentors.

07-21-2008, 03:15 PM	#229 (permalink)
Caroline_afifi V.I.P. Join Date: Mar 2008 Location: Liverpool UK Posts: 1,285	A fairly well known Older Egyptian dancer once send to me.. 'the West always neatly package things to sell it, here it is different'. It is confusing once you get into details and it is not always about how much people think you know. I think we as dancers in the West often need to define more than perhaps your average Egyptian citizen. If you ask them directions they will always tell you which way to go even if it is wrong, the culture is to be as helpful as possible in my experience, but not always accurate.