So confused!!!

Z

Zeph

New member
Hi there! I’m kind of writing this in distress, please do not judge me for I’m speaking my mind without putting anything in bad or good.
I’m so tired of watching video of BD on Instagram of these dancers in Egyptian weddings which people deem as BD. I feel it has become more of a skinshow (pls I’m not against it; I go topless at nude beaches) rather than showing artistic skills. It’s about hips going whoosh whash and shaking bbs. I’m restarting my BD journey and I don’t know where to learn authentic and non fusion BD. No hip hop or ballet BD, I want intensely honest dance with knowledge. PLS HELP, if you can tell me who to watch on YouTube or who to read on Google. Workshop recs are welcome too even tho I don’t have any plans to travel and oh I live in Toronto.

thank you xx
 
Greek Bonfire

Greek Bonfire

Well-known member
I'm not sure what you mean here as hips sometimes do go <whoosh> and that is authentic. I'm also not sure what you mean by skin show because some skin does show, unless you are talking about the skanky costumes they now wear in Cairo. You might want to look for Cory Zamora on Facebook and connect with her on taking online lessons. She's more old school and is pretty true to the Amcab form.
 
Z

Zeph

New member
Greek Bonfire said:
I'm not sure what you mean here as hips sometimes do go <whoosh> and that is authentic. I'm also not sure what you mean by skin show because some skin does show, unless you are talking about the skanky costumes they now wear in Cairo. You might want to look for Cory Zamora on Facebook and connect with her on taking online lessons. She's more old school and is pretty true to the Amcab form.
Click to expand...

Thank you for replying! Couldn’t put my finger on it, by whoosh I meant lacking technique. I don’t mean discouragement towards diversification in BD but from my eye it’s become an empty market selling show with less artistic knowledge. By skinshow- what you said, skanky costumes in Cairo which has become the face of the art but in true manner it’s deeper than Cairo shows.

I’ll be contacting Cory, thank you for the recommendation!
 
T

Tourbeau

Active member
I was planning on going back to being a full-time lurker, but since this post is relevant to what I said the other day, I will link it here and say some more, because those comments really didn't belong in the other thread anyway.

http://www.bellydanceforums.net/threads/selling-the-forum.20116/post-244000

The reason you are seeing "garbage dancing"* is because that is representative of the current state of dance in Egypt. There are very few native belly dancers of high caliber working, and their gig industry is dominated by Eastern Europeans who dance a very energetic, balletic, and aggressive version of the dance. (I was going to say "Egyptian dance" there, but the truth is they also beat up Khaleeji and Iraqi music with the same enthusiasm, too.)

The Egyptian gig industry has never completely recovered from the Arab Spring, and a good chunk of what's left has become tourist kitsch (as if COVID didn't devastate tourism). If you've ever done or seen a public gig in North America, you know non-natives usually aren't discriminating consumers of nuanced artistry. Many of those foreign tourists to Egypt (or the Emirates and their nightclub scene, for that matter) actually like trashy costumes and too-much-cowbell dancing because that's what Hollywood has conditioned them to think belly dancing is, and the locals who think belly dance is immoral aren't going to tell them otherwise.

Then there's the music and the generational shift. This video is from 2020, but it explains a lot. Sorry, Zorba, I know...
https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=2797275590552020

And this happened Last. Month.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-59960477
https://m.republicworld.com/world-n...ated-after-activists-support-articleshow.html

Dancers were bemoaning that traditional raqs sharqi was on life support a decade ago, and the situation has definitely gotten worse.

* So I do have to acknowledge that the Wokegentsia are not incorrect to say that Egyptians should be able to do whatever they want with their own culture. If young Egyptians want to listen to somebody rhythmically yelling over beat loops, and jump around like they are in a hip-hop video circa 2003, who are we imperialists to oppress them by pointing out that the older music was compositionally superior and the dancing was more elegant? If they want to reject their indigenous arts, we can't--and on some level shouldn't--stop them. But I'm not going to go much farther down this road, because it turns into an argument that people shouldn't care about studying and preserving Latin because it's a dead language and everybody in Italy speaks Italian now.
 
T

Tourbeau

Active member
Anyway...There are a number of Egyptian teachers who promote themselves on Facebook. Wander into any regional MED group and you can probably find Ahmed Hussein and Nada El Masriya posting, but both of them are going to be bringing some ballet with them.

It has been a growing problem that after the "Nerve Is All You Need to Call Yourself an Expert" era ended for traditional belly dance, teachers who wanted to promote themselves as dancers of authenticity became increasingly dependent on having professional folkloric experience (e.g., Reda Troupe) or at least studying under somebody who did. This means the few teachers who were qualified to teach "Real" style and not heavily influenced by staged professional folklore (the ones who dance as "just folks") became increasingly rare. There are still some of them out there, but they're not always easy to find.

If you want a general Arabic throwback style, you might look into Alia Mohamed in LA. I don't know if she does remote lessons, but I think she is one of the best retro dancers out there. (I personally wish she would build a higher wall between her MED and burly pursuits, though.)

Finally, if you are in Toronto, so is Yasmina Ramzy and a number of her former graduates. https://www.yasminaramzyarts.com/ I'm sure there are other good teachers in that area, but one of my teachers had experience with Yasmina and was very impressed by her.
 
Greek Bonfire

Greek Bonfire

Well-known member
Yasmina is an EXCELLENT source! She is frequently promoting her classes and events on Facebook. I took a workshop with her several years ago when she was passing through Chicago and I was just so happy with it.
 
H

hippyhips

Member
I liked your approach to this, to say that none of these arguments are invalid is great and I agree with you on 99.99% of this (and I'm not getting into what I don't agree with - its nothing of importance). But i have heard through the grapevine that things are starting to improve. Egyptian people are starting to "rediscover" (for lack of a better word) belly dance (and according to Randa Kamal) She is starting to see more Egyptian people taking HER classes also. there has been a "lessening" of restrictions of late too, ive seen floor work being done in Egypt and sagat being played by Egyptian dancers. While the over all "oppression" of the art remains, there does seem to be a light somewhere. After a discussion with a friend who goes to Egypt regularly, it may be, in part, due to the involvement of belly dancers in night clubs again, a sort of ,"bring the dance to the people," rather than, "put it behind a large paywall." (and although the dance remains in homes and weddings for the average citizen, its the dance as a performance that suffers) ive seen dancers in night clubs dance in long slip type dresses in those clubs. Yes, its may not what we think of when we think of belly dancers, but its something to begin with.
Of course this is all just a shortened version of the nuances.
 
H

hippyhips

Member
Tourbeau said:
The reason you are seeing "garbage dancing"* is because that is representative of the current state of dance in Egypt. There are very few native belly dancers of high caliber working, and their gig industry is dominated by Eastern Europeans who dance a very energetic, balletic, and aggressive version of the dance. (I was going to say "Egyptian dance" there, but the truth is they also beat up Khaleeji and Iraqi music with the same enthusiasm, too.)

The Egyptian gig industry has never completely recovered from the Arab Spring, and a good chunk of what's left has become tourist kitsch (as if COVID didn't devastate tourism). If you've ever done or seen a public gig in North America, you know non-natives usually aren't discriminating consumers of nuanced artistry. Many of those foreign tourists to Egypt (or the Emirates and their nightclub scene, for that matter) actually like trashy costumes and too-much-cowbell dancing because that's what Hollywood has conditioned them to think belly dancing is, and the locals who think belly dance is immoral aren't going to tell them otherwise.
Click to expand...
I liked your approach to this, to say that none of these arguments are invalid is great and I agree with you on 99.99% of this (and I'm not getting into what I don't agree with - its nothing of importance). But i have heard through the grapevine that things are starting to improve. Egyptian people are starting to "rediscover" (for lack of a better word) belly dance (and according to Randa Kamal) She is starting to see more Egyptian people taking HER classes also. there has been a "lessening" of restrictions of late too, ive seen floor work being done in Egypt and sagat being played by Egyptian dancers. While the over all "oppression" of the art remains, there does seem to be a light somewhere. After a discussion with a friend who goes to Egypt regularly, it may be, in part, due to the involvement of belly dancers in night clubs again, a sort of ,"bring the dance to the people," rather than, "put it behind a large paywall." (and although the dance remains in homes and weddings for the average citizen, its the dance as a performance that suffers) ive seen dancers in night clubs dance in long slip type dresses in those clubs. Yes, its may not what we think of when we think of belly dancers, but its something to begin with.
Of course, my rather short post does not cover all the nuances within.
 
T

Tourbeau

Active member
I'm curious about what you disagree on--looking to learn, not argue. We're all sort of like the blind men with the elephant in the old fable here. No one can see the whole picture when there are so many possible valid positions and opinions across cultures, subcultures, socioeconomic strata, immigrant experiences, points in time, etc.

If you'd rather DM and discuss offline, that's fine, too.
 
H

hippyhips

Member
Tourbeau said:
I'm curious about what you disagree on--looking to learn, not argue. We're all sort of like the blind men with the elephant in the old fable here. No one can see the whole picture when there are so many possible valid positions and opinions across cultures, subcultures, socioeconomic strata, immigrant experiences, points in time, etc.

If you'd rather DM and discuss offline, that's fine, too.
Click to expand...
its grand, its not even anything about something we disagree on:

"So I do have to acknowledge that the Wokegentsia are not incorrect to say that Egyptians should be able to do whatever they want with their own culture. If young Egyptians want to listen to somebody rhythmically yelling over beat loops, and jump around like they are in a hip-hop video circa 2003, who are we imperialists to oppress them by pointing out that the older music was compositionally superior and the dancing was more elegant?"

id only argue that its only, "youth culture" that we see - (and in a way arnt the dance style that follow are somewhat "folk dancing"? even more so seeing at the "powers that be," no longer promote it). i love Mohammed Mohsen who sings traditional styles and more elegant modern styles (will give a youtube link) i agree with everything you say about it though, but was that style of music what the youths were listening to in the 1940s or 1950s (genuine question - i actually don't know) ? was the music we see from the golden era the style the ordinary folk were dancing to?.



 
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