Strictly Dancing

23 Jul, 2011 04:00 AM

From dancing with the stars to spangly sequinned bras: Sarah Harris steps out into those syncopated suburbs and gets a case of the cha cha chas.

TALK about a statement pregnant with possibilities. “Belly dancing saved my life,” Debra Ford says, “it’s as simple as that.”

Flashback to May 2006. “It was a head-on collision at 200km/h impact, because we were both doing 100.

“It flipped my car three and half times and it skidded on its roof God knows how far down the road. I was hanging from the roof with a broken neck, which they had to piece that together with a wedge out of my hip, two screws and a plate.

“I also suffered a C2 fracture, L5 fracture, three pelvic fractures, a broken wrist and totally smashed ankle, which got pinned under the accelerator and the brake.

“They kept me in emergency for 17 hours because they were convinced I had major internal injuries. It was only after my husband told them I was a belly dance teacher they moved me on to a ward.”

There are few better qualified to talk about the rehabilitative power of dance than the woman behind Mystical Rose Belly Dance. Students attending her Woodend and Darley classes range from an 83-year-old who can still touch her toes to a serving police officer.

Senior Constable Karen Turner would certainly stop traffic in her dance costume.

“Not all my colleagues know,’’ she says.

‘‘But I have been belly dancing for 10 years. It is great exercise and it’s fun. Sometimes exercise gets a bit monotonous, but this is more interesting. Because we do troupe every couple of weeks, we learn a new dance and it keeps the brain active.”

Cynthia Sherwell describes belly dancing as liberating. “ I have two teenage boys and one day I looked in my wardrobe and everything was black. I had this real need to get back to being a girl, and I have found since doing this that my overall confidence has increased.”

Setting foot on the dance floor for the very first time can be daunting, especially when you are not even three, but Hayley Armstrong, principal of Werribbee’s DanceMax School says they key is to make it fun.

“We start classes from two-and-a-half. The babies are gorgeous, so adorable, and they can do a lot more than you might think. They end up being leaps and bounds ahead of other kids their age because of having that motor development a little bit earlier.

“We do some competitions, but for us it is more about the kids enjoying their classes and getting a feel for the music.

“We do all styles, but we like to keep it fresh and current. Our hip-hop classes are booked out and we have about 25 boys at our school, which is sort of unheard of.”

Boys in hoodies and skinny low jeans are a far cry from the classic image of a ballerina en pointe.

Genevieve Projkoska, director of Point Cook Performing Arts, says that in spite of the popularity of other dance styles, most professional dancers begin at the barre rather than breakdancing.

“Ballet is really the starting point for anything. That’s true even if you have a more theatrical kind of child who wants to do jazz and tap and that kind of thing, because all those styles have techniques that come from ballet.

‘‘I think that is why ballet will always be important to any dancer.”

But ballet it is not just twirling prettily.

“I think people are looking for traditional values, especially with young children. Ballet builds confidence and friendships. It teaches children that if you put effort in you get results, and the a lesson applies to all areas of life.

Courtesy and discipline is part of ballet training that will help them later on — maybe not being prima ballerinas but being nice people in business and not afraid to work hard.”

American-style cheerleading might seem a million miles from Swan Lake, but as the fastest-growing dance sport in Australia it also offers valuable life lessons in building teamwork and trust.

“It is a sport that requires lots of energy, increases your fitness and confidence, develops discipline and introduces you to lots of new friends,” Sonia Roarty, Cheer Factor head coach and director, says.

Cheer Factor’s brand new Tullamarine gym complete with nine-metre tumble trampoline and fully sprung matted floor is a measure of how the sport is growing, driven by the Bring It On movies and more recently the Hellcats TV series.

But it was the recent appearance of KLD X-Treme Air Force on Australia’s Got Talent that had the phones ringing.

The combination of dance, gymnastics and weight-lifting is attracting a growing number of boys.

“Many people don’t realise that boys were the original cheerleaders, the girls only stepped in when the lads went off to war,” Sonia says.

“The co-ed squads in the US have more boys than girls, and they are big strong boys. They are not there shaking pom poms, they are doing all the lifting and the power tumbling.”

Fit is an understatement when describing the professional dancers working for Victoria Petrolo’s company Dance City Productions.

The Craigieburn mother started dancing when she was five and had a career that took her overseas.

Then she started her own company, which specialises in Latin American entertainment and offers choreographed shows as varied as Moulin Rouge, Chicago and Studio 54 Disco.

Dance City Productions provides the shimmy and shake for a host of corporate clients including Telstra, Foxtel and the AFL.

For the past six years Dance City’s Elegua Latin Spectacular groups have been the resident floorshow at the Copacabana in Fitzroy.

Last year Victoria booked 639 dancers including her equally talented sister Belinda, who in 2005 took out the Salsa Tropicana national professional competition with dance partner Alex Espinosa.

Cuban-born Alex, also a Hume resident, is a well-regarded and sought-after Latin teacher and dancer whose talent has taken him around the world.

He is one of the few who make a living as a dancer, appearing in stage shows including The Bar at Buena Vista across three states in the past month.

Many others still have to work day jobs to pay the rent.

“I have so many people come to me who think they can dance,” Victoria says.

‘‘But I won’t have anyone on my books who hasn’t had dance training since they were young.

“A talented, properly trained dancer makes it look easy, but a lot of people don’t understand how many years of work have gone into making it look effortless.

“I used to train six days a week and teach on top of that.

“I would say to young dancers you can definitely make a career of it but you have to be 100 per cent dedicated. The work doesn’t come to you, you have to chase the work. If you get a musical job you are doing it six nights a week. You have to go to the gym, you have to practise, you have to eat properly.”

But the rewards are great. “I am one of the lucky people on this earth — getting paid to do what I love best,” Alex says. “For me dancing is like breathing or eating. Dancing is life.”

Source: Wyndham Weekly

Boycotting Israel, one shimmy at a time

By Ahmed Maged
First Published: February 12, 2007

CAIRO: At a time when Israel’s efforts to normalize cultural relations with Egypt continue to be stymied, the last thing anyone could have imagined was voices of protest coming from the belly.

Quite literally.

Egyptian belly dancers recently unanimously refused to participate in a festival for oriental dancing that was organized last week in the Israeli coastal city of Eilat.

Akhr Saa, one of the oldest and most widely-circulated of Egyptian weeklies, has highlighted the issue, saying that after Israel was turned away at the Cairo International Film Festival and the Alexandria Film Festival , Israeli cultural envoys had been desperately trying to woo Egypt’s dancers.

When Israeli cultural authorities honored late veteran belly dancers like Tahia Karioka, Samia Gamal and Naima Akef by giving their names to different halls in a hotel in Eilat during the dance fest, they had hoped Egypt’s dancers would be swayed.

The majority of the 3000-strong participants were Israeli, who had shown up side by side with another 130 from Greece, US, Russia, France, Japan and Costa Rica, said the weekly, stressing that despite the fact the festival was entirely devoted to oriental dancing, not one Arab belly dancer was present on the scene.

The weekly inquired if those deceased belly-dancers would welcome such a move had they been alive. But today’s artistes refused the festival’s invitations despite the offers and lures.

Talking to many bell-dancers about the issue, the weekly quoted famous belly-dancer Lucy as saying that the festival’s management had left her a message on her answering-machine saying: “why do you take such a hostile attitude and turn down our invitation?”

Lucy added that one time she had turned down an offer of $10,000 per hour against taking part in one such festival.

Dina, who remains one of the biggest figures in the field and the most well-known for attending belly dancing festivals worldwide, told Akhr Saa that she was invited to inaugurate the festival and train six Israeli girls in return for a large amount of money but she refused, saying: “let them dream on.”

Retired belly dancer Nagwa Fouad said that to accept the invitation was next to impossible because her mother is Palestinian.

Fifi Abdou said that she had been receiving offers since late president Anwar Sadat’s presidency but had never even thought about it.

“It’s a general stance taken against Israeli policies which are aimed at massacring women and children,” said Fifi.

Source: Daily News Egypt

La Danse du Ventre

"a good belly dancer must express life, death, happiness, sorrow, love and anger... but above all she must have dignity."

Written by Elias Antar
Photographed by Burnett H. Moody

The final blast of a tangle of electric guitars at full volume reverberated through the "Maryland" nightclub, incongruously set in the middle of a children's playground in Cairo. With a crash of cymbals, the lights dimmed and the lead singer of the rock band shuffled forward and muttered laconically into the microphone: "Showtime."

Chairs scraped in the darkness as the Arab orchestra filed in and settled down. The packed room hushed expectantly and the musicians launched into a spirited introduction, the reedy music almost as loud but somehow less aggressive than the assault on the eardrums by the rock group. A spotlight flashed on and caught the curvaceous figure of Soheir. Zaki, already a blur of sequined blue veils and long black hair. For the next 40 minutes Miss Zaki delighted the audience with a highly creditable rendition of the belly dance, that ancient and—in the West—much misunderstood Arab art form.

Miss Zaki, who comes from a town in Egypt renowned for its beautiful women, is one of the Middle East's handful of belly dancers who have risen to the top of their profession. Endowed with all the right physical attributes, Miss Zaki has an extra asset that has helped her widen her following: she has a smile that is not seductive or sexy but just plain sweet. This has made her popular with women, as was obvious on that soft spring night in Cairo. Normally, Arab women watching a belly dancer take on a resigned but faintly disapproving look while their menfolk nod their heads to the rhythm, clap their hands in time with the music or indulge in nights of fancy. The women at the "Merryland" were relaxed, responsive and in good humor. They smiled back at Miss Zaki as she shook her breasts, rolled her hips and gyrated her midriff, all with that sweet smile on her face. It was hard to realize this was the "belly dance" that in the West still has strong overtones of vulgarity and licentiousness.

This is not to say that belly dancing is recommended children's entertainment. But neither is it nearly as revealing as the striptease nor, as performed by Miss Zaki, in any way sleazy or degrading. The only thing she took off was a shoulder wrap, dropping it to the floor at the beginning of her act. The rest of the time she wore the traditional costume: a bra and floor-length skirt slit at the sides to allow freedom of movement. In accordance with a somewhat self-defeating Egyptian government regulation, Miss Zaki covered the area between bosom and hips with a filmy gauze that did nothing to hide her figure. The regulation was meant to introduce modesty to the dance, but the girls have gotten around it by making the covering so sheer that it enhances rather than conceals the anatomical feature after which the dance is named.

To the throb of a hand-held drum that is the heartbeat of the belly dance, Miss Zaki swayed, twirled and undulated around the floor, expressing herself with sinuous movements of arms and legs, rotating her hips upwards, sideways and downwards again. Though the name implies an emphasis on the abdomen, that part of the anatomy is in fact only one element in the dance. A good dancer uses arms, head, legs, breasts and hips to form one pleasing whole, emphasizing each part as the tempo of the music requires. Miss Zaki, who has a fine sense of rhythm, blended well with the music. Halfway during her performance, she put on sagat, little brass finger cymbals which she clapped together to counterpoint the rhythm. The performance ended, as it usually does, with a few pirouettes and a bow, and the spotlight went out even before Miss Zaki left the floor.

Not all dancers, of course, perform as pleasurably as Miss Zaki or for the same type of audience, which that night was mostly Egyptian middle class with a sprinkling of tourists. The belly dance, in one form or another, is performed almost everywhere in the Arab world but for a number of reasons is associated mainly with Egypt. Indeed, most of today's dancers come from Egypt, with only a very small minority being native Lebanese or Syrians. Estimates vary, but there are about 500 dancers in Egypt, while Lebanon has perhaps only a couple of dozen performing in the famous nightclubs of Beirut, and even some of them are Egyptians. The profession has the same pyramidical structure as show business everywhere. At the bottom are vast numbers of beginners or mediocrities who perform in waterfront cafés, one-horse nightspots or native theaters in the boondocks. Higher up are those who by dint of hard work, some talent and a favor or two have managed to work their way to the lesser known cabarets of Cairo, Beirut and Damascus. At the very top are perhaps half a dozen like Miss Zaki, who appear in the best nightclubs, have starred in films and command top fees.

Perhaps number one in the Middle East is Nadia Gamal, a 32-year-old Alexandrian of Greek-Italian parentage who now lives in Beirut. She began her show business career almost 20 years ago and with an impressive single-mindedness has become an internationally-known star. Miss Gamal's approach to her profession is a formidable combination of superb talent, energy, intellect and dedication, and her performance of the "oriental dance," as she insists it be called, is simply beautiful to watch. In Egypt there is Miss Zaki, 25, who comes from a conservative family which at first opposed all her efforts to become a dancer. To shame her into abandoning her ambition, they often beat her and even shaved off her lustrous waist-length hair. But she broke away and one night in an Alexandria nightclub, when she was 11, a television producer spotted her well-developed figure and offered her a job.

Two other dancers in Egypt have an equal claim to fame. Nagwa Fouad, 30, has been a dancer for almost 15 years. She too ran away from home, and with an attractive figure and considerable talent, worked her way to the top. Right there at the pinnacle alongside Miss Fouad and Miss Zaki is Nahed Sabry, 34. Formerly a secretary, she started relatively late in the game at the age of 26. But Miss Sabry's flashing dark eyes, stunning figure and exuberant dancing style quickly brought her fame.

The nature of their occupation makes belly dancers a particularly catty lot who disagree over everything, including the origins of their art. Indeed, no one really knows how and where the belly dance started. Some people maintain it began with the pharaohs, pointing as proof to tomb paintings showing dancers dressed in transparent veils. Most Egyptian dancers are tempted by this theory, but grudgingly admit the drawings in the pharaonic tombs depict movements and positions that are too stylized to have any relation to the fluid motions of the belly dance. Miss Zaki does not think it began with the pharaohs but neither does she care very much. "I just like to close my eyes, feel the music and dance," she says with a shrug.

Egyptian officials at the Ministry of Culture and National Guidance prefer to emphasize folk dancing as being more in keeping with Egyptian tradition than belly dancing. Cairo newspapers regularly scold "the belly dancing cult" and one straitlaced columnist, railing against the undiminished popularity of the dance, recently wrote: "There are belly dancers everywhere. Why on earth is that? Are we introducing a new type of art which could be called the navel-shaking civilization? Let us get tough about all this nonsense and clean up our arts."

Reflecting this opinion, belly dancing receives no government encouragement or assistance, is mentioned by officials with a frown, and is attributed to the Turks, who ruled Egypt for 400 years. Turkish officials, less inhibited in such matters, enthusiastically agree. "Of course it started with us," said one emphatically. "Everyone knows that." That is arguable, but there is no doubt that belly dancing is widespread in Turkey today, most dancers coming from Sulukule, the old Gypsy quarter nestling under the walls of Istanbul.

"The Turks have nothing to do with it," insists Miss Gamal. "All they did was to introduce the sagat." She says belly dancing originated with the Phoenicians, the ancestors of present-day Lebanese. It was performed by virgin maidens about to be sacrificed to the gods. Later in Arab history, Miss Gamal says, women in harems, trying to attract their masters' attentions, found the belly dance a most effective way to get their message across. Over-romanticized accounts of this version brought back by western travelers in the 19th century led to the unfortunate reputation that the dance has in the West.

Wherever it originally came from, there is no doubt that the fountainhead of belly dancing in this century was the "Casino Opera" in Cairo, right across the square from the ornate Egyptian state opera house. Casino Opera was founded in 1927 by Badia Massabni, a gifted and enterprising young woman of Lebanese parentage who was then married to Egypt's leading playwright. Using such innovations as an electrically-operated rotating stage, Miss Badia presented vaudeville acts, comedies, and singers. And, of course, dancers. It is fair to say that Miss Badia, now 78 and owner of a dairy farm in Lebanon, started dozens of dancers on their way before she sold the Casino in 1950. In the early days, they did not appear singly but in a kind of chorus line, with Miss Badia in the front singing, clapping the sagat and occasionally dancing herself. Those who had particular talent made it to the front row and eventually stardom. Miss Gamal, as a child, used to perform western dances with her mother at Casino Opera. One night she found herself alone on stage and, overcoming her initial fright, began belly dancing. "Miss Badia was so happy that when I finished she came on stage, kissed me and gave me ten Egyptian pounds, a fortune in those days," Miss Gamal recalls.

The most famous alumna of Casino Opera is Tahia Carioca, the premier belly dancer in the Arab world for almost two decades. Miss Carioca, whose very name has become synonymous with dancer, wore a full-length gown which revealed nothing and danced in the center of the floor. With only the minimum of locomotion, she sent audiences into raptures of delight. "In those days they thought I was sexy because I danced with my mouth slightly open," recalls Miss Carioca. "Truth was, I suffered from asthma and had difficulty breathing, so I kept my mouth open for extra air." Miss Carioca retired in 1956 at the age of 37, went on to a successful career as a movie star and now has her own theater company.

Miss Carioca's dancing style successfully bridged the gap from an older version of the belly dance to the type now practiced by Miss Gamal, Miss Zaki and most cabaret dancers. The old school, which stressed muscular movements while almost standing still, stemmed from the type of dancing practised by the awalem, which literally means "those who teach." What the awalem taught, to uninformed couples, was what to do on the wedding night. Most weddings were attended by two or three awalem, who stimulated the groom and gave rather broad hints to the bride. Education has lessened the demand for awalem, but they still appear at weddings in the more populous parts of Cairo and other Egyptian cities. Even well-to-do couples have a dancer at their weddings, just to maintain tradition.

The third type is usually seen at local celebrations and feasts. It is generally improvised, a well-endowed woman tying a scarf around her hips to accentuate their movements and dancing in her ordinary ankle-length dress. Men sometimes take part, accompanying the movement of the women, by rapping the head of a cane on the floor. The type foreigners usually see is that featured in nightclub acts such as Miss Zaki's, where the accent is equally on muscular control and locomotion.

What qualities should a good belly dancer have? "Dignity," says Miss Carioca with unquestioned authority. "She must express life, death, happiness, sorrow, love and anger, but above all she must have dignity." Miss Carioca concedes that a belly dancer must also be sexy, "but it must not be vulgar or blatant." Miss Gamal, whose approach to the art is perhaps more cerebral than that of her contemporaries, basically agrees. "Belly dancing is essentially an expression of femininity," she says. "It must, among other things, suggest sex, but it must do so delicately, hinting rather than asserting, and it must always be in good taste. It is definitely not just a matter of exposing the flesh." Miss Zaki is somewhat less articulate. Flashing that sweet smile, she expresses her feeling for the dance simply as a mood to which the music lends rhythm. Miss Fouad's opinion is that sex is in the ears of the beholder. "When the music becomes sinuous, then the dancer seems sexy; when it's not, she is not," declares Miss Fouad, intimating that there is no need for the dancer to worry about it.

Miss Fouad got into belly dancing by escaping from marriage. Her parents wanted her to marry a cousin, she didn't, so she ran away from home in Alexandria and went to Cairo. She tried to become a singer, but Egypt's leading composer told her unequivocally that her voice was terrible. "But your figure is the best I've ever seen in my life," he went on, and she soon became a dancer, appearing first in a film he was producing. Purists now claim that Miss Fouad, 34 films and countless live performances later, has abandoned the true belly dance for something not quite definable. They say she relies on gimmicks such as bells attached to her wrists and a candelabra with 13 candles balanced on her head, the high point of her nightly act in one of Cairo's biggest hotels. Miss Fouad admits she has attempted to introduce "new elements" into belly dancing but maintains that the results are gratifying.

Miss Gamal argues that there is no need for such accessories as a candelabra and her opinion seems valid if only because of her impressive professional background. While going to school in Alexandria and later in Cairo, she studied classical ballet for 11 years. An American tap dancer taught her acrobatics. She studied the piano for three years and choreography for two years. "Any woman can shake her body and call it belly dancing. But I know what I am talking about when I say it takes a lot of work and dedication to be a top oriental dancer," she declares. Apart from her accidental performance at Casino Opera, Miss Gamal did not start out as a belly dancer. She performed Russian or Hungarian folk dances. One night in a cabaret in Lebanon, however, the belly dancer on the bill became ill and Miss Gamal was more or less pushed onto the stage to replace her. She gave such an expert performance that the audience went wild, and she soon switched to oriental dancing.

Her decision was wise. In the years since, she has become perhaps the only internationally-known belly dancer from the Middle East. She has performed all over Europe, including Austria, Finland, Spain, Portugal, Italy, West Germany, France, Switzerland, Greece, Turkey and Cyprus. She has also appeared in Iran, India and Ceylon and earlier this year made a highly successful tour of Venezuela. (Language for her is no problem; she speaks, reads and writes seven.) And at home, one of the high points of her career was when she danced at the Baalbeck International Festival in 1968, a month-long annual event which that year also featured such artistic luminaries as Herbert von Karajan directing the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra.

Miss Gamal is so self-confident that she asserts that she can perform a belly dance to non-Arab music, such as Latin-American rhythms. But she concedes that only Arab music and instruments can give oriental dancing its full breadth of expression. She has mastered the ten kinds of tempos for oriental dancing, rhythms with such tongue-twisting names as mouwashah, makloubeh, oughrouk, and masmoudeh. Some are fast, requiring nimble footwork and enormous energy; others are slow and seductive, highlighting muscle control and liquidity of movement. "The change of pace and sequence depends on the audience and their reaction, and also on the mood of the particular time and place." Even in the cold atmosphere of a television recording studio, Miss Gamal is outstanding. At one recent taping session, the crew broke into spontaneous applause after her nine-minute dance, a performance in which she shook everything from her hair to her fingertips and which left her bathed in sweat—and her face radiant with pleasure at the tribute from those hard-bitten professionals.

Miss Gamal's current ambition is to write a kind of "teach-yourself-oriental-dancing" book, in which each step and each sequence would be set down and clearly explained as in other dance instruction books. If that is successful, she may open a school when she retires. There is no formal instruction available for belly dancers at present. Most pick up the art by watching established dancers and take it from there. Ibrahim Akef, an Egyptian who comes from a famous family of acrobats, runs a dancing class in Cairo in which he gives instruction to a few aspiring dancers but it is not a school in the formal sense and certainly cannot match the experience provided by the old Casino Opera.

Belly dancing demands a certain amount of self-sacrifice, especially where marriage and children are concerned. Many dancers have unhappy married lives because, in a society that prizes child-bearing, they refuse to have children for fear of spoiling their figures. For this and other reasons, there is a high divorce rate among belly dancers. Another burden is the need to constantly watch diet and the scales for signs of flabbiness or overweight. Miss Zaki, in fact, drinks a small glass of pure lemon juice every day. "It keeps my weight down," she explains, a grimace replacing her sweet smile. Miss Gamal loves to ride horses and swim, but cannot find the time in her busy career.

But the sacrifices are, for dancers in the top category, more than amply rewarded, something that is important in a profession where few women can continue beyond the mid-thirties. Dancers on contract with fashionable nightclubs make between $100 and $200 a night. For appearing at private parties, a star can demand—and get—as much as $1,000 for a 20-minute performance. With additional income from movies and television, most good dancers lead comfortable lives, complete with fashionable homes, sports cars and all that goes with them. Which perhaps explains why another graduate of Casino Opera, after more than a decade out of show business, is preparing to make a comeback—at age 47. "She'll never make it even if it kills her," said one prima donna, with questionable logic but unmistakable venom.

Elias Antar, an Associated Press correspondent based in Beirut, is a regular contributor to Aramco World.

This article appeared on pages 4-11 of the September/October 1971 print edition of Saudi Aramco World.

Source: Saudi Aramco World

Spiritual dance fashion trends

By Sara Shea
Info Guru, Catalogs.com
Sunday, September 26, 2010


The most ancient form of dance known as spiritual dance, can be found in thousands of cultures around the world.

Today, some of these ancient spiritual dances are re-emerging in the world of contemporary dance, coupled with new interpretations, emerging dancers and modern spiritual dance fashion.

The earliest spiritual dance ceremonies and rituals can be traced to Africa. Rhythmic dances from Uganda and Senegal were used during times of celebration. Warrior dances, wedding dances and harvest dances utilizing the concepts of poly rhythm and total body articulation were native to Senegal, Ghana and the Congo. Each dance was made unique from other celebrations with spiritual dance fashion and styles of jewelry and body ornamentation.

Native American Navajo Indians also practiced spiritual dances such as the Fire Dance and the Grass Dance to achieve altered states of reality and enhanced consciousness.

The whirling dances of surfi or “dervishes” in ancient Persia and Turkey were also believed to be a path toward enlightenment.

Even the practice of yoga, which dates back to over 3,000 years ago, began in India as form of spiritual dance that incorporated particular movements, postures and breathing techniques to achieve physical health, meditation, and spiritual enlightenment.

In the United States, one form of spiritual dance in particular has gained great popularity and attention. These spiritual dances, known as plantation, slave or sorrow dance originated with the black slaves who were brought into the southern states from the west coast of Africa during the time of slavery.

During the tumultuous period of slavery in America, many slaves were forbidden by their owners to speak in their native languages. The slaves responded to their hardship and grief through music, song and dance. Despite their bondage, slaves took comfort in reconnecting with their roots by practicing, cherishing and passing down the ancient spiritual dances they had learned from their ancestors in Africa.

Many historians even claim that these early spiritual songs and dances of the slaves lay the foundation for jazz, blues and gospel in America.

In the decades after the civil war ended, as blacks migrated from the South to the North, black pride began to grow. Spiritual dance fashion evolved, with an eye on the past, but a celebration of freedom of expression and acknowledgment of a rich heritage. Black dance and black music evolved to become one of the most highly valued forms of entertainment in America.

Early choreographers such as Katherine Dunham and Alvin Ailey strived to preserve the art, history, technique and spiritual power so unique to spiritual slavery dances rooted in ancient African culture. These pivotal dancers and choreographers helped to found the earliest black spiritual dance troupes and dance theaters dedicated to celebrating African-American heritage. Today many of these dance troupes travel the world, performing in traditional clothing or colorful dance wear.

Without a doubt, these ancient spiritual dances of African cultures have re-emerged in America as powerful forms of artistic expression, and have continued to gain popularity as entertaining and educational forms of cross-cultural communication. These spiritual dances, which have the power to transcend language serve to connect us to our roots, revealing insights into past cultural histories.

Source: Catalogs.com Info Library

The Last Egyptian Belly Dancer

Rich Saudis are transforming Cairo's entertainment scene.
by Rod Nordland
May 31, 2008

Abir Sabri, celebrated for her alabaster skin, ebony hair, pouting lips and full figure, used to star in racy Egyptian TV shows and movies. Then, at the peak of her career a few years ago, she disappeared—at least her face did. She began performing on Saudi-owned religious TV channels, with her face covered, chanting verses from the Qur'an. Conservative Saudi Arabian financiers promised her plenty of work, she says, as long as she cleaned up her act. "It's the Wahhabi investors," she says, referring to the strict form of Sunni Islam prevalent in Saudi Arabia. "Before, they invested in terrorism—and now they put their money in culture and the arts."

Egyptians deplore what they call the Saudization of their culture. Egypt has long dominated the performing arts from Morocco to Iraq, but now petrodollar-flush Saudi investors are buying up the contracts of singers and actors, reshaping the TV and film industries and setting a media agenda rooted more in strict Saudi values than in those of freewheeling Egypt. "As far as I'm concerned, this is the biggest problem in the Middle East right now," says mobile-phone billionaire Naquib Sawiris. "Egypt was always very liberal, very secular and very modern. Now ..." He gestures from the window of his 26th-floor Cairo office: "I'm looking at my country, and it's not my country any longer. I feel like an alien here."

At the Grand Hyatt Cairo, a mile upstream along the Nile, the five-star hotel's Saudi owner banned alcohol as of May 1 and ostentatiously ordered its $1.4 million inventory of booze flushed down the drains. "A hotel in Egypt without alcohol is like a beach without a sea," says Aly Mourad, chairman of Studio Masr, the country's oldest film outfit. He says Saudis—who don't even have movie theaters in their own country—now finance 95 percent of the films made in Egypt. "They say, here, you can have our money, but there are just a few little conditions." More than a few, actually; the 35 Rules, as moviemakers call them, go far beyond predictable bans against on-screen hugging, kissing or drinking. Even to show an empty bed is forbidden, lest it hint that someone might do something on it. Saudi-owned satellite channels are buying up Egyptian film libraries, heavily censoring some old movies while keeping others off the air entirely.

Some Egyptians say the new prudishness isn't entirely the Saudis' fault. "Films are becoming more conservative because the whole society is becoming more conservative," says filmmaker Marianne Khoury, who says Saudi cash has been a lifeline to the 80-year-old industry. From a peak of more than 100 films yearly in the 1960s and '70s, Egyptian studios' output plunged to only a half dozen a year in the '90s. Thanks to Saudi investors, it's now about 40. "If they stopped, there would be no Egyptian films," says Khoury.

At least a few Egyptians say Saudi Arabia is the country that's ultimately going to change. "Egypt will be back to what it used to be," predicts the single-named Dina, one of Egypt's few remaining native-born belly dancers. And it was a Saudi production company that financed a 2006 drama that frankly discusses homosexuality, "The Yacoubian Building." Sawiris has launched a popular satellite-TV channel of his own, showing uncensored American movies. He's determined to win—but he's only one billionaire, and Saudi Arabia is swarming with them.

Source: Newsweek

Bikini belly dancer shocks -- shocks! -- Egyptian sensibilities

By MARIAM SAMI, The Associated Press

CAIRO, Egypt (May 2, 1997 3:38 p.m. EDT) -- Twenty-two agents of the government's Artistic Inspection Department prowl nightclubs and discos to ensure that the ancient art of belly dancing isn't tainted by racy gyrations. So conservative Egypt was shocked when a leading performer, Dina, traded the traditional glittering gauzy garb for biking shorts and bikinis.

The Al-Maydan weekly dedicated almost a page to Dina's garb, noting that the dancer -- who like many in her trade uses only one name -- even appeared with gold chains wrapped around her waist.

These costumes may seem fairly tame in a world of go-go girls and online sex. But for all kinds of reasons they were guaranteed to cause a stir in Egypt.

For one, the belly dancer's costume is not only traditional but partly prescribed. Some insist the belly must be obscured by a lacy net. A 1920 law forbids showing the navel -- a possible genesis for the navel jewel.

Egypt also is a conservative Muslim country where religious women cover themselves in robes and veils -- showing at most their face and hands. Women tourists who show too much flesh are frowned on.

Disapproval does not dampen curiosity, however. Egyptians look for every tidbit in gossip columns about Cairo's celebrity belly dancers -- their travels, tiffs, amours and astronomical wealth.

So reports that Dina was hauled in for questioning over her costumes had a ready audience.

Ahmed Abou el-Fattouh, the chief inspector, would not confirm the reports of Dina's detention, but conceded he admonished one performer -- whom he wouldn't name -- for both her dress and demeanor.

"The dancer was wearing a bikini. She bowed, showing her back to the audience, and moved it in such a disgusting way," he said.

Dina said she was far too busy redecorating her apartment to take the time for an interview.

Two other top dancers, Fifi Abdou and Lucy, have reacted to the scandal by declaring that the original costume is the best way to show off the intricate belly and hip movements of their art.

Lucy, in an interview with The Associated Press, denigrated more revealing dress as an amateur's trick meant to shift attention to her body -- and away from bad dancing.

"As long as I can do the moves, why should I show three-quarters of my breasts?" she said.

Almost all of Lucy's 600 costumes are traditional models, given variations for color, number of sequins and a slit here or cut there.

Six hundred costumes? That's nothing. Newspapers have reported that Fifi Abdou -- Egypt's most famous belly dancer -- owns about 5,000.

It's all part of the media attention to the dancers' earnings and spending habits.

Last year, papers buzzed with reports that Abdou bought an apartment overlooking the Nile River for $14.5 million. She denied it.

The Arabic daily Al-Hayat reported recently that Egypt's 12,000 registered belly dancers paid $250 million in income taxes last year, making some among the richest people in a country where teachers make $90 a month.

Newspapers say Lucy earns up to $4,400 for a 45-minute performance at a party or wedding. She says her costumes cost $900-$1,500 apiece.

Speaking of costumes, Farouq Salem, head of the Artistic Inspection Department, stresses that a dancer's dress is not the only criterion his inspectors use in determining whether she is sullying the dignity of belly dancing.

"We also watch the whole performance: her movements, the music, the lyrics, the whole package," he said. "A belly dancer could dress like a veiled woman, but perform movements that make her really sexy."

Source: DesertMoonDance

The pointe of good posture

By Barbara Lantin
Published: 11:52AM GMT 12 Dec 2005

You don't have to be a ballet dancer to align your body correctly, says Barbara Lantin

When Simone Clarke, principal dancer with the English National Ballet, says that she has "terrible posture", I want to laugh out loud. Like all ballerinas, Clarke, who is dancing Aurora in The Sleeping Beauty and the Sugar Plum Fairy in The Nutcracker at the London Coliseum this Christmas, has a back like a ramrod and deportment to die for.

Good carriage is a sine qua non in ballet. It's not just that nobody wants to see a slouching swan or a slumping sylphide: an upright bearing is a sign that the body is in balance. And a body out of alignment is vulnerable to injury - especially when it is being put through the rigours of classical ballet on a daily basis.

"If dancers maintain a neutral posture, they are not putting the body under so much strain, and are less likely to sustain an injury," says the English National Ballet's chartered physiotherapist, Jackie Pelly. "Everything should be in alignment, from the feet to the head. You do not want to lean back or forward, or favour one side or the other."

Pelly believes the rest of us could benefit from a similar discipline, and has devised a regime, called Posture Pointes, that anyone from ballerina to bank clerk can use to keep the body balanced and the spine straight.

"If people did postural exercises, I think we would see far less back pain and injury," she says. "When you are in a slouch position - for example, at an office desk - your muscles contract, and you can develop muscle spasm. So at the end of the day, you cannot move your neck as far round as you could at the beginning. There is a lot of research showing that working on the big abdominal muscles can prevent back pain."

The first step is to put the body into alignment. This means distributing the body's weight evenly over the ball of the foot and the heel, and, when the knees are bent, having the knee-cap in line with the second toe. The pelvis is kept in neutral by drawing in the lower abdominal muscles, the shoulder blades are pulled down and in - rather than back, which can make them feel tight - and the head is held up straight with the chin in. "After a while, it all becomes second nature," claims Pelly.

All newcomers to the English National Ballet are taught this basic, postural alignment, though - unlike ordinary mortals - they are expected to perform their exercises on an inflatable ball, to ensure that they can maintain their posture under challenge from pirouettes, arabesques and jetées. They are also coached according to their body type, and for the role they are performing.

"Research shows that when dancers undertake a fitness programme for a specific ballet, injury rates drop markedly," says Pelly. "When we tried this on a four-week tour of Romeo and Juliet, they fell from the normal 30 or 40 to just a handful."

Clarke has never been injured, a blessing she attributes to a strong body and good luck. "I am not overprotective with myself, but I'm careful how I lift things - including my two-year-old daughter - and I wouldn't go on a horse, a motorbike, or an ice rink," she says. "I get aches and pains, especially when I am rehearsing a new part. I am now doing The Nutcracker and woke up this morning in absolute agony, as I am not used to the movements, but I know that will pass."

Clarke is careful to keep warm while working, because a body that is struggling against cold is much more susceptible to injury.

"We were on tour in Manchester the other week, and if I was dancing in the evening, I did not leave the theatre all day, because it took me much longer to warm up again after being out in the cold and damp."

Daria Klimentova, also with the ENB, knows how costly mistakes can be. After getting off a long-haul flight from Australia with swollen feet, she went straight to rehearsals in soft pointe shoes. "I felt something pinching, but I ignored it until I couldn't dance any more."

Klimentova had injured the bursa, a cushion between the tendon and the bone, in her heel, and needed an operation. She was off work for a year. "If only I had stopped dancing sooner, I might not have had to take so much time off. I listen to my body more now."

Jackie Pelly's 'posture pointes'

Do these exercises at least three times a day, but, ideally, every hour - especially if you spend most of the day at a desk.

Sitting at your desk, roll your pelvis backwards and then forwards, to find the neutral position, where you can feel your "sit bones". Breathe out, and contract the lower abdominal pelvic floor muscles by about 30 per cent - as if you were doing up a zip. Hold the position for 10 seconds. Repeat five times.

While sitting, shrug your shoulders to your ears, and then relax them, pulling the shoulder blades down and in. With your palms facing back, push back with your hands, until you feel your shoulders come into balance.

Breathe in, and as you blow out, push your tongue against the roof of your mouth. At the same time, elongate the spine by imagining somebody pulling on a hook attached to the top of your head.

Standing up, tighten your big abdominal muscles as you curl right down through your spine, touching the floor with your fingers if you can. Come back up gently by stacking the vertebrae on top of each other. (Do not attempt if recovering from a back injury.)

Sitting on your office chair, make sure your knees are bent at a right angle, and do not cross your legs, because this restricts blood flow. Place your feet flat on the floor; if you are wearing heels, use an angled footrest.

Keep ankles slightly forward of your knees. This will aid return circulation from the feet, and prevent you from leaning forward in your chair.

Ensure your lower back is supported. If your chair does not have a built-in arch, use a cushion, or a rolled-up towel.

Source: Telegraph.co.uk

Belly dancing: a dying art?

First published: Jul 23rd, 2009

Traditionalists in Egypt have targeted cabarets that feature belly dancers, and many Egyptians fear that the art is dying.


Acarabee Alley, just off 26 of July Street in bustling downtown Cairo, opens onto a small courtyard surrounded by bars. Up the stairs at the end of the courtyard a belly dancer shakes her hips and smiles at the mostly empty tables in Club Miami. She turns and sways in her bright yellow costume in front of a five-piece band belting out Arabic songs.

At 11 pm on Thursday night the place is quiet, with the exception of a few middle-aged men sipping beer at a table near the bar. While belly dancing has become popular abroad, and for foreign visitors to Egypt, many here have feared its demise as a result of the increasing observance of conservative Islam.

Over the last several decades, traditionalist ideals have been gaining ground in the country once known for its cosmopolitan ways. In the 1990s, when violent Islamist groups were most active in Egypt, the haram (forbidden) combination of alcohol and shaking, skimpily dressed women made belly-dancing cabarets a target.

Nabil Abdel Fattah, head of the sociological research unit at Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies and editor-in-chief of the center’s “State of Religion Report,” says businesses like bars and belly-dancing clubs have suffered because of the Islamization of both the public and private spheres in Egypt. “Belly dancing is outside of Islamic values,” says Fattah, adding that increasing conservatism in Egypt has led to reforms in the role and dress of women and fewer customers for establishments that serve alcohol.

However, in the last few years the country has undergone a soft revolution, where a surge in conservatism for many has coincided with an increasing movement toward Western lifestyles and liberal practices for others.

“There is a new soft revolution in Egyptian society. You can see this trend of new magazines and shops and people returning to belly dancing. There is also a Westernization of the way of life, of the new upper-middle class and businessmen,” says Fattah, who maintains this has happened in tandem with increasing observance of conservative Islam.

Looking back

Belly dancing is the English name given to the art of raqssharqi (oriental dance) or raqsbaladi (country dance). The practice spread throughout the Middle East but took a greater hold in Egypt than the rest of the Arab world, finding its place in wedding celebrations, private and public performances and, most recently, in tourist establishments.

Around midnight, customers begin to take seats near the stage at Club Miami. The clientele remains the same, mostly middle-aged Egyptian men. The band continues to play as the second dancer, Suhayla, takes the stage under a small disco ball. Tamer, Club Miami’s manager, who asked that his real name not be used, says in the winter the club attracts foreigners and in the summer it fills with Gulf Arabs. But most of their clientele is Egyptian.

“We get the rich and the less fortunate,” says Tamer. “Thursday is the busiest day of the week. We start the night at 11pm, but it doesn’t get full before 12 or 1am.” He’s been working in the industry for 10 years and says he’s seen a decline in the number of visitors in the last decade. Despite the influx from Gulf tourists, places like Club Miami are not seeing an increase in customers.

“There are new bars for the middle class everywhere, in Mohandeseen, in the city center and also in hotels,” says Fattah. “This is a new variable and I think it’s related to the economic policy of the state. There is a tolerance now … because [these are] private companies and this is very important economically.”

The next evening, a few kilometers south on 26 of July Street, Ahmed Dessouki leans against a polished wood bar sipping whisky over ice at the Cairo Jazz Club. The 28-year-old architect says he goes out four nights per week, but doesn’t venture to belly-dancing joints or baladi-style bars. “I mostly go to Zamalek bars,” says Dessouki referring to Cairo’s expensive, more Western neighborhood. “I’m not interested in this kind of art.”

The Cairo Jazz Club could easily be in any major American city, with a DJ spinning records in the corner, high-back booth seating and multi-colored track lighting. By midnight there is little room to move as young Egyptian men hold the waists of their girlfriends and mix with foreigners on the tiny dance floor.

“It’s the mentality of the people. We don’t have a big gap between the mentality of Europe and the [United] States,” says Dessouki.

“Almost everybody has a girlfriend. We like to come to this kind of club to spend a nice night with our girlfriends - nothing more.” Dessouki says some nights he and his friends rack up bills of several thousand Egyptian pounds (or several hundred US dollars).

In the 1990s, Western-style bars became popular among some Egyptians and today, in Cairo, Alexandria and in tourist towns like Sharm El-Sheikh, there is no shortage of European - or American-style establishments. The influx of Western-style nightclubs is drawing customers away from the baladi nightspots.

A soft revolution here won’t necessarily restore belly-dancing cabarets to their former glory if young, affluent Egyptians prefer to drop a 200 Egyptian pound minimum charge ($35) to dance to house beats, R ‘n’ B and top-40 music, rather than watch jeweled women shake their hips in an age-old tradition.

“We’ve been affected by last year’s economic slump. Some of our best customers come once a week now instead of every day,” Tamer says. While he notes most of his customers are Egyptian, Suhayla, who has been performing as a belly dancer for years, argues this isn’t the case in other establishments. “It depends. You get Egyptians, foreigners and Arabs,” Suhayla says. “You can find more foreigners in El-Haram.”

Tourists have long filled the seats of higher-end belly-dancing establishments. In tourist cities like Sharm El-Sheikh, dancers perform to almost entirely foreign crowds.

The Egyptian Ministry of Tourism said in June that hotel occupancy rates had dropped to between 66 and 70 percent and some analysts have predicted that the global financial crisis, combined with the recent bombing in Cairo’s Khan El-Khalili market, could result in occupancy rates falling further, even to 50 percent.

The opening of Egyptian society may not be enough to salvage an art form that has had a place in Egyptian society for centuries.

“Most of the people I know who are interested in belly dancing are foreigners and they just go once,” says Dessouki over thumping electronic beats. “Most of my friends are interested in this kind of music - house and trance.”

First seen in Trends magazine.

Source: KippReport

The belly-dancer at the wedding

In Egypt the unusual love--hate relationship with belly-dancing persists amid a conservative culture of veiled women and virgin weddings.

by Yahia Samir Lababidi

At a time when more and more Egyptian women are taking the veil, Cairo remains the world epicentre for those who wish to master a dance that is only a slight variation on the theme of Salome's shedding of her veils. And when, seaside, the bulk of Egyptian women are opting to wade in gallabiyyas (full length traditional dresses), it is not unusual for a belly-dancer to perform at a public venue in little more than a glorified bikini, like a beached mermaid in her glittering, gauzy garb.

The ubiquity and sheer joy of the dance, however, does not detract from the perception of immorality associated with the belly-dancing profession. Egyptians are deeply conflicted about the respectability of the art form. Islamic preachers have gone so far as to proclaim that belly-dancers cannot take part in religious rites, such as feeding the poor during Ramadan or performing the Hajj/Pilgrimage.

An incident illustrating the paradoxically privileged position belly-dancers occupy in society occurred last year. A video depicting one of Egypt's top belly-dancers in flagrante delicto leaked onto the street and internet, following a police raid on the villa of a well-known (and married) Egyptian businessman. A lesser mortal would have perished beneath the heat of such a scandal, especially a woman in a conservative society. Yet, following a teary public apology and a short leave of absence, the Uberdancer bounced back on stage. Moreover, to add legislation to lore--further demonstrating society's strangely protective stance regarding the dancer's status--a new law forbids foreign dancers from practising this local art altogether (a lucrative trade in the city's many nightspots).

A love/hate relationship for the belly-dancer places her in a perceived moral netherworld somewhere between actors and whores. Both actors and dancers, whose testimony was once inadmissible in court, are accorded the same morbid fascination--every twist and turn of their private lives deemed newsworthy--as well as the same contempt. Hishik bishik, slang for all things associated with belly-dancing (and short-hand for tsk-tsk), is actually onomatopoeia: the sound of the shaking belly-dancer, beads and all. It is also used figuratively, as a derogatory term for the shaking of values or the loosening of the moral fabric associated with a dancer's questionable position in the public imagination. What does this say about the people who heartily embrace the dance as a form of self-expression?

The origins of Raqs Sharqi or Oriental Dancing (Egyptians do not call it belly-dancing) are ambiguous. Whether or not it was born in Ancient Egypt, it is widely held that the dance has its roots in fertility ceremonies, meant to strengthen abdominal muscles and ease childbirth. It is as though tapped into the bottomless fund of Earth's energy, its pulsations course through the dancer. The dance itself is a kind of break-dance only more fluid, exhibiting a variety of muscle isolation techniques: rolling the belly, swivelling the hips or making the upper and lower body appear as though they lead independent lives. In many ways, belly-dancing is the anti-ballet. Whereas the ballerina wears her pretty steel-tipped slippers, the belly-dancer is sensuously barefoot. While the ballerina strives for the ethereal and seeks to resist gravity, the belly-dancer is earthy with her feet firmly planted on the ground.

That is the technique, but then there is the inspiration, the wordless ecstasy communicated, the body eloquence. President Anwar Sadat once described a celebrated Egyptian dancer of the '70s, Souhair Zaki, as 'the Oum Kalthoum of dance'. 'As she sings with her voice, you sing with your body,' he said to her. Speaking of the same dancer, Geraldine Brooks put it slightly differently in her book, Nine Parts of Desire: What she did with her body was what a woman's body did--the natural movements of sex and childbirth. The dance drew the eye to the very centre of the female body's womanliness.

The fact that weddings are hardly complete without a belly-dancer is revealing, given the function of marriage as sanctifying the union between a man and a woman who is expected to be a virgin. Costing the family of the bride or groom up to $3000 for a 45-minute performance and widely considered the highlight of the matrimonial event, the belly-dancer's entrance is anticipated with baited breath. And what an entrance it is. Some time past the witching hour, often draped in a sort of a sparkling cape, she shimmies into the room with a manic enthusiasm, heralded and accompanied by the wild beating of drums. Having established her presence and revelling in the power of an intensity inhabited, the dancer sheds her mock modesty veil to reveal herself--a half-naked, shimmering apparition. All anima and daemonic, she then proceeds to stomp on the hallowed ground of the wedding ceremony.

This primeval emotional maelstrom is presented to the enthralled audience and the blushing bride in particular. Women study her intently but with a more guarded enthusiasm than their drooling male counterparts. Having transfixed the audience in a sort of reverse mesmerism--where the snake charms those who have summoned it--the dancer turns her attention to the bride. Weaving and dipping in her vicinity, she initiates the bride into the rites of uninhibited womanhood. 'See the effect I have on the room (and your groom),' she insinuates, brandishing her sexuality. 'That power is yours, too. Your birthright. Celebrate it.' And she's off, back with the crowd; challenging them to take guilt-free pleasure in their bodies, snaking between them, dancing with a deliciously self-absorbed exhibitionism.

Wearing a wedding cake of a gown, the bride must fret: how can I possibly compete with this woman invulnerable to taboo? Having spent a lifetime shrewdly protecting her virtue and a small fortune on the appearance of her dress, she is being upstaged at her own wedding by a woman who seems to care for neither. How can she possibly stand up to this dancer--radiating sex and naked confidence--with her flamboyantly flagrant disregard for the fundamental commandments of Family and Society?

In such a charged atmosphere, belly-dancing serves as a kind of 'licensed murder'. This is Bertrand Russell's definition of war, only the war declared here is on conventional morality and its mind-forged manacles. The force of the belly-dance is a force of nature, perceived as unharnessed and disruptive, hence the fear. The fear is an ancient one: of desire; of female flesh. The belly-dancer's twisting sisters are many and ruinous in mythology and the human imagination: Eve and the Serpent; Medusa (Woman and Serpent fused); Salome (powerful desire); Kali (fierce transcendence); the Sirens (femme fatale); the striptease (look don't touch); and the lap dancer (crude sensuality). All hint at a vision of woman engaged in a frenzied dance of Life and Death, of passion careering out of control, threatening to overwhelm and consume.

It is not without significance that a 1920s law forbade the belly-dancer from showing her navel. Later, in the 1950s, belly-dancing was prohibited in Egypt altogether. The ban was repealed following a public outcry, on the condition that the belly button be covered. Why the belly button? Given it is not a sexual organ, one suspects the significance is symbolic. The belly button is, after all, where the umbilical cord was severed. Is it the scene of the original crime from which people wish to avert their gaze?

'Every vagina has secret teeth, for the male exits as less than when he entered,' says Camille Paglia. Teeth that are razor sharp in a patriarchal society. Vagina dentata, in turn, denotes a fear of devouring origins, as does the offensive belly button. This, it appears, is what lurks at the heart of the ancient anxiety over female sensuality. Hence, trafficking as the belly-dancer does in the heady cocktail of dance and womanhood, creation and destruction, the object of desire becomes a repository of fear and loathing. To accept their spontaneous joy in dance without the attendant sense of sin, perhaps Egyptians might learn a thing or two from Nietzsche's declaration: 'I could only believe in a god who dances'.

Yahia Samir Lababidi, aphorist and poet, currently works as editor for UNESCO Cairo Office.

Source: The Free Library

DANCE CLASS: The moves, the story, when it's OK to boo

Sid Smith Special to the Tribune
October 16, 2009

Am I watching a story or not? What if I like the flashy parts best? And what's an arabesque and why? Dance newcomer Christopher Borrelli has questions, critic Sid Smith has answers. For a quick lesson on an intimidating art form, read on.


Dance can often strike the newcomer -- especially the male newcomer -- as among the most mysterious and intimidating of art forms.

Tribune reporter Christopher Borrelli, a devotee of cinema and other pop arts, is dating a woman who's a passionate dance fan. This means he has the luck/misfortune of being escorted/dragged to all manner of serious dance concerts. Recently, he questioned out loud what exactly it was he was seeing, what he should look for and what he was missing. With Lar Lubovitch's ballet "Othello" in production through Oct. 25 by the Joffrey Ballet at the Auditorium Theatre, now is a fine time to answer.

1. The question that nags at me whenever I sit through dance is one of narrative. Should I be able to understand the narrative from the dance itself? And if I can't follow the story, am I watching lousy dance? Or is the narrative in a dance closer to, say, the existentialism in a film -- inferred instead of literal?
All of the above. Older dance, like older films, conforms to our conventional Western idea of narrative -- 19th century ballets such as "Swan Lake," "Giselle" and "The Nutcracker" tell clear-cut stories through mime and dance, often in ways that are precursors of silent movies.

But in the 20th century, dance, like other art forms, became increasingly abstract, so that by the time of choreographers George Balanchine, Merce Cunningham and many others in midcentury, dance became a kind of abstract painting in motion. But if there is a story, like "Swan Lake" or " Cinderella," the dance should tell it clearly, and some do this better than others. "Giselle" is a great yarn. "The Nutcracker" is a fairly lousy, muddied one. Dance can provide a great love story like "Casablanca" or an open-ended, mystifying one like the 1960 Italian film "L'avventura." In general, storytelling in dance is more sophisticated now, sharper in "Othello," Joffrey Ballet artistic director Ashley Wheater argues, than in those old 19th century war horses.

2. What is an arabesque? I think I know. But more importantly, why should I care what it is?
Ballet is an assortment of sophisticated techniques and poses developed over centuries, as sublime as yoga and at times as cruel as foot-binding. Every single dancer masters them differently, on a sliding scale, like judo practitioners or kick-boxers.

In an arabesque (there's actually a variety of them), the dancer stands on one leg, while the other leg extends away from the body, with hands, arms, neck and head held in an artful design.

"What you care about in an arabesque is the beauty of the line," Wheater says. "Look from the end of a ballerina's fingertips all the way to the end of her toes in her point shoes, and from the top of her head to the base line of her standing leg. There should be a stunningly beautiful line, like one you might see in a building by a master architect. And it's the simplicity of the line that's beautiful, a simplicity developed through years of training.

"For a woman in particular, you must have an arabesque. You can't be a dancer without it."

3. The handful of times I have attended dance, I inevitably relate better to the unusual -- a piece that feels modern and pop culture-like or simply weird -- than to the elegance and poise of classic dance. Is something wrong with me?
"No," answers Wheater, "the weird and unusual are a reflection of our time right now. In theater and opera, too, people are breaking the boundaries of traditional ideas because it's intriguing. But don't forget it's the line and simplicity of classical ballet that's actually the hardest to achieve."

4. If I can hear the dancer's feet hit the stage, even with a soft thud, which is inevitable, are they doing something wrong? Should I boo loudly?
"Ballet is a silent art form, sublimely married to the music," Wheater says. "When you hear a lot of hard-hitting point shoes, the ladies in the company have not been taught how to soften the noise properly." Ditto a man landing loudly after a leap. Meanwhile, booing is a cherished European response, less so in America. But it was famously employed recently at the opening of the opera "Tosca" in New York City.

"If you have negative reaction to an overall work or interpretation, by all means boo," Wheater says. "Booing loud toe shoes might be a bit extreme, however."

5. Is a graceful move more important than an athletically difficult move? Or is it vice versa?
Both are paramount. Technical fireworks give ballet its circus excitement; beauty, elegance and poignancy give it its soul. In cinema, the montage in "The Battleship Potemkin," the marathon tracking shots in Hitchcock's "Rope" and the filmic cornucopia in "Citizen Kane" dazzle us.

The artfully sketched fallibility in "The Graduate," the bittersweet finales to "Casablanca" or "Rain Man." Who'd dismiss any of them?

6. The last time I attended dance -- Bill T. Jones' Lincoln piece at the Ravinia Festival -- I liked it more than most people around me, who seemed mystified by it. I was responding, I think, to the dialogue, the theatricality, the sheer spectacle of the thing. But does this mean, when it comes to dance, I am like a child who responds better to shiny objects?
It means you're bringing your instincts and paying attention. Jones is a fascinating hybrid figure of postmodern dance, grafting unusual amounts of dialogue, drama, historical fact and biography into much of his work. Dance-theater is a good way to describe his approach, and he makes a great introduction for the dance novice. His Lincoln piece (last month's premiere of "Fondly Do We Hope ... Fervently Do We Pray") wasn't among his finest, possibly explaining nearby audience indifference. But his genius for multi-disciplines is attracting new fans and new understanding of dance. Welcome to the club.

Tribune reporter Christopher Borrelli contributed to this report.

Source: Chicago Tribune