Notes

Notes for Students
Book and Magazine Recommendations at the Bottom of the Page

Monday, Beginners
Dance Posture
~Feet in parallel
~knees "soft" (gently bent)
~long straight spine, i.e. hips "tucked" under you without shoving forward
~Upper body tall. Feeling of expansion and liftedness in the chest
~shoulders down and back

Mini Choreography: "El Hantour" by Amina from the CD Bellydance Superstars vol. V
1. Stand on diagonal facing rt. Left hip: drop front, then back x 5 in rhythm with music
2. small shimmy, facing front
3. hip taps out to the side, left then rt, x 5
4. small shimmy
5. big hips hits x 3, left, rt, left. Going to the left: Feet shoulder width apart. Left arm wraps across torso, hand on hip bone (remember this is breaking a "rule" and you normally should not put your palm on you body), left hand is behind the head. Weight shifts to left foot, rt heel comes up. Upper body rotates slightly. Rmember the movement is hip generated--even though your whole body is moving, your hip is the focus.

Email if you want the notes for "Fenak Ya Omry" by صابر الرباعي Saber el Robai/Robaei/Robae, from the CD Sharee el Gharam

Moves for Slow Music
~Camels
~Small shimmies
~Upward hip eights (taqsim)
~Shoulder Rolls
~Toe-heel walk
~Concepts: not overdancing the music; layering

Monday, Improvers
Choreography: "Gondol" on Bellydance Fantasy by Veena and Neena
1.Walk forward, weight on the balls of the feet, with a forward and upward feeling. Around 11 steps.
2. When the music trills, slowly step back on one leg and begin to camel, walking in place, 4 x
3. Rt foot over left, lift booth heels off the floor and rotate 270 degrees to the left, ending in a basic pose with the rt foot in front, most of your weight on the rt. Your hands are in a praying position and out of sight on the right side of your head. Elbows are up off your chest.
4. Left hip draws 2 vertical figures of eight at your side, scooping up to the back, then front. Then hold the pose for a moment.
5. Step out to the left into a maya as your hands come down to middle position with the palms up, making a gentle "giving" gesture. Maya x 2, starting on the left. It's quick!
6. Raqia Hassan's hip circle walk x 4, starting on left. The steps are on beats 1 and 4. Step forward/diagonal on the left, let weight shift back to the right, step back on the left/diagonal, and circle your left hip up and forward and put your left foot down slightly in front of your right. This final step down is unaccented by any hip motion. Now you can start the motion again by stepping forward with the opposite leg
7. Fast camel on toes (right foot is in front and is leading; remember not to cross your legs), going directly away from the audience with your left side facing the audience. left arm is out in middle position, right hand is behind your head.

Improvisation
~Don't give it all away at the beginning. Save your complicated "wow" moves and layering foor later on. Use the beginning of your song to greet your audience or draw them in, using simple movements and lots of confidence.
~Vary the speed of your moves. Dancers who constantly shimmy are exhausting, while dancers who are always behind the music are dull. Try to make the speed, size, and intensity of your moves reflect the changes in the music.
~Not only can you move with the changes in music, you can also make a slow taqsim more exiting by dancing faster than the music and you can build up tension in a fast drum solo by doing a slow gooey move behind the music or posing for a few seconds. 95% of your dance should be with the music, but going against it can be an exciting change.
~Consider the structure of the song. Many pieces have a slow taqsim intro, an upbeat chorus, and verses. Try adjusting your moves, attitude and intensity so you're slow and simple in the intro, big and extroverted and engaging in the chorus, etc.
~Plan one or two combinations in advance, preferably combos that can be done at different rhythms. Try to use your combo in one part of the song only, for example only in the chorus. This will add structure to your dance. Using the same combo in both the intro and a chorus blurs the distinction between those sections of the song and can make your dance seem monotonous or confusing.
~Get close to your audience! Smile, make eye contact. As we discussed, getting close also means you can re-use moves more easily.
~Check out books like Doris Humphrey's classic Making Dances for tips on using stage space. The use of floor patterns is not something that's usually taught or written about in Middle Eastern dance, so find some modern dance books and try adapting their ideas.

Monday, Special Topics
Zills
If you regularly come to this class, get your own pair of zills if possible. Aladdin's Cave has cheap ones of decent quality. When buying zills, aka sagat, aka finger cymbals, be sure to buy ones with two holes at the top. Zills with one hole are harder to play because they are not as securely anchored on your finger.
~There are some instructions on zill-buying here
~This is a concise, useful introductory article
~And this is a longer introduction. On this page youe can find written patterns and sound files
~A technical explanation of zilling

Veil
~Want your own? You can make a veil by buying around 3 metres of light fabric (silk, chiffon,     silk chiffon)
~Remember not to look down at your hands
~When something goes wrong, turn or spin to distract from the problem and keep the veil off the floor

Rhythms
~Here is a very brief introduction to the Rhythms used in Middle Eastern dance
~I recommend getting Jalilah's Raqs Sharki 4: The Rhythm Workshop. This is a CD of rhythms with very good liner notes (so don't burn or download it!). It will be useful for your finger cymbal playing as well as your musical interpretation.
~We have met the chiftetelli rhythm, which sounds like this
~The next rhythm we will learn will probably be baladi, also known as masmudi kebir ("big masmudi")

Choreography
~Do you need notes for the "Raqs Leila" choreography? They exist--please ask. Also, please note that this choreography is from The Presence of the Past, not from Further Journeys.

Turkish Karsilama
Moves:
~Fists to the sides of the hips, doing a loose, big taqsim
~Fists to the front and back of the hiips while doing a big circle (the hips do not tilt or twist much in this circle). For both these moves, your fist taps the hip in the direction it's going to move--you're fist and hip do not go toward one another
~Stepping forward and back in pace, staying on the same leg. Right foot front/diagonal with a hip tap, left foot stays still with a hip tap to the left, right foot steps back/diagonal with a hip tap. Loose and relxed. Can be done flat or in relevé.
~Concepts: loose natural arms, no extreme isolations, attitude

Music:
~9/8 rhythm, aka karsilama. Your dancing will emphasize 1-3-5-7-8 out of nine beats. You may also do 1-3-5-7-8-9. 1-3-5 are those three big, slow beats in the beginning. 7-8 or 7-8-9 are quick.
~I recommend getting a 9/8 song and getting to know it well. We danced to Armut Agaci by Harem in the beginning of class, which is good for identifying the 1-3-5. Other good songs are "Sulukule" on Dahlia Carella's Dunyavi CD (nice and slow), "Rompi Rompi" on Gypsy Fire (quick but cleanly played, and a very popular song you are likely to hear again), "Mastika" on Omar Faruk Tekbilek's Dance Into Eternity (ditto), or "Penceresi Yola Karsi" on Ozlem's CD Turku (very slow).
~If you have finger cymbals, try playing them! If you ding your finger cymbals along with the rhythm it will be fairly obvious if you are following the rhythm or not

Websites:
~Shira
~Shira's site again
~Wikipedia

Thursday, Private Turkish Class
3/4 Shimmy/Egyptain Walk/Shimmy Walk
~1. weight on the left.
    right hip lifts up
    right hip forward
    right hip down, foot touching the floor
    weight goes onto the right foot, right hip bumps outward
    2. 1. weight on the right.
    left hip up
    left hip forward
    left hip down, foot touching the floor
    weight goes onto the left foot, left hip bumps outward

Mini choreography to "Ay" on Karma by Tarkan
1. hip figure of eight, starting forward left with an accent. x 3. Rt hand behind head, left in middle position.
2. Chest lift up, leave it up, slowly camel down to a low basic pose
3. Hip circle on left, in basic pose, scooping up. Left hand in lower position.

April Workshop at Bellydance Bonanza: Modern Egyptian
Dina Style 1. Small shimmy sliding to the side x 4
    small shimmy with hip taps out to the sides. Remember to stop shimmying during the tap
Dina Style 2. Camel with the upper body (mainly) and end with a chest drop. Do not drop below neutral. Step out into a big bent-over hip circle. Make sure your back is straight, chest and eyes lifted, hips untwisting and always pointing straight to the front. One hand behind your head, the other hand wrapping across your body and resting loosely on your hip bone.
Randa Kamal Style 1: Back to audience. Rt foot out to side, toe pointed.
    Hip lift on rt and small shimmy, keeping the hip lifted.
    Step out on rt, stepping into a maya so that the first loop is very large
Randa Kamal Style 2: Basic pose, left foot slightly in front on right. Draw an upward circle with your left hip in the vertical plane at your side. rt arm is up, left arm is down framing your hip
    Pause
    Shimmy left hip while dropping it slightly
    Pause
    Drop hips another few centimeters, bringing raise arm down behind your head. For extra drama, let your head drop back a bit.
Randa Kamal Style 3: Big bent over circle, as in Dina style, but the hands are not on the body. Keep arms at middle height, counterbalancing the body so that when your haps are forward, your hands are down behand you hips, and when your hips are back, hands go toward the front. As you circle to the right, your weight will shift to your right leg, then your left. As soon as the weigh comes down on your left left, slide you right foot around 90 degrees behin you. The idea is that as your finish your circle, you smoothly sweep your foot back and turn your lower body and extra 90 degrees, making the move a turning hip circle.


Books
* = recommended for students interested in Egyptian oriental dance
Middle Eastern Dance Books
*Buonaventura, Wendy. Serpent of the Nile.

*Carlton, Donna. Looking for Little Egypt.
(I have an extra copy of this one, which you can have for 10.00)

Djoumana, Khajira. The Tribal Bible: Exploring the Phenomenon that is American Tribal
Style Bellydance. Santa Rosa: BlackSheep BellyDance, 2003.

Hellend, Shawna. “The Belly Dance: Ancient Ritual to Cabaret Performance” in Moving History/Dancing Cultures, ed. Ann Dils and Ann Cooper Albright. Middleton, Connecticut: 2001. 128-35.

*Hobin, Tina. Belly Dance. London and New York: Marion Boyars, 2003.

Karayanni. Dancing Fear and Desire: Race, Sexuality and Imperial Politics in Middle Eastern Dance.

**Van Nieuwkerk Karin. A Trade Like Any Other: Female Singers and Dancers in Egypt. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1995.

Middle Eastern Dance Books I Want to Read
Al-Zayer, Al Hanley, et alii. Middle Eastern Dance.

Redmond, Layne. When the Drummers Were Women.

Richards, Tazz, ed. The Belly Dance Book.

Shay, Anthony, And Sellers-Young, Barabara. Belly Dance: Orientalism, Transnationalism and Harem Fantasy. Mazda Publishers, 2005.

Other Relevant Books
Alloula, Malek. The Colonial Harem.

Buonaventura, Wendy. Something in the Way She Moves: Dancing Women from Salome to Madonna. Cambridge: The Da Capo Book Group, 2003.

Croutier, Alev. Harem.

Massad, Joseph. Desiring Arabs. London: University of Chicago Press (2007).

*Said, Edward. Orientalism: Western Conceptions of the Orient. London: Penguin Books (1991).

Wagner, Ann. Adversaries of Dance From the Puritans to the Present. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1997.

Zines, Magazines

The Gilded Serpent (web magazine)
Endless articles on all subjects. And a website design that will give you a headache.

The Hip Circle: Bellydance Current Affairs (web magazine)
Events, dancer directory, articles

Habibi Magazine
Habibi used to be a smaller, more research-oriented journal. If you want to learn about dance history, consider ordering some of their oldest issues.

Arabesque Magazine
Out of print now. I believe you can order back issues through Habibi Magazine. It’s well worth it. The articles are fantastic.

Mosaic

Terminology

This website uses the word "bellydance" only so people googling for a "bellydancer" or "bellydance classes" can find the site. The correct term for the dance is "oriental dance". In Arabic, the dance is called raqs sharqi, which translates to "dance of the east" or "oriental dance."

"Bellydance" was coined by Sol Bloom, an American, at the 1890s Wold Fair. The term was intended to be titillating--"belly" was not a polite word. Showing/moving one's "belly" was simply not done--recall that women were still corsetted at this time. So not only was the term created by an American, it was created to scandalise...and it's not even a correct description of the dance! There are only two or three dance moves actually done with the belly; the action is actually in the hips.

So why is the term Eurocentric, if it's translated from Arabic? "Raqs sharqi" is likely a translation of the French "danse orientale". One of the first people to use the term raqs sharqi was Badia Masabni, a nightclub owner in pre-Nasser Egypt. Her club was frequented by the British and by Anglicised Egyptian elites. She needed a term for her dance that distinguished it from lower-class street dancing and from western dance. She chose (or perhaps even coined) a label that made sense to her clientele: "sharqi", i.e. of the East , i.e. east of England.

Why not just call the dance raqs sharqi? First, because there are too many ways to spell it. The Arabic letter "qaf" is loosely equivalent to an English "q" but sometimes gets translates as a "k" of "gh". This causes problems when doing internet searches for the dance. Second, it's an Arabic term, not Turkish. In Turkish, the term for the dance is "oryantal dans", not "raqs sharqi". But both those terms translate to "oriental dance" in English, giving us one term that is easy to spell and refers to both Egyptian and Turkish dance. Huzzah.