The wonderful Sarasvati girls held yet another fabulous event on Saturday night - their Sun, Sea and Sarasvati Hafla. This was a fun night out with a seaside twist which raised almost £200 for the Marine Conservation Society. This is a fantastic achievement, especially given numbers were slightly down after another dancer decided to organise a clashing hafla over in Edinburgh on the same night. Well done girls!
The Hafla was hosted at La Bodega Tapas Bar, part of Dance With Attitude Studios in Glasgow. It's a great venue for a party and the resident teachers Karen and Alexis even treated us to Tango and Salsa displays. There were a number of marine inspired acts through the night and delivered in style, including Dance with Attitude's own belly dance teacher Lorri resplendent with mask and snorkel, a pirate dance by Kaz of Hafla Karimah and Stef from Sarasvati doing the dance of the jellyfish.
Here's my dance from Saturday. My performance didn't quite follow the theme, but I did select what I think is an appropriate "seaweed coloured" dress, by Hanan from Farida Dance for the occasion.
The Festival, run by two local Glasgow Egyptian Belly Dance teachers, Sarah Pulman of Alchemy Egyptian Dance and Ann McLaughlin, features a day of exciting workshops from national and local teachers, topped off with an evening Hafla.
This year, I will be teaching a brand new workshop on the Secrets of Improvisation. Here are all the details:
3.30-5.00pm
Costs £12
Open level
Break free from the confines of choreography, feel the music, and tap into your instincts to take command of the stage with improvisational freedom. This workshop will help you to connect with and dance to some traditional Arabic music, melody and rhythm that form part of every dancer’s repertoire. Using movements you already know, you will learn techniques to identify your own personal interpretation and breathe life and emotion into your performances.
I'll be teaching alongside Kay Taylor of Farida Dance, Laura Monteith of Sarasvati Tribal, Christine aka Her Royal Hellness Lucretia, Joannie Ward of Mirage and Imman Mussa of IMMEDA.
Workshops take place at the 411 White Studios, 62 Templeton on the Green, Glasgow G40 1DA.
After the day of workshops, put on your sparklies and join us for the Hafla at 7.30pm, Woodside Halls, 60 Glenfarg St, Glasgow, Lanarkshire G20 7QU
I'll also be performing at the Hafla, together with the other teachers and other dancers and special guests - personally, I've got my fingers crossed that a certain very famous Arabian Horse called Dessie might make an appearance.
For bookings, full programme, biographies and everything else you need to know, visit: www.glasgowfad.com
I've just come across this beautiful interview with Om Kalthoum, recorded just after her concert at the Olympia Théâtre in Paris, in November 1967. This was the one and only time in her career that she performed outside of the Arab world. It's a delightful, if short interview with questions asked by a star struck young interviewer. The Star of the East herself presents as stately, somewhat reserved, entirely modest, and of course overwhelmingly patriotic.
As for the impact of the concert, judge for yourself. Here is an extract of Om Kalthoum singing Enta Omri, "you are my whole life". This is also subtitled in English.
For any dancers new to Om Kalthoum who want to learn more, I should mention the lovely dancers resource complete with recommended listening and You Tube links on Candi's website.
Recently, I was offered for sale a homemade CD from a local belly dancer. It was a compilation featuring a variety of oriental music, sold in a plastic sleeve with a photo of the dancer, and with no track listing or other information.
At £10 a CD, it's obviously a nice way of supplementing a dancer's income, particularly at workshops where eager students can clamber to purchase the track used in the class. But this brings with it unfortunate consequences.
I can try to explain more about the implications of music piracy, but it's probably better to watch Beata Cifuentes, one of the victims of this type of crime, explaining for himself.
If you want to understand more about how much of the heart and soul of an artist goes into producing original oriental music, I would also recommend reading Yasmina of Cairo's article in this months NADA magazine.
Finally, this is one of my favourite CDs:
This music was produced by Jennifer Carmen of Layali El Sharq music. One of the tracks is a beautiful Baladi accordion progression, played by Sheikh Taha (for more about Sheikh Taha read the latest issue of Mosaic magazine). Last month, I watched an experienced professional performer dance a lovely rendition to this very piece. I approached the performer later that evening to speak to her about what is one of my favourite pieces of music. But I quickly discovered that she wasn't even aware of where the music had come from, let alone know the name of the artist. And she was far from understanding the story behind it (which you can read here).
In the Arabic Dance world, performers are increasingly conscious of finding out exactly what style they are dancing to, ensuring that they understand the lyrics and are sensitive to the culture which the music comes from. So why should so many of these same artists have no reservation about disrespecting the artistry and hard work that goes into producing the very recordings that they dance to?
I've just discovered this interesting Arabic Language Learning Blog called The Arabic Student. It's a blog that teaches Arabic using video clips, TV shows and songs.
Everything is explained through the eyes of the native English speaker learning Arabic. I liked the useful collection of grammar points together with interesting explanations of the differences between main dialects. Mostly, this is about learning the useful stuff that you might see and hear when travelling in Arabic speaking countries.
Overall, it's the children's songs and video clips that have grabbed me. I really liked his post on the Egyptian Arabic version of the Little Mermaid, " 'Aroosat al baHr" which literally means Bride of the Sea. This entry comes complete with Arabic script, transliteration and translation. I could understand a little here and there using the bits of language I've learnt so far and think it is a great way of bringing the language to life. Follow this link to watch the video clip and read the lesson.
