Big Dance Edinburgh and Bellydance Flashmob

I've had a fantastic dancey weekend.  I previously blogged about the Big Dance weekend of dance, in Edinburgh Saturday 30th June to Sunday 1st July, connected to the London 2012 festivities around the country.

After Saturday night's eventful gig, I felt spurred to head down to the National Museum of Scotland on Sunday to take part in the bellydance flashmob, organised by Elspeth Swishandhips, as part of Big Dance Edinburgh.  Months of careful and planning and organisation went into this and Elspeth even filmed and uploaded tutorials of all the choreography so that as many people as possible could take part. 

There were about 50 dancers, with Egyptian, ATS and Tribal Fusion styles all featuring.  With so many old and new faces, there was a fantastic buzz about the place and a huge crowd cheering us on - although I suspect not all of them were so unsuspecting.  Congratulations Elspeth, it was a fantastic event and thank you for all your hard work! And well done to all the dancers who took part!

Here we all are dancing in the Museum's spectacular surroundings (thanks to Norma for the photo): 

Big Dance events were taking place all over the city.  Here's my shot of Fife based ATS teacher Elaine giving a taster in the Museum, a bit later on:

And here's my shot of amazing double sword dancer Briar from Edinburgh troupe Twisted Tails under the shadow of Edinburgh castle.

At the end of the day, I even found myself chatting to someone in the crowd who felt inspired to start a new dance class.  Well how about that then for a successful way end to a weekend aimed at getting people dancing?

Here is Emma's video of the flashmob in all its glory:

"Lauren of Arabia"

Egyptian percussionist, musician and dancer Karim Nagi has posted this great clip of a lecture he gave from a panel discussion in the Diwan 2009 conference at the Arab American National Museum in Deerborn Michigan, USA. Karim discusses the Americanization of Arab dance in America, and how Arabs can reintegrate into the development of their own art forms.

This is an articulate and intelligent presentation of the issues around how dance originating from the Arab world has often been portrayed and mistranslated in the West and how important it is both for non-Arabs to understand properly the culture, form and origin behind Arabic dance and for Arabs themselves to embrace their own cultural wealth of dance.

I think this video is a must see for any Egyptian or Raqs Sharqi style dancer and for those with an interest in Arab culture. 




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Profiting From Others

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?

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Sirocco - a new direction in dance Festivals

Celebrating the art of Middle Eastern dance with the meeting of East and West, the Sirocco Festival returns for its 3rd annual event in May.

This is a unique experience amongst dance festivals, introducing participants to new forms of Middle Eastern Dance, that evolve before your eyes. Sirocco artists are hand picked by dancer, choreographer and writer Wendy Buonaventura, each one chosen for their ability to "ignite the magic spark of inspiration" amongst Festival goers. Each of these artists is also given the opportunity to develop a new dance piece for theatre, which is showcased at the Festival's Friday night opening show.

I was lucky enough to have attended the first 2 Sirocco Festivals. The main reason I went was to attend the classes of the Belgian dancer Beatrice Grognard, for her only UK teaching dates. However, at Sirocco I found I really enjoyed the other elements of the Festival, the theatre show, discussions, the Hafla/party night, being in the company of an interesting group of women representing the many different facets of the dance community. And last year my personal insight from the weekend was the strong message of being true to my own self expression and my own interpretation of the dance.

This year's Festival returns to the market town of Frome in Somerset from 14th to 16th May. Artists include Wendy Buonaventura, Mira Betz and Beatrice Grognard (back by popular demand for the 3rd year in a row), together with a number of other teachers of national standing. The Friday night show is Wendy Buonaventura's "I Put a Spell on You", a show that I was lucky enough to see at the Edinburgh Festival a few years back - although this time featuring performances from Sirocco artists.

A Festival with personality and conviviality, I would thoroughly recommend Sirocco to anyone seeking out a dance weekend with a difference.

The photo shows participants performing at the Party night/hafla at the Rook Lane Arts Centre at last year's Festival.

www.habibadance.com