Before Egypt Was

A couple of weeks ago I attended an art show in Culver City. I only took a few photos while there.  This was one of them. I found this piece very interesting.

Before Egypt Was

Eduard Buk Ulreich

Oil on Canvas, Circa 1940

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Brain-ella - The Belly Dancing Brain

Brain-ella – The Belly Dancing Brain

Recently I was reminded of one of the times I was the MC for a belly dance event. During the 1990s I was the MC for a monthly showcase in Studio City at The Marrakesh restaurant and sometimes would MC other events.

I unexpectedly ran into Anisa earlier this month at a non-belly dance show in North Hollywood.  Anisa produces the dinner show King Tut Returns every October. This year marks her 18^th anniversary of the show. Incredible!  Time flies by too fast.

I was the MC for the show the first couple of years. The first year I MCed as Elvis and second year I was myself except that the show started off with my friend Brain-ella.  Yes, Brain-ella.  She was yet another of my crazy creations, this one especially for Halloween.

I found a high quality rubber-like brain at a store - not one of those cheap plastic kind of brains. Since brains are brains and have no limbs or a torso; the only way I could give her a belly dance costume was wrapping a silver sequins belt around her middle. I then sat her on a stool on the stage.

The script for the show is either lost or stuck in a box in storage somewhere but basically it went like this:

“Hello, I am Brain-ella; the belly dancing brain. Yes, I know I don’t have legs and arms to dance, but I do have great rhythm, I can even shimmy if I try real hard.  Don’t you love my costume?  I designed it myself.

Brain-ella is not my real name. It’s my dance name. We belly dancers always have a dance name. I did consider other dance names such as:  Sarah-Bellum, Thala-mus, and my favorite: Medulla Oblongata.  

Please do enjoy the show.”

I bet the belly dancers that happen to also be brain surgeons reading this are just doubled over in laughter right now.

Unfortunately I don’t think I have any pictures of Brain-ella, but I do have some great memories.  Have a great Halloween! 

Brain-ella looked something like this, but more awesome...with a very nice sequin belt.

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The Joyous Debke Dance!

The Joyous Debke Dance!

If you have experienced Middle Eastern Dance for any length of time or gone to an Arabic night club you have probably seen and experienced an energetic and fascinating dance called the Dabke. I refer to it as the most joyous dance in the world! 

According to one folk tradition, the dance originated in the Levant where houses were built from stone with a roof made of wood, straw and dirt. The dirt roof had to be compacted which required stomping the dirt hard in a uniform way to compact it evenly. This event of cooperation is called ta'awon and from here comes the word awneh, meaning "help." This developed into the song Ala Dalouna, or roughly translated "Let's go and help". The dabke and the rhythmic songs go together in an attempt to keep the work fun and useful.

I didn’t realize there were numerous ways to spell Dabke. I’d been spelling it “Debke”, which is one of many ways to spell it.

The word Dabke is also transliterated to"dabka","dabki", "dabkeh", "debke", "debkah", "debki", "debka" is an Arab folk dance native to the levant.

The dance is popular in Lebanon, Palestine, Jordan, Bosnia, Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Saudi Arabia. A line dance, it is widely performed at weddings and joyous occasions. The line forms from right to left. The leader of the dabke heads the line, alternating between facing the audience and the other dancers. 

World Record Debke:

In August 2011, a group in a Lebanese village Dhour El Choueir, Lebanon set a new world record. Organized by Dhour El Choueir Summer Festival, a human chain of 5,050 was made and currently holds the world record.

Dhour El Choueir event broke the record set by Tollab, Lebanese Student Federation in Montreal, with the participation of "La Troupe Folklorique Les Chevaliers du Liban" that had made a human chain of 4,475 people dancing the dabke for more than five minutes straight at Montreal's Marcelin Wilson Park.

Tollab had itself broken a record of 2,743 set by a group of Israeli Arabs in Acre, Israel. An earlier record of 1,700 had been set in Toronto.

Guys doing the Debke!

Everybody doing the Dabke!

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Top Tips to Get Belly Dance Gigs

Top Tips to Get Belly Dance Gigs

These gigs would apply to performing at parties, restaurants and teaching.

Here they are in no specific order:

1.   Personal networking - Attend local events of any kind, business and social. Be sure to have plenty of business cards to hand out. Don’t just limit yourself to the dance community; everyone is a potential employer.

2.   Social Media – You need at least a FaceBook account. Add and interact with new friends that are both in and out of the belly dance world.

3.   Call and pay personal visits to: Gyms, dance studios, restaurants, other dancers, and friends old and new.

4.   Make partners with other dancers you admire and respect. Collaboration can only help your career in dance.

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Ruth St Denis ~ An Inspiration to All Dancers

Ruth St Denis ~ Inspiration to All Dancers

“It is not a question of who dances but of who or what does not dance.” – Ruth St Denis

I’ve been interested and intrigued by Ruth St Denis since I was a teenager. While she was not a belly dancer, her ethnic inspired choreographies gave rise to an interest in ethnic dance in the United States. 

She was teacher to dance immortals Ted Shawn, Martha Graham, Lillian Powell and Evan Burrows Fontaine.

Ruth St. Denis married Ted Shawn and together they created “Denishawn” known as the cradle of American modern dance. Ruth and Ted also created the legendary dance festival known as “Jacob’s Pillow”.

In the late 1990s I paid a visit to Valentina Oumansky’s Dance Foundation on Cahuenga Boulevard next to the Hollywood Hills.  This was the same and last studio where Ruth St. Denis taught up until her death in 1968. I remember Ms Oumansky telling me that Ruth St Denis like to be referred to as Miss Ruth.

If you are just discovering Ruth St Denis, please learn more about her.  She was a true original. 

“The real message of the Dance opens up the vistas of life to all who have the urge to express beauty with no other instrument than their own bodies, with no apparatus and no dependence on anything other than space.” – Ruth St Denis

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Mata Hari - Dancer and Spy

Most of us have seen those wonderful vintage postcards with Mata Hari's photograph on them, but most of us know little about her. I recently decided to do some research on her and found that there was a great deal more to her than what she became most known for and that was being a spy.

Her real name was Margaretha Geertruida Zelle and she was born in the Netherlands on August 7, 1876. When she was 18 she answered and ad in a Dutch newspaper placed by Dutch Colonial Army Captain Rudolf MacLeod who was looking for a wife. At the time he was living in Dutch East Indies - which is now Indonesia. They married in 1895. Her new husband was twenty years her senior. They had two children Norman-John MacLeod and Louise Jeanne MacLeod.

Their marriage was a disaster for Margaretha. Her husband was an alcoholic and he took out his frustrations on his wife plus he had a concubine. Margaretha moved out and moved in with another Dutch officer. She became interested in Indonesian traditions, began studying dance and joined a dance company.

In 1897 she officially adopted the name Mara Hari - meaning "Sun" in Indonesian. She and her husband divorced in 1907. Sadly, both of her children died young - both from complications of syphilis that they contracted from their parents. 

Margaretha moved to Paris in 1903.  Before Mata Hari rose to fame as an exotic dancer she performed as a circus horse rider and an artist's model. By 1905, Mata Hari started her rise to fame as an exotic dancer. She was a contemporary of dancers Isadora Duncan and Ruth St. Denis, leaders in the early modern dance movement.  

Mata Hari was promiscuous, flirtatious and she openly flaunted her body. She captivated audiences and was an overnight success. She became the mistress of millionaire industrialist Emile Etienne Guimet. She was photographed numerous times during this period, nude or nearly so and that is why there are so many vintage postcards of her. Mata Hari brought this carefree provocative style to the stage in her act, which garnered wide acclaim.

The most celebrated segment of her act was her progressive shedding of clothing until she wore just a jeweled bra and some ornaments upon her arms and head. She was seldom seen without a bra as she was self-conscious about being small breasted. She wore a skin colored body stocking for her performances. 

Although Mata Hari's claims about her origins were fictitious, it was very common for entertainers of her era to invent colorful stories about their origins as part of the show. Her act was spectacularly successful because it elevated exotic dance to a more respectable status, and so broke new ground in a style of entertainment for which Paris was later to become world famous.

Her style and her free willed attitude made her a very popular woman, as did her eagerness to perform in exotic and revealing clothing. She posed for provocative photos and mingled in wealthy circles. At the time, as most Europeans were unfamiliar with the Dutch East Indies and thus thought of Mata Hari as exotic, it was assumed her claims were genuine. As with anything that becomes popular; by about 1910, a myriad of imitators had arisen. Critics began to opine that the success and dazzling features of the popular Mata Hari were due to cheap exhibitionism and lacked artistic merit.

Although she continued to schedule important social events throughout Europe, she was held in disdain by serious cultural institutions as a dancer who did not know how to dance. Mata Hari's career started to decline after 1912. She performed her final show on March 13, 1915. This proved to be the end of her dancing career. She'd started her career relatively late for a dancer, and had started putting on weight. However, by this time she had become a successful courtesan.

She had relationships with high-ranking military officers and politicians in influential positions in many countries. Prior to World War I she was generally viewed as an artist and a free-spirited bohemian, but as war approached, she began to be seen by some as a wanton and promiscuous woman, and perhaps a dangerous seductress. During World War I, the Netherlands remained neutral. As a Dutch subject, Margaretha Zelle was thus able to cross national borders freely. To avoid the battlefields, she travelled between France and the Netherlands via Spain and Britain, and her movements inevitably attracted attention.

In 1916, she was travelling by steamer from Spain when her ship called at the English port of Falmouth. There she was arrested and brought to London where she was interrogated at length by Sir Basil Thomson, Assistant Commissioner at New Scotland Yard in charge of counter-espionage. He gave an account of this in his 1922 book, saying that she eventually admitted to working for French Intelligence. Initially detained in Cannon Street police station, she was then released and stayed at the Savoy. It is unclear if she lied on this occasion, believing the story made her sound more intriguing, or if French authorities were using her in such a way, but would not acknowledge her due to the embarrassment and international backlash it could cause.

In January 1917, the German military attaché in Madrid transmitted radio messages to Berlin describing the helpful activities of a German spy, code-named H-21. French intelligence agents intercepted the messages and, from the information it contained, identified H-21 as Mata Hari. The messages were in a code that some claimed that German intelligence knew had already been broken by the French (in fact it had been broken not by the French, but by the British "Room 40" team), leaving some to claim that the messages were contrived.

However, this same code, which the Germans were convinced was unbreakable was used to transmit the Zimmerman Telegram; its unintended interception some weeks later precipitated the United States' entry into the war against Germany.

Mata Hari was arrested in her room on 13 February 1917 at the Hotel Elysee Palace, on the Champs Elysee in Paris. She was put on trial on July 24, accused of spying for Germany and consequently causing the deaths of at least 50,000 soldiers. Although the French and British intelligence suspected her of spying for Germany, neither could produce definite evidence against her. Secret ink was found in her room, which was incriminating evidence in that period. She contended that it was part of her make-up. 

She wrote several letters to the Dutch Consul in Paris, claiming her innocence. "My international connections are due of my work as a dancer, nothing else. Because I really did not spy, it is terrible that I cannot defend myself."  Her defense attorney faced impossible odds; he could not cross-examine the prosecution's witnesses or directly question his own witnesses. Under the circumstances, her conviction was a foregone conclusion. She was executed by firing squad on 15 October 1917, at the age of 41.  Was she really a spy? In the 1970s German documents were unsealed that proved that Mata Hari was truly a German agent.

In the autumn of 1915, she entered German service, and on orders of section III B-Chief Walter Nicolai, she was instructed about her duties by Major Roepell during a stay in Cologne. Her reports were to be sent to the War News Post West in Düsseldorf under Roepell as well as to the Agent mission in the German embassy in Madrid under Major Arnold Kalle, with her direct handler being Captain Hoffmann, who also gave her the code name H-21.In December 1916, the French Second Bureau of the French War Ministry let Mata Hari obtain the names of six Belgian agents: five of whom were suspected of submitting fake material and working for the Germans, while the sixth was suspected to be a double agent for Germany and France. Two weeks after Mata Hari had left Paris for a trip to Madrid, the double agent was executed by the Germans, while the five others continued their operations. This development served as proof to the Second Bureau that the names of the six spies had been communicated by Mata Hari to the Germans.

Mata Hari went bravely to her death.  According to an eyewitness account by British reporter Henry Wales, she was not bound and refused a blindfold.Their is a statue of Mata Hari in Leeuwarden, Netherlands. Fries Museum in Leeuwarden, Netherlands exhibits a "Mata Hari Room". Included in the exhibit are two of her personal scrapbooks and an oriental rug embroidered with the footsteps of her fan dance. Located in Mata Hari's native town, the museum is well known for research into the life and career of Leeuwarden's world-famous citizen. 

Fortunately there are numerous photos of Mata Hari available on the internet. And yes, she was likely a spy but she did inspire many thousands of dancers.

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Mata Hari

Mata Hari - 1910

Favorite Part of Belly Dance? I Love it all!

Our first place essay winner is Maria Toddes

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Picking just one part of the belly dance itself is a daunting task, but when I get in that ‘zone’, I feel perfectly balanced between heaven and earth.  I used to say I felt perfectly ‘bungeed’ between Mother Earth and Father Sky.

I’m a late bloomer as I didn’t discover the beauty and freedom of belly dance until my late 30’s.  Years before I had seen a health program that featured a woman who had lost a significant amount of weight by belly dancing and was now and instructor. That resonated with me and I tucked that in the back of my mind, making a note to myself that I would only join a gym that offered belly dance classes.  Then as luck would have it, I found a health club that offered belly dance for fitness.  Well, let’s just say, that first hour was when ‘the bug’ bit me.  I was hooked.  My husband and daughter have been dancing with me ever since.  We found a show on one of our health channels and watched religiously and practiced on our own. 

Then I started looking for teachers in our area.  I found one who; to this day is probably the most beautiful dancer and human I’ve ever had the privilege to meet.  I jumped in feet first into the deep end.  She taught us beginners the basics, zills and choreography in one block of classes.  I loved it.  I couldn’t get enough.  As I continued to devour every book, dvd and cd of all things even remotely related to my new love – our instructors came and left.  Clearly guided by the Divine; I found instructors that pushed my body and brain passed what I thought I was capable of.  Having suffered from asthma, I had to sit out more than I wanted to.  I pushed through all manner of health issues and in doing so, I’ve made mental and written notes of what kind of teaching style brings out the best in me and what confuses and frustrates me.

We are lucky enough to have a growing sisterhood of the dance in our area.  Most of us know each other at least by face if not by name.  My husband has ribbed me for years telling me I’m ‘no learning, I’m remembering’ – his opinion and I understand why, but I don’t let that come out of my mouth. 

Currently my daughter and I are exploring some fusion.  We’ll never forsake our first love of a more cabaret style, but being well rounded usually serves all who dare to do that. Currently we have on instructor who is into fusion; she’s gorgeous and her spirit lights up any room.  She’s pregnant now and we’re all anxious to see if her delivery is an easy one.  She could still do a belly roll at five months so we’ll see.

My family (hubby too) attend and participate in every Hafla, workshop and now long weekends and intensives we can afford.  Writing this, we are fresh from a well planned and executed Hafla one of our teachers organized.  While I’ve found that each instructor has her/his own style and ways of communication, I wouldn’t trade any one of them or anything.

In my quest to the best dancer I can be, I’ve made dear friends, learned more about sewing than I ever thought possible, but most importantly, have discovered more about myself than I thought was inside me.  I love all parts and aspects of the dance, but I especially love how a dancer who is truly enjoying herself can transform from average to being the most beautiful woman in the room.  That inner light, the shine of her spirit on her face, or in my case, my face is the part of the dance I love the most.  Working and playing with the audience so the dancer transfers some of their enjoyment to the audience – the audience by clapping and the vocalizations, the zaghareet is my favorite noise – gives back to the dancer.  What a lovely exchange.

Just today, I was watching a small troupe, with husband in tow start to get slow and drag, but as soon as they hear the appreciative vocalizations, the smile and twinkle in their eyes returned to their own delight!!

So while I do love a good drum solo, my favorite part of the routine is playing (nicely) with the crowd and as an audience member, I love to smile and try to make the dancer(s) feel as comfortable as I can. 

If I’m not dancing, I’m thinking about it – what can I afford next, where will I leave more and come away with so much information I must write down, lest I forget the precious gems I just learned. 

In conclusion, I love it all; the rich history, the different styles of costuming, the music which commands your body to move.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve shimmied in the car, pharmacy, waiting in line.  I like to practice a flat footed maya waiting in line- it’s like my little secret.  I don’t care who thinks I’m crazy.  But most of all I love the change of the dancer’s countenance while she’s basically ‘in conference’ with the Divine.

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The Solo Surprise

This is an essay from one of our contest winners Atisheh who won second place.            

The Solo Surprise

           When I read the topic for the essay contest, I thought it would be easy to answer. My passion for bellydance is in no small part due to its delicious, languorous movements. I love the meditative quality of the dance: holding a pose while tracing soft curlicues in the air with my fingers, stretching out a large hip circle to its utmost extension and letting my upper body sway down and then up again, unfurling my snake arms deliberately as though the air were made of maple syrup.   

            Given my love for the gooey, sensuous aspects of bellydance, answering what my favorite part of the bellydance routine is should be easy. It must be the chiftetelli, of course, or at least the veil section. What better chance to delight in slowness, moving and breathing with the music, letting an entrancing veil waft through the air, or doing sinuous undulations in floor work? And yet, I couldn’t commit. Because the more I thought about it, the more I realized that a different part of the routine has been winning my heart lately. And it is the utter opposite of everything I have always loved about this dance. But first, a little background.

             I am not a professional dancer. I am, in fact, the eternal amateur. I go to classes, I take workshops, I buy a ton of DVDs, I read blogs and write one, I peek into conversations on online forums. Very, very rarely, I buy some little bit of a costume. I adore this dance, and it takes up a very high percentage of my physical and mental life, but no one is going to be knocking at my door tomorrow to ask me to perform a routine. 

            So the question for me is a bit theoretical. And yet, it’s also not. I’m not a high-energy person, a fast mover, so the slower aspects of bellydance always appealed to me. Given a choice between following a melody or following a rhythm, I almost always incline to the melody. I also liked the fact that slow movements, as in the chiftetelli, really made me feel my body from the inside, gave me a sense of deep connection to my own movement. I came to bellydance partly because I wanted to learn a dance I could do alone, for which I wouldn’t need a partner. It has always been something I did for myself, and only for myself.

             But a few things changed for me recently. For one thing, I was pregnant – for the usual amount of time – and I had a baby. I danced a lot while pregnant, I worked with videos and I improvised on my own to many hours of Middle Eastern music. But something else also happened. I had taken a class on world drumming, and though I only picked up some basic skills, I did wind up with a very nice doumbek. My husband, who is much more talented musically, started picking up the doumbek now and then and improvising some rhythms. Some were Arabic ones that he had heard me practicing, and others were his own invention. And I started to dance to them.

             Among my favorite memories of being pregnant, before the tornado of dirty diapers and nighttime feedings and inexplicable crankiness hit us, was my husband playing the drum, me grabbing a hip scarf if one was near by, tying it on, and happily improvising to his beats. It was a time in our lives when we both lived with constant awareness of my growing body, and somehow it made sense to play with an art form in which my body was also the focus. As his playing got faster and faster, I would forget my weightiness or my painful back and get carried away with the intensity of the music. There was no audience outside the two of us (and, well, a little creature who was along for the ride), but we had the conversation between drummer and dancer I had heard the pros talk about. While I had been attracted to the way bellydance allowed me to be alone and introspective, the drum solo allowed me to explore it as a partner dance.

             This is how I started to fall for the drum solo. It can be fierce and tight, full of pops and locks, but it can also be cool and relaxed, with travel moves and big shimmies. And it’s the perfect do-it-yourself version of bellydance. You don’t need to have a lot of space for traveling moves, or the right floor for spins, or ceilings high enough to practice the veil. I can listen to a drum solo while waiting for the bus, and play with the rhythms under my winter coat. And even more exciting, you don’t need a full orchestra to enjoy dancing to live music. Find one drummer who is really into it, even if he or she hasn’t mastered all of Arabic or Turkish percussion, and you can have music and dance to it.

             As I’ve recovered from childbirth and from the first, hectic year with a new baby, I’ve found the athleticism of the drum solo – the very thing I used to be wary of – to be a new attraction. I am spending more time dancing than I ever have before in my life. In fact, dance has become my lifeline. And doing a drum solo workshop or DVD, with all the sweat and speed and rehearsing of tiny, precise moves, has become a way to measure how far I’ve come in my dance training. The drum solo doesn’t let me stay where I’m comfortable. Whether it’s learning a completely new shimmy or drilling a series of bumps and pops until it comes naturally, working on a drum solo forces me to learn new skills in a focused way. 

            Sure, a drum solo is not as meditative or as soft as a chiftetelli or a taqsim. Those will always have their place in my heart. But I’m now a fan of the euphoria that comes from practicing and dancing with the drum, the excitement of give-and-take with a live drummer, the thrill of following crisp patterns with my own movements. Composed of rhythm and energy, the drum solo represents everything that I’ve always thought I didn’t have. Falling in love with it has been my solo surprise.

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Claudette Colbert as Cleopatra

In 1934 Claudette Colbert played starred in the title role of Cleopatra. I thought you would enjoy this stunning photo of her. Ms Colbert had an amazing face. 

Claudette Colbert as Cleopatra

The 2 Speed Belly Dancer

Yes, I know you've seen it too. Too many times. Generally it's a symptom of an inexperienced dancer. What are the 2 speeds?  Fast and faster. 

So you're sitting in the audience at a belly dance event and you're watching one dancer after another. A belly dancer comes out on stage and frantically runs through the first part of her routine. Then the slow music comes up and what's supposed to be the slow sensuous part of the dance, the dancer instead moves faster than the music. Sometimes she whips out her veil and almost uses it as a weapon on the audience. Then the drum solo music comes up and she seems to be doing double time even on the fast music.  She ends her routine and runs off stage.  I often wonder if she falls over from exhaustion then drinks a gallon of water. Then you realize that you're exhausted from watching her too.

Well, there's a simple cure for the 2 speed dancer. 

1. Practice the routine a lot before performing it in public. This will give you confidence in the dance and slow you down. 

2. Breathe. Be sure you are breathing properly through out the routine. Don't be afraid to take a slow deep breath during the performance. 

I hope this cures all future 2 speed dancers. 

Suzy Evans

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The Complete Belly Dance Routine

If you took belly dance classes back in 60s and 70s you became familiar with what was called the complete belly dance routine. This was typically 7 parts although some dancers would cut it down to 5 parts. Routines could be 20 minutes or longer and I remember that you really had to build up your stamina to perform this long. If you were dancing to live music, you sometimes didn't know how long they were going to play and you just had to go with the whatever parts the musicians would play for you. I also recall a story from one of the Hollywood belly dance greats Marie Silva on how once and a while they would play a double set and she would have to perform for 30 to 40 minutes.  Heck, in my hay day I couldn't have performed that long! There was no costume change like some dancers do now, the cabaret dancer stayed on stage throughout the performance. 

Typically the parts of dance were as follows:

1. Medium to Fast Entrance: This is an intro or greeting of the audience. The belly dancer would be draped in one or sometimes multiple veils and keep them on through the introduction. Usually the dancer would show off your finger cymbals playing talent during the intro. 

2. Slow music either Chifi Telli or Rhumba: This is where the dancer would show off her veil work. At the end of music she discards her veil. 

3. Medium to Fast music: This part picks up the speed and energy of the dance. She continues to play finger cymbals. 

4. Taxseem, Chifi Telli, slow music: Floor work, sometimes sword work along with slow moves. This is one of my favorite parts of the dance. There is usually a solo instrument playing like a violin or flute. Beautiful time to improv your slow technique. 

5. Fast or medium music: Picking up the pace again. The belly dancer will sometimes work the audience for tips during this part of the routine smiling and playing finger cymbals. 

6. Fast: The drum solo. 

7. Finale - Medium/Fast tempo: The farewell to the audience. The finale tends to be short and sweet. She thanks the audience and the band (if there is one). 

These days belly dancers usually do 3 part routines; an intro, slow and drum solo. Sometimes if time is tight it's only a 1 part routine.

Here are some suggested DVDs that will help you with various parts of the routine. Click on the links below. 

Sultry Slow Moves with Sadie
Spins and Turns with Marguerite
Classic Cabaret Floor Work with Anaheed
Veil with Aziza
Smooth as Silk Veil with Katia

Drum Solo Set
Entrances and Exits with Dondi
Finger Cymbals with Ansuya

Ansuya
Photo by Keith Drosin