Dance Yourself Happy!

The Solace of the Zaar

The Zaar is a community healing ritual of drumming and dancing, primarily involving women and led by women.  It was said to have originated in East Africa and has been practised in Egypt since pre-Islamic times. 

While the oldest academic references to the Egyptian Zaar date back to 1862, archaeological remains show that this type of ritual played in part in the lives of Ancient Egyptians.

Whereas the Tanoura dance is done as a means of connecting with God or a higher being, the aim of the Zaar is to pacify everyday spirits. It also serves to harmonize the inner lives of the participants and provide a space in which women can 'work out the tensions and frustrations of social constraints which limit their movements, their dress, their voices and even their dreams.'  Little wonder that it is viewed with suspicion and even hostility in many quarters.

Because it has a marginal status in Egypt and is part of the underground culture, Zaar music and songs have survived with little interference from outside influences.  The downside is that many of the songs have been lost and at present there are only 25 people in the whole of Egypt who carry its musical legacy.

One of the highlights of our trip to Cairo was a performance of Mazaher, a Zaar ensemble, at the Makan Egyptian Centre for Culture and Art (ECCA).  Crammed into a small, dark room, in close proximity to the singers and musicians, it was a truly unforgettable experience.

Ahlan Wa Sahlan Pt 2 - From Brazilian shimmies to the Nubian Village

Sunday 29th June

We learned some of Soraya’s techniques at a three-hour master class today.  She had a male translator with her who was almost as tiny as she was (especially as she taught without the mega heels she wore to perform) and focused on a variety of different shimmies, from Egyptian to Vibration and also the ‘Knife’ shimmy, where you imagine you have your knees tied together, your back against the wall and are pinned to it by a knife in the middle of your forehead, just under the belly button and between the knees.  You move your knees backwards and forwards rubbing them together.  I’m not really sure what the purpose of the analogy was – but apparently that was how she was taught the move. 

Soraya did her best to manage such a vast group of women, sometimes leaping off stage and hurtling around the room to demonstrate a movement, but it was still a challenge to see her – not least because some women were hell-bent on standing so close to the stage that they formed an inpenetrable wall.  Soraya’s class was fun though, and she did use some interesting imagery, which sometimes her translator was reluctant to translate.  They seemed to involve buttocks and pencils.

It was a novel experience being in a room of about 150 women, many of whom would have killed their granny (if not their entire family) to get a place at the front, refused to move when the lines were rotated – and crowded round Soraya in a scrum to get a picture with her at the end of the workshop.   I really don’t understand this desire to get your picture taken with the ‘star’, but I appear to be in a minority.

It was then off to the disco, for a Bollywood workshop...

Britain's Got Talent - A Thumbs-up for Dance in the UK

This year's Britain's Got Talent was very inspiring, and it was fabulous to see dance fare so well in the competing rounds and, of course, in the final itself.

The fact that the final was watched by a staggering 13 million people, and included song, dance - and a dancing dog! - shows that the great British public still has an appetite for those kind of variety acts that used to be the mainstay of Saturday night entertainment.

George Sampson was a very worthwhile winner, with his fantastic, modern take of Gene Kelly's Singing in the Rain.  His surprise and delight at winning brought a tear to the eye - followed by yet more when he said he was going to use his £100k winnings to pay off his mother's mortgage.

But I loved Signature, with their innovative and energetic blend of Michael Jackson and bhangra. Suleman Mirza, a trainee lawyer, and Madhu Singh, a sales assistant, were just magic. And audiences were captivated by the performance of Muslim Suleman, who performs a Michael Jackson tribute act, and Sikh Madhu, who entered carrying a broom, and then let rip with some banghra. On a single day their BGT audition rerun on YouTube exceeded five million viewers. 

And their story was inspiring too; as Suleman Mirza said in an interview in the Daily Telegraph, "Our routine is about togetherness and overcoming conflict. I start the act with a Western dance, and then Madhu comes on stage. I look down on him because I don't understand his culture. But he surprises me, and he works really hard, symbolising immigration, and then we work together, and show that everyone can get on."

Middle Eastern Dancers To Hit the Medieval Town Of Frome Next Weekend

To give yourself a weekend treat, let yourself go and learn everything from Sword dancing to Arabic-Tango fusion, come to the new SIROCCO DANCE FESTIVAL, organised by Wendy Buonaventura and Karine Butchart, which is taking place in Frome next weekend 18 - 20 April.

There is an exciting programme of workshops and there is the possibility of coming to individual workshops as well as the whole day/evening/ weekend.

Karine will be performing her new piece "Mirrors of the Heart" at the Merlin Theatre on Friday night, and Beatrice Grognard and Raksan will also be performing - all three are superb dancers and this is a fantastic opportunity to see them in this delightful theatre.There will be a party afterwards so you can have a great dance as a warm up to the weekend...

On Saturday the Devil Woman Cabaret will see the amazing Uzume perform, plus Leila Haddad, Wendy Buonaventura, Hazel Kayes and Caroline Affifi.  This will be followed by DJ-ing from Frome's incredible Desi Heights - with the perfect mix for letting your hair down.

So Wendy and Karine invite you all to come to Frome - this charming Somerset market town with its medieval streets - to shop in the Bazaar and dance to your heart's delight!

To find out more contact Sirocco on :

Tel:          0117 927 3099      

info@siroccofestival.org.uk

www.siroccofestival .org.uk

Does Size Matter?

Last night was spent watching thirteen twenty-stone Russian ballerinas flinging themselves across the stage in a lively parody of Swan Lake. The company of XXL dancers, called The Big Ballet, then treated us to dances with a more contemporary theme; everything from 'Go West' by the Pet Shop Boys to Tom Jones' 'Sex Bomb', with a rather Boney M meets Eurovision final number entitled 'Moscow'. (When I tell you that the meaningful lyrics went along the lines of 'It's a place of mystery, it's so full of history', you get the picture.)

The company was created fourteen years ago by the Russian choreographer, Panfilov, with the aim of showing that 'people of larger build are able to move with similar grace, dignity and flair as traditional dancers' and also to prove that he could create a professional ballet troupe out of dancers with no previous experience. The company hails from Perm, a beautiful city with two million inhabitants in Russia's Ural Mountains which was also the home of Tchaikovsky and Diaghlev.

Where I Teach

I am based in Gloucestershire and London and teach Egyptian Dance, Bollywood and Arabic/African fusion workshops around the UK and in France.  If you are interested in running a workshop in your area please do email me on yvette_cowles@yahoo.co.uk.

For a full list of my various workshops - which can be tailored to your exact requirements - do visit Yvette's Workshops now!

1st Concours Choreographique Des Danses Orientales, Paris

My day began at 6.30am when I set off for Paris to meet Raphaelle for what was billed as France’s ‘First Oriental Dance Choreography Competition’, organised by Massai Arts, on 10th February 2008. (Not quite true, I discovered, as there already exists an Oriental Dance Competition in France, though only for soloists.) Little did I know as I started my journey, that it would be a marathon day for all concerned.

The usually reliable Eurostar broke down at the entrance to the Tunnel, and there we waited for about an hour. Given that Raphaelle was picking me up and that we were going straight to the performance, I was understandably anxious. I needn’t have worried. Oriental dance aficionados are well used to working to Arabic time, but we were still waiting to enter the theatre an hour after the show was due to begin! Thankfully, there was a jovial atmosphere as we waited in the crisp Paris sunshine, but the general enthusiasm had began to wane slightly when at 3.30pm we had still not seen any dancing.