My Shamadan performance

[alonewiththemoon]

So, I danced with my shamadan yesterday. The major unfortunate discovery of the day is that the sticky stuff I used to hold the candles in place gets melty in the hot sun and high heat, so I lost a few candles during the show. OTOH, I think I dealt with it professionally and I didn't step and slip and fall on any of them. It's not so obvious when the video is shrunk down to YouTube dimensions, so here you go:

That rumble towards the end of the shamadan part was indeed thunder. That doesn't really put your mind at ease when you've got a big old lightning rod on your head, but luckily the rain and storming held off until after the show was finished. I have a million technical criticisms of myself, as per usual, but I think the shamadan part is not bad for a first performance with it, apart from the candle issue. I think in both songs I rushed things a bit, or rather didn't stay with some movements long enough. But, whatever. I'll happily accept shamadan tips/critique from any experienced shamadan users!

The show was a ton of fun. We had a dedicated audience who had come for the show, and several passersby who stopped to watch. Each of us did something really different, so it was a really nice variety of performers. A little girl came up to me afterward to express how totally cool my shamadan was, so that made me feel quite good :-)

Comments

[alonewiththemoon]

It's funny, I was only inspired to develop the strength for any sort of floor work because of my gothic belly dance. Generally I'd never do any floor work in my Egyptian dancing, but for shamadan it's appropriate. I'll sometimes go to my knees in a drum solo for some head tossing as well.

The second song was Il Moulid by Saad, it's super fun. It's really shaabi rather than saidi, but cane just felt right for it, so I went with it. I found the song on a compilation CD being sold by Tarik Sultan at a workshop, so I have no idea where one would obtain it, unless you've got a friendly neighborhood Arabic music shop. I know it came from a movie, but I don't know the title of the movie. It does involve somebody becoming a policeman, since I do know that the song is played at the policeman's party to celebrate his new job.

I think the secret to most props is to just work with them until they feel natural. I think it helps that I have to carry my cane around on mass transit all day before class, I know its weight and balance perfectly :-)