Let's All Meet Up in the Year 2000

Last night after a two and a half hour journey by public transportation from Kenmore Square to Jamaica Plain back to Arlington, I sat down and did not move for two hours and forty-five minutes to watch The Yacoubian Building, an Egyptian film by director Marwan Hamed with an all-star cast including the luminous Hend Sabri.  It is not an easy movie to watch, both for its length and for some very unpleasant things that happen, but I highly recommend it.  I gather from my book on Arab popular culture, which I really shall get around to writing about someday, that this was a groundbreaking film in Egyptian cinema for daring to tackle taboo subjects, from the obvious one of homosexuality to less-obvious-to-the-non-Egyptian-viewer taboos regarding religion and politics and gender and sex.  The movie is certainly Allegory writ large, as most of the non-comedic, non-musical Egyptian films I've seen tend to be, but with a more fluid moralistic stance than most other Egyptian films I've seen.  ( more review )

And because I have to find something relevant to belly dance in any Egyptian film I watch, I note that I now understand the cultural context of Yasmina of Cairo's rooftop baladi performance--there are entire small villages on top of the large buildings of Cairo where the working class poor/immigrants from the countryside live, and where laundries are frequently located. 
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I filled out my Zipcar application, yay!  Thanks everyone for the glowing Zipcar references, you made the decision a lot easier.  Oh!  While I was typing that last sentence, I received my approval notification email!  So I could potentially be behind the wheel of any zipcar you encounter out there on the road.  Be warned!

Only three of us showed up for Najmat's class last night and all of us, including Najmat, were low energy and dragging, so class was cancelled on account of lack of motivation.  Hung out talking for a while, then went home and finally did some of Ranya Renee's baladi drills, which actually were rather a lot like being in class with Najmat!  Very very similar style and movement vocabulary and interpretation.  I just did the Baladi 1 set, about an hour and fifteen minutes.  I was pretty much able to keep up with everything, and where I couldn't, I made up my own stuff as Ranya suggests you do.  I was pleased to realize that my natural inclination with baladi music was very close to what Ranya was doing, to the point where sometimes I could anticipate what she was going to do next.  So I think when she told me she liked what she saw of my performance at her workshop show, she wasn't just being nice, I really was doing the right things.  (why do we always doubt praise from people?  where's our inner Stuart Smiley when we need him?)  Anyway, awesomeness all around and it made up for missing class.  I'll be doing an upbeat baladi piece, not a taqsim but just a nice sassy song (the descriptively titled "Medley" from Nahawnd, the Rakset Kitty CD), at Hips for Hope on May 17, so this was good practice.

Annoyed Sissy last night by emtpying out all her toy stashes and leaving her toys out in the middle of the floor, so she had to put them all away again.  I am so mean! :-)
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My copy of the Hoda Sinbati album "Ala Mahlik" from Sands of Time arrived yesterday--if you like baladi music, you must get this album!  Hoda's voice is amazing, gritty but sweet, and the musicians are fantastic.  The booklet that goes with the album isn't ready yet, but Yasmin included a line by line translation of the lyrics, awesomely accompanied by the Arabic words so you know what is really being sung when.  And the whole concept of having shorter versions of each song that can be incorporated into dance routines is excellent.  To order, contact Yasmin directly.

I won the fight with the software, so here's my performance at Amira Jamal's May 3 student recital. Unfortunately there's a little blip in the video, due to something about the way the data was chunked up on the original DVD--my performance overlapped two chunks, so I had to paste the pieces back together. As I said, the bit before the ending is a little uninspired, but I'm happy with my progress in the rest of it. And I'm super happy with that L. Rose top and skirt combo I'm wearing :-)

Last night I did one of my Fifi Abdo Dallas workshop DVDs, the first half of the Sunday workshop.  I think I had known it was cane but had forgotten.  It was a really interesting contrast to work on Fifi style cane after Mohammed Shahin's Reda style cane choreography on Saturday.  Fifi's not strictly baladi as she's really her own creature, but I felt that kind of opposition between high and low culture.  Reda style is about control and elegance, whereas Fifi's style was more about letting go, although always within the music.  Performance doesn't have to be authentic with her but it is always from the heart, and has as much humor as beauty.  I suppose Reda style is heartfelt in its own way too, but there's a certain artificialness to it that leaves me a little cold, there's too much emphasis on perfection and little perceivable spontaneity.  Possibly I feel this way only because currently I am trying to get rid of some of my Reda-esque ingrained habits.  Fifi is just the right influence, spontaneous to a big lovely generous fault.  Amira Jamal has remarked to me in the past that I often looked like I was dancing in a troupe even when I was performing solo; that's the kind of thing I'm talking about trying to move away from.  I think I've made big strides in that regard but it's still something I'm aware of needing to counter.  I was pretty proud of myself for being able to improvise my Shimmies for a Cure cane piece this year, because in some ways cane is one of the hardest places to break that excessive self-control.

I did learn in the course of the workshop why Fifi always spins her cane backwards:  it's because you take up less space that way.  Makes sense, because if you hold your hand in the same place whichever way you spin it, then the cane spends more of its circle alongside your body when you are spinning it backwards.  I spun backwards right along with her; I usually spin frontwards but after an hour I got pretty comfortable with backwards and will use it more often. 

She talks a lot and jokes around while teaching, but to me that seems like part of the package of learning from Fifi Abdo.  You learn what it is to be her, and that's as big a part of her dancing as her technique is.  I wanna be her when I grow up.

I just did the Saturday DVD of Fifi Abdo's workshop in Dallas last year, and OMG I am in love!!!  The movements felt so completely right, I was smiling along in my living room all by myself.  Both songs, the fast version of Tamra Henna from Jalilah's 3 and Saad's version of El Hantour, were already pretty familiar to me (oh lordy is Tamra Henna familiar to me), so I could really feel her interpretation.  She never danced a song through the same way twice, so this is not a DVD for somebody looking for choreography, but if one is looking for solid baladi interpretations of a classic and a pop classic , then one need not look any further.  This is something I will go back to again and again, especially when I need a shot of joy in my dancing.  Many of the movements are simple*, but she uses them so effectively, and it's a good lesson for a Western dancer in how to slow down and not over complicate things.  Plus it's a good opportunity to work on presentation and personality, which I think was really Fifi's goal for the workshop anyway, based on the things she was saying.  In the immediately useful department, I was just thinking the other day that I should use some horsey movements in the baladi performance that I'll be doing more or less during the Kentucky Derby, and boy do I have some horsey movements now, after Fifi's El Hantour! 

*sort of shocked by the number of people, judging from the questions, who were at a Fifi workshop but did not seem to know basic Egyptian movement vocabulary, but it makes me value Seyyide and Najmat all the more.

From a technical perspective it's not a perfect DVD; the voices are often difficult to hear (the music is loud and clear though, necessitating constant leaps for the volume buttons).  It would be nice if Little Egypt could mike the stage somehow for workshops and not rely on the camera's microphone.  And Fifi does do a lot of joking around, which as I understand it some workshop attendees found a time waster, but I found that nearly as educational as the dancing, because it's part of her whole persona that makes her dancing what it is.

Another benefit of this DVD is the use of the song Tamra Henna--Sarab danced to that song and I had that choreography drilled deeply into my head.  That's the song that I came in as pinch-hitter for after I officially left the troupe.  I love the song, and that version of it, very much but I couldn't break free of the choreo, muscle memory was just too strong.  Dancing it through six or eight times differently every time with Fifi's less sharqi, more baladi interpretation I think has broken the choreography's spell over me!

Foot held up pretty well through all the dancing.  I'm really yearning to get back to performing now!

Not just one review, but two, as I watched another film last night.  I suppose really these aren't so much reviews as collected thoughts.  Both are rather lengthy.

( A Man in Our House )

( The Nightingale's Prayer )

Decided against the computer in my last entry, after some careful comparison shopping.  I did not realize that even if a drive has DVD in its name, it might not be a burner, just a player (thanks silentq for the heads-up there!).   I might go with a new Dell.  The question then is do I throw it on the existing credit card and increase my monthly payments or get a Dell card with an interest free payment period.  I don't really want to have more credit cards but that is probably the more financially sound way to do it.  Software I can get at educational pricing at the university where I work.

Talked to the PT yesterday about the pain I was in all last week and he agreed that he'd had me do too many calf raises of various sorts.  Nice to know it wasn't just that I'm weak, it really was too much.  I never complain about exercises hurting because I figure it's supposed to hurt, but probably I should rethink that a bit.  Anyway, I managed to get through dance class without a repeat of last week's agony, so that was good.  I spent more time flat-footed than I usually would.  Instead of thinking about how wierd it felt, I tried to think of it as working on different technique and that helped somewhat.  Anyway despite the flat footedness of the night, class was chock full of good stuff.  We did some baladi taqsim stuff towards the end that was just honey sweet. 

Dance plans:  I really want to be baladi girl this spring.  I know I already dance to a lot of baladi but I want to refine it and make it better.  I even have a white (yes, white!) galabeya on the way, just like Fifi's.  I have a ten minute show in March where I've been asked to do a zar--I'm certainly *not* going to do zar for ten minutes straight, but I think it will be a great opportunity to put together a little folkloric baladi suite.  I'm thinking maybe something heavy on the mizmars for cane, a lighter taqsim with a trailing sort of ending and then the zar.  I'll have to see what makes sense.  (Side note:  Za-Beth announced the details of the Morocco/Tarik workshop yesterday, Tarik is teaching shaabi!  Happiness!  I've already sent in my check :)

Funny, I quit the Middle East, but with the exception of February, I still have two shows a month from now until May.  I've just revamped my website with some real information, including "hey I'm available for parties," so we'll see if anything comes of that once I've listed myself with the search engines, link exchanges, etc.  I need to do some more work on the website over the next couple of days so I'm not providing a link at the moment, besides which it's going to move to a real URL once I register a domain name.  Also eventually it will be prettier, graphic design not being my forté.  But it feels like a lot of progress to have done even what I did.

Hair appointment tonight at a new salon.  Nervous/excited!

My left calf muscles are still screaming at me from Tuesday's physical therapy and dance class.  It's definitely getting better, but it still rather feels like somebody is driving a large nail into the back of my leg, exactly right here.  I can see some broken blood vessels as well.  Will have to have a talk with the PT about this when I go back next Tuesday.  My foot feels ok, but this isn't really an acceptable trade off...

I did dance last night, because with two shows coming up next weekend I don't really have any choice.  Most things don't really hurt *while* I am dancing, it's only afterwards that the soreness sets in, despite stretching and ice.  So it's hard to gauge how much is too much.  I danced more than I meant to, an hour instead of 15-20 minutes.  It was productive, though.  And even if my calf is sore, I am happy to note that after several backbend-into-drops my quads and psoas are just fine.  Still, I really have to watch it.  Good thing I scaled back my performing when I did.  Though even without the Middle East in my schedule, I've got six or seven confirmed dates between now and the end of May.

In totally different news, here's a review of the Egyptian movie Salimle Ala Susu (Regards to Susu)( Read more... )

Gypsy Cold Care Tea, you are my friend.  Dank damp weather, you are not so much my friend.

The gothic belly dance event will be July 1, it has been confirmed.  Once I think of a snappy name (there has to be some way I can play on the underground location of the theatre, without sounding too much like a certain recent dvd) I'll start promoting/booking performers.  I want to save the name Raks Spooki for the fall event, but I think I'll start using "a Raks Spooki (tm) production" as a tagline. 

People have signed up for my intro to gothic belly dance workshop.  I guess that means I have to teach it for real now.

Finally had the chance to work with my Magdy el Leisy meleya leff DVD this weekend--what a lot of fun!  I would run not walk to take a workshop with this man if it's ever geographically feasible.  The sound quality on the recording is pretty sketchy (the music is clear but his voice is muffled, he wasn't miked), but he doesn't give super detailed instruction anyway, it's more follow the bouncing butt style of teaching.  He seemed like a very warm and encouraging teacher, full of humor.  There was some tricky footwork in the choreography that will take me a few more tries to get right, but as I went through the DVD I became very aware that I am a fifth or so generation Reda descendant, because so many things made sense right away or were easily anticipated.  Actually, I guess if you count Amir Thaleb as a Reda student, then I am third generation.  Anyway, the material on the DVD was totally inspiring and I think I will do meleya this weekend at the Middle East, if I can fix up the beadwork on my galibeya in time.  Kind of a strange venue for meleya, I guess, but I think if my acting is strong enough people will enjoy it even if they don't actually get it.  I think I might pair it with a Hakim song and a short folkloric drum solo (a Mahmoud Fadl hagallah, maybe, but all of his drum solos fade at the end so maybe not) and just be all out baladi.  Because I never do that ;-)

We ate at Ixtapa Sunday night--it's on Mass Ave in Lexington just past the Arlington border (in the little strip mall after Busa's).  It was pretty darn tasty, although I was somewhat baffled by receiving a pint glass rimmed with salt and a lime with my negra modelo.  Somewhere some Mexican of German descent is rolling in his grave.  I had a kind of veggie combo platter with chiles rellenos and various enchiladas and M had fish tacos--it wasn't necessarily the most gourmet Mexican cuisine ever, but it was satisfying.  Also, they are open until 10pm on Sundays, which is a profound novelty for the area so I imagine we'll be going back.  The staff were all very hospitable as well.

Hungry now.