Om Kalsoum- Good, bad and the ugly interpretations

Kiraze

New member
Inspired by the thread about Maria Shaskova I started to browse YouTube for some good, bad or the ugly interpretations of Om Kalsoum´s songs... It would be interesting to see some different examples and comments what makes them good, bad or simply ugly ;)

I start with Enta Omri danced by Didem:


Her style is very modern and overall feeling is very Turkish (they emphasize on melody and not the original story of the song) but I like most of the thing she is doing during first 4 minutes because of her suppleness and softness but the final 2 minutes with floor-wipe feels just so wrong to this music :rolleyes:
 

chryssanthi sahar

New member
Sorry, but this is a BAD interpretation! She is killing the song. O.k., Didem is good dancer, but she should keep on dancing Turkish stuff or modern Arabian stuff and let her hands off Oum Kalsoum:mad:
 

Zaynab

New member
Inspired by the thread about Maria Shaskova I started to browse YouTube for some good, bad or the ugly interpretations of Om Kalsoum´s songs... It would be interesting to see some different examples and comments what makes them good, bad or simply ugly ;)

I start with Enta Omri danced by Didem:


Her style is very modern and overall feeling is very Turkish (they emphasize on melody and not the original story of the song) but I like most of the thing she is doing during first 4 minutes because of her suppleness and softness but the final 2 minutes with floor-wipe feels just so wrong to this music :rolleyes:


Her performance resembles that of Maria Sh. especially when doing turns, don't you think?

Z.
 

Kiraze

New member
Sorry, but this is a BAD interpretation! She is killing the song. O.k., Didem is good dancer, but she should keep on dancing Turkish stuff or modern Arabian stuff and let her hands off Oum Kalsoum:mad:
...well, in fact I think this way too. I just tried to be little more nice and positive towards Didem than what I usually have been as she is Turkish anyway and I am supposed to support Turkish dancing and I just tried to just concentrate on her moves and not the music :redface:

But that floor-wipe thing with all those swimming movements was one of the weirdest things I have seen in any style of belly dance (so that part definately goest to the category UGLY) :shok:

But Lucy is lovely - I think that her interpretations to Om Kalsoum are always wonderful and classy. Thanks for a clip :clap:
 

chryssanthi sahar

New member
AAAAAHHHHHHH!!! Oum Kalsoum's bones would crack in her tomb if she would see that! Misuse her music for fantasy veil dance :mad: This is a NO NO NO. I'm not talking about how the dance looks like. If I would watch the clip without music (or with completely different music), I would like it, because the movements are nice and graceful. But please not with Oum Kalsoum music:pray:
 

Moon

New member
Kiraze said:
the final 2 minutes with floor-wipe feels just so wrong to this music:rolleyes:

I agree, that was extremely, truely horrible!:shok: I doubt that would fit with any style of bellydance! What was that? "Look at my body, look how flexible I am, don't listen to the music, look at me! Look at me!":mad:
It takes more than a flexible body to be a good dancer!
 

Lydia

New member
oum khalsoum good bad and ugly

o my goodness!! i am going home the moon must be full!! lol....Lydia
 
After all, my favourite in MISinterpreting 'Enta omri' is Didem. As a Turk she should have more feeling in what can be behind the music. But she ignored. The veil dancer and Masha have no oriental roots. "They don't know better " an arab would say. So they have a 50% excuse.

But it is difficult for most of us to assess our limits regarding dancing to arabic music.

The safest would be not to try BD at all. But we just love it.
 

Maria_Aya

New member
Hi babes ;)

Just adding one of my fav dancers video for Lissa Faker song, Orit from Israel.
Enjoy her:



and also our own greek Aisha for the same song from her great performance at the UNESCO CID congress.





Maria Aya:)
 
Last edited:
The Israeli Orit is really amazing. How can someone without arab roots dance as classy and authentically as she does. And she is not even involved in BD for a long time.

Aisha:
Due to the camera-management recording her from downstairs I could not really enjoy her in a way she deserves. But I also found her outstanding.
 

Gia al Qamar

New member
The Israeli Orit is really amazing. How can someone without arab roots dance as classy and authentically as she does.

:confused: WHAAA?????????????????
Being an Arab doesn't automatically make anyone a good dancer, 'classy' or authentic!
I'd also like to remind that as an Israeli, she IS Middle Eastern...not everyone with Middle Eastern lineage is an Arab. ;)
Gia
 

nicknack

New member
Yes all other Semites can dance just as well (it doesn't matter if we've wandered far and and wide), we've been to Ethiopia, Yemen, India, Central Asia, Turkey, Persia, just down the road in Egypt and we bought all our culture back home to the land of milk and hummus...

Not to say that Circassians, Armenians, Maronites, Thai & Vietnemese can't dance either, it's all come together in various dance companies (and also on the drum beach)...

I guess it all comes down to the knowledge of the dancer and the audiences point of view... now I have to go find hummus because I've made myself hungry (can't wait to get home where my love/talented cook is:D )
 
Last edited:

Kiraze

New member
I sometimes wonder if some of Om Kalsoum´s songs are "easier" to dance than the others are of Lissa Fakir as I have not seen truly awful versions (and all four shown here were quite nice) and also interpretations of Alf Leyla we Leyla are often much better than e.g. of Enta Omri.

Here are couple of American versions of Alf Leyla - first by Bozenka (which in my eyes is Ok but not great):


and then by Aziza (which I like a lot), unfortunately this clip is flagged so it needs YouTube login
 
Last edited:

Hyacinth

New member
oooh, I really liked Aziza's Alf Leyla Wa Leyla - there is a clip of Didem dancing to another version of it on YouTube, but it's in a very different style

And of course, Orit is fabulous!
 

chryssanthi sahar

New member
If I am honest, I liked most of all (next to Egyptian Lucy), American Lucys interpretation. She dances a very good Egyptian style. I also liked Orit and Aisha, I found Bozenka acceptable but not great, but I didn't like Azeeza's interpretation. She tries to dance Egyptian, but it looks more like American Cabaret , which is absolutely o.k. for any other kind of music, but nor for Oum Kalsoum (O.k., you know by now that I am a purist, when it comes to Oum Kalsoum).
I agree with Kiraze, that there are Oum Kalsoum songs which are difficult to dance, and others which are less difficult. It depends also at the musical interpretation. If they have been kept "original", or if they have been very adapted to Raqs Sharqi.
 
Top