Turkish style

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teela

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Your original question asked about Artemis's New Turkish Dance DVD from IAMED. I have the DVD and it is really a good DVD. She talks about rhythms, how the turkish music/beat differs. She shows a variety of moves, hand gestures, etc. She also talks about fast and slow moves and combinations. I find it a very instructional DVD. There is another out there by Aradia from Las Vegas. She has a combinations for Egyptian, Lebanese and Turkish and much of what she teaches is exactly what Artemis covers. I find the two DVD's complement each other.
 
Oh Moon that was great! It seems to be the day to post videos of Athena Najat! I love the karsilama rhythm and she did a good job in interpreting the bounciness of the rhythm as well as the slight dip/pause in the rhythm. Thanks for posting it.
Yasmine
 

chryssanthi sahar

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.First I think roman is totally different what we call oryantal..

Dear Esmeralda, thank you for telling this, it approves what I had been telling in a former posting in this thread.

.One question about classical Turkish music and why dont people dance in that music.I have studied 4 years Turkish Classical Music. The concept in turkish music is very serious.İn some songs there are parts that I can dance oriental.But I cant do.Something coming deep inside me prevents me to dance.I can not give name to it.This is maybe the dicipline that your Turkish traditions give you.(Leyla bir özgecandır) for example is a classical Turkish song.İn the refrain part of the song yes you can dance but it is so little part.The rest is so slow then will you stop? Besides The attitude when singing these songs are very very serious. I guess this can be the reason..

I'm very glad you mentioned this:D . People who don't come from a country with belly dance tradition, tend to dance at the wrong songs, just because they like them. I've seen an American belly dancer dancing belly dance on Greek Tsamiko music (which is a folk dance who is completely different than belly dance) and I could only laugh. It was perverse:shok:


.I dont know much about the oriental or belly dance styles yes but I have watched the Egyptian style. As an original Turk, I didnt like it so much.May be I am wrong but I think that in that style the body isolation and elastic movement is not so much.İn turkish style the upper body especially is so isolated and you must be very elastic for making the movements.some of the dancers I watched in videos do the figures but since they are not using their waist,hips,torso so well, this doesnt come to me a delicious dance..

Well, I'm afraid that what you have watched was NOT Egyptian. Egyptian dancers are the best with using the hips and torso as well as hands and they make the greatest shimmies in the world. Besides this the music is very important for the Egyptian belly dance and a good dancer interprets the music with her body. Unfortunately classical Egyptian belly dance music is not so known in Turkey and the Egyptian Raqs Sharqi (Egyptian belly dance) neither. The only Turkish dancer from Turkey who I know that dances real Egyptian style is Princess Banu ( but I don't know if she still performs). She is very good, but still not as good as original Egyptian dancers like Fifi Abdou, Mona al Sai, Soheir Saki etc. If you want to see real Egyptian belly dance, have a look at this:

http://forum.orientaldancer.net/video-clips-youtube/981-fifi-abdou-egyptian-style-video-clips.html

http://forum.orientaldancer.net/video-clips-youtube/1296-lucy-need-i-say-more.html

http://forum.orientaldancer.net/video-clips-youtube/1266-nagwa-fouad.html

Unfortunately there is no video of Mona al Said, whoses style I love the most:( . But I am a big fun of Fifi Abdou also.
 

chryssanthi sahar

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By the way, Athina Najat is a really good dancer and a very sweet person (I got to know her at the CID congress in Athens), but what she dances on this video is not authentic karsilama. It is rather a karsilama/belly dance mix. But I've seen also Turkish dancers dancing this mix.

As about the 9/8 rhythms: yes, we have them also in Greece. They have been brought to Greece also by the Rom Gypsies (there are many of them living in Greece) and many of the 9/8 songs (in Greek we call them "Kasilamas") are sung by Gypsy singers. Some of our Kasilama songs are originally Turkish (like "Masticha Masticha"), but there many who are originally Greek (or Gypsy-Greek). Greeks and Turks have quite some things in common anyway, mainly through their geographical position and the common parts in their histories (Ottoman empire).
 

Ludmilla

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Hi Great Thread!!
Could someone explain, in a nutshell an example of a 9/8 rythym? I've heard of this but never heard a song example. I gather it's fast?? (9 beats to a measure.....) BUt if some of our experts could explain? Thanks!! Ludy -- BY the way - Esmeralda -- I loved your comments -- thanks very much!!!!!!!!!!!!! I rushed to UTube to see some Didem examples, too to see what you mean --
 

chryssanthi sahar

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Hi Ludi.

One of the most famous 9/8 songs is "Rampi Rampi" (or "Rompi Rompi" as some people say) and also "Masticha Masticha" (or "Mastika Mastika"). It is difficult though to explain more things about this kind of music, maybe you can find those songs in the Internet (or if somebody in this forum has downloaded them, can maybe post a link).
 
Ok Ludi and Chryssanthi, here is an audio link for Karshilima rhythm(I hope it works)it's by Jeremiah Soto/Solace.
www.eventidemusicproductions.com/music/RhythmKashlima.mp3. I tried posting Rompi, Rompi but to no avail. If it plays this track will give you an idea of the rhythm.
Yasmine
 

chryssanthi sahar

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Dear Yasmine.
Thanks a lot for posting the link. This song though was sort of strange Karsilama. The 9/8 beat was not very clear. So I don't think that it gives an idea about the Karsilama rhythm to somebody who hasn't ever heard it. I'll see if I can find Rombi Rombi or at least a Greek Karsilama song on some Web page.
 
Turkish Style and Karshlimar

Hi Everyone, Solace does have a different way of expressing the karshlimar rhythm, mainly because it's all percussion and doesn't have flowing melody often heard with this rhythm. Moon's example actually is typical of how karshlimar sounds when all the instruments play. I learned that karshlimar means "face to face", and it's a joyous rhythm, with finger snaps, hand claps and often skirt flourishes. A while back, one of my teachers taught a choreography to "Hooplada"(originally by Cassandra Shore. have you heard of this song?
Yasmine
 

chryssanthi sahar

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The youtube clip is real Turkish (and Greek) Karsilama. No wonder, since the musicians are from Turkey;) It is a good cover version of Mastika Mastika.
The Karsilama on Shiras site is a fake Karsilama. The rhythm is close to Karsilama, but for a Greek (and I suppose also for a Turk) it doesn't sound like a Karsilama. It is not authentic. Same stuff like the supposed to be Arabian songs of George Abdo (all Arabs I know - and believe me, I know very very many - laugh with Abdos songs. They say, that they sound like children's songs).
 

Kiraze

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I cannot check YouTube clips from my current computer but that sample on Shira´s page represents very typical and real karsilama song but it quite slow karsilama rhythm used on folk music, which again is little bit different than "gypsy karsilama" or "oryantal karsilama" - that version by Brothers of Baladi however sound maybe too American (mostly because of funny pronounciation :D) so maybe that is also one reason why it sounds fake... wonderful version of that song can be found from some old records of The Sultans (sorry, no good clips found from internet)

So there are lots of different types of karsilama and there are also differencies whether musicians are Turks, Greek or American (whether they are originally Greek or Turk or some others)... I often think that American kashlimar is a rhythm and style of its own as similary the name is misspelled there is also quite big difference also in styling :rolleyes: - that does not necessarily mean that this style would be *fake* but more the fact that it is based on old-style-turkish from 50´s to 70´s when karsilama in Greece and Turkey have more folkloric feeling :think:

Some more nice examples of typical karsilama (as well as dozens of other music examples) can be found from this link - under Turkey there is i.e. Rampi rampi with very Greek feeling despite sung in Turkish and there is also a good version of Mastika.
 

steffib

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For some really cool Turkish music, I would recommend the recordings of Selim Sesler - Road to Kesan and Karsilimar, a CD he recorded with Brenda McKimmon. He's an amazing clarinet player, and his 9s are yummy, yummy, yummy.

I also like Ozel Turkbas' CDs (available from iTunes and emusic), she has some cool musicians - Rompi and Hoplanda, Dalia Carella's Shuvani CD (two super karsilamas, Rumeli Karshilama and Sulukule), and Hagopian/Tekbilek's Gypsy Fire (available from emusic and iTunes).

Anyways, there are many ways of playing a karsilama - one can count 121212123, one can have accents on 1 3 5 78, 1 3 5 789, one can count 1234-pause, one can count slow slow slow fast fast fast (I have learned each of these at one time or another - and each has its place) - and some musicians may syncopate. It all depends. An American musician who plays for an oriental dance performance at Rakkasah will not sound like a musician in Turkey playing with his friends in a bar ;-)

Anyways, I love my 9s! Still trying to decide which song is my favorite - Mastika, Rumeli Karsilamasi or Sulukule. Ah, whichever my musician friends play!
 

chryssanthi sahar

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Dear Kiraze, thanks a lot for posting this link with the Balkan music:D There is really good music in there;) By the way, no wonder that this version of Rompi Rompi sounds so Greek, although it is sung in Turkish: the singer and the orchestra are Greeks. Rena Dalia is as far as I know a Greek from Asia Minor (I don't quite know if she is from Smyrna or from the Black Sea though). Rompi Rompi was very popular among the Greeks from Asia Minor and since all of them could speak Turkish, they could sing it in Turkish. I love this song, because it was the favorite song of my grandfather (who was a "Pontios", a Greek from the Turkish Black Sea area) and one of the very first songs I've heard in my live (although I could never understand the words, because I don't speak Turkish. But I had Turkish friends translate the song for me:D ).
There is another thing, I'd like to talk about. Could we call Karsilama songs who have been created in America and have a quite different style than the original Turkish/Greek/Gypsy , still "Karsilama"? I mean the emigrants of North America created cultures on their own, which partially don't have much in common with the cultures of the countries where they came from. And especially they have very little in common with the actuall culture of their mother lands. I had seen a video on youtube which was showing a group of American Greeks supposed to dance Tsamiko (a very popular Greek folk dance), but the song they were dancing on , was no Tsamiko for me, who I am a Greek from Greece (I was born and grew up in Greece and even if I live in Germany, I still live with one foot in Greece because I go there very often and my whole family lives there). No Greek would consider that song to be a Tsamiko, because we have very certain idea about how a Tsamiko should sound like. That song from Shira's site, is no Karsilama for my feeling, that's why I called it "fake". And I cannot imagine that a Turk from Turkey would consider it as a Karsilama either ( I cannot know for sure though. You mentioned in some other posting that your husband is Turkish. So what does he thing of that song?).
 

Kiraze

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Kashlimar is not same as karsilama

There is another thing, I'd like to talk about. Could we call Karsilama songs who have been created in America and have a quite different style than the original Turkish/Greek/Gypsy , still "Karsilama"?
Well the rhythm is still 9/8 so based to that it still *is* karsilama as that is what the rhythm is called, but then again it is not necessarily karsilama dance (of which there are several different versions and karsilama as a folk dance does not have in fact almost any connection to Gypsy karsilama a.k.a. Roman Havasi not to mention Oriental version)

As I suggested at my previous post I call this Americanized version Kashlimar when original stuff is Karsilama (pronounciation at least for non-American is totally different as Turkish is spoken similarly as it is written :rolleyes:). This kashlimar as a dance however is close enough to its roots it just gets little bit different pronounciation so it can be recognized but not necessarily felt to be genuine anymore
You mentioned in some other posting that your husband is Turkish. So what does he thing of that song?).
As he comes from Central Anatolia he is not very familiar to 9/8 beat except at Seymen dances (which is quite similar to Zeybek, but where rhythm is usually very slow so the actual beat cannot be counted so clearly) so basically he can recognize it as a song with Turkish origin but he also for certain will comment about funny interpretation as according to him even Turkish folk played by The Sultans (Omar Faruk Tekbilek, who originally is Turkish) sounds foreign or at least old-fashioned :confused:
 
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Moon

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Chryssanthi Sahar said:
There is another thing, I'd like to talk about. Could we call Karsilama songs who have been created in America and have a quite different style than the original Turkish/Greek/Gypsy , still "Karsilama"?
In this youtube clip they call it "American style Karsilama"
 

Aisha Azar

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Karsilama/ Roman

Dear Group,
First, I admit that I am not an expert in Roman, but this is titled as Roman and it is very different from what I have learned, being much more expansive and not seeming to follow much of what I learned as the basic step pattern of the dance. Any comments? I would thinkl thnere is no such thing as American Karsilama any more than there is such a thing as Chinese or Scottish Karsilama.
Regards,
A'isha
 
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Hi Aisha, I haven't heard of "American Karshlimar" but when people post clips on youtube they give it a title that grabs people's attention. In fact most of the moves this dancer used are exacly like the moves used by the Turkish dancers just posted on the Youtube forum. One teacher I've had who specializes in Turkish style, says the style borrows a lot from the Romany people as well as the native folkloric dances. The Hand punches to the hips, arms and shoulders are hallmarks of this style as well as the two-handed finger snaps. The larger than life hip moves such as the pelvic rocking motion can be considered a Turkish move as well. But aside from the moves(as we both agree), Turkish music is the foundation of the dance style with the 9/8 rhythms being predominately heard. In fact most of Turkish style most dancers choose the either karshlimar or chiftetelli rhythm. I seems that in America ,there is more attention to Egyptan style than Turkish and I think there is room for all cultural representations of Oriental dance.

Hi Chryssanthi, I think we are understanding the same thing from a different perspective. I understand the karshlimar as a rhythm with a 9/8 time signature. it's easier to hear it on a drum and so without the accompaniment of other instruments it does sound strange and foreign. Remember, its hard for many for us to hear music that is so different from what we are used to and so we have to learn it in stages.
Yasmine
 

Nayila

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karsilama---to be or not to be

I wholeheartedly agree with Aisha. Either it is Karsilama or it is not. I think that 9/8 rhythms differ and the dances that accompany can differ but there can only be one Karsilama. I, too, am NO expert in any way, but have heard them and seen them danced to. There is definitely a basic step pattern and the rest is embellished or accented. I feel this way only because in my experience every dance has these principles (in Egyptian Raks Sharqi there are basic steps too--this is the essence of the dance qualifying as Raks Sharqi as opposed to something else, right?)

I will say that I think it is important to know what you are dancing and how it will be interpreted--that is yoru professional obligation. That way if you bill yourself as a dancer and instructor of "Karsilama", that will be indeed what you dance and teach. Looser interpretations need to be explained as such. Dancers...how many times have you purchased a video or enrolled in a workshop to be totally SHOCKED by what was displayed? I have...too many times. :(

Again...please keep discussing the finer nuances of the Dance. I can not possibly be the only one learning so much! Thanks! Shukran!

Nayila
 
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