Saidi or Dabke?

[nouraki]

Everytime I hear one of my favorite songs of Samira Tawfik, it cross my mind how many versions you can find either from foreign composers or greek. FYI, Ya Ain Moulayetin is (originally) a dabke song.


From what I can see a lot of us are confused and mislead from the rhythm and the result is to consider it or dance it as saidi (usually with assaya) and not as a dabke. As an example of the several versions you can see the below links that it sounds more like saidi.



Dance saidi




But when we hear below versions of the song is clearly dabke!








So, from which points we can understand the difference between saidi and dabke???

Dabke dance




First of all, in my opinion, the way to understand and to differentiate all those things and rhythms, is our love, our knowledge and research for the specific music (Arabic).
For example Ya Ain Moulayetin as we mentioned is dabke. If we don’t know it, we just ask someone who knows or we are trying to find details on the internet.
What helps me to understand which song is dabke, is the characteristic “hard” voice of the singers. In all above versions different singers but we can discriminate similar timbre. This “hardness” is existing and in their voice and in the song.
And second, maybe you will find it silly but is true, as many songs as you hear, you ear will become more familiar with all above mentioned.

 

[nouraki]

Another example is the song “Al tanoura”.




Saidi (may be this is not a good video for example but I counldn’t find something else on Youtube)



Dabke

 

[Yame]

Saidi (may be this is not a good video for example but I counldn’t find something else on Youtube)


[/YOUTUBE]

No, El Tanoura by Fares Karam is dabke, not Saidi.

Some dabke sounds similar to Saidi: similar instruments, similar rhythm, so it's easily confused. Other dabke sounds very different.

The best way to be able to tell what's what is just by listening to a lot of Saidi, and a lot of dabke. We can also try to identify the rhythm and intellectualize this process, but this is very hard to do if you've only ever heard a couple of songs in each of these rhythms.

I am not an expert in dabke or in Saidi, but I can always recognize dabke and I can always differ dabke from Saidi, and I could do it even before I realized the rhythms are different, just from listening to a lot of dabke (and Saidi, but I do prefer dabke). Not all dabke is created equal, there are many rhythms that can be used for dabke, some are more similar to Saidi rhythms than others.

A lot of dancers don't even know what dabke is, let alone know that dabke isn't Saidi, so yes, there is a lot of confusion. I have seen a lot of videos of dancers dancing to dabke music using a stick, doing Saidi steps, and calling it Saidi.

There is nothing wrong with doing cane to dabke music, by the way. I know some dancers don't like it, but the truth of the matter is, Lebanese dancers do cane work to folkloric music just like Egyptian dancers choose to do cane work to folkloric music. The Lebanese do use Egyptian music, but they ALSO use their own folkloric music for this. In other words, lots of Lebanese dancers belly dance to dabke music, often using cane. So, just because it's dabke, doesn't mean you have to line dance or whatever. It's good to know the line dance to use some of the steps and modify them for a solo stage performance, with or without a stick or cane, to give a bit of a dabke feel to the dance and show that you know what the music is, but it's perfectly acceptable to belly dance to most dabke music. And since this "modified for the stage dabke/belly dance animal" has a similar feel to Saidi, it can end up looking a whole lot like Saidi in the end.

So just because you see a dancer doing cane and folkloric steps to a dabke song, doesn't mean she doesn't know what she's doing. The way I dance to dabke music and the way I dance to Saidi music are fairly similar at times, even though I know they are different things.

 

[Greek Bonfire]

Well, they are both folkloric, so I can see the confusion! Debke (or dabke) is a form of dance we see in many cultures, saiidi is more a part of the Egyptian culture. Wish I had more to add but this is the only thing that comes off the top of my head.

 

[nouraki]

No, El Tanoura by Fares Karam is dabke, not Saidi.

Yes!That's why I posted the dabke dance in the song "el tanoura"

So just because you see a dancer doing cane and folkloric steps to a dabke song, doesn't mean she doesn't know what she's doing. The way I dance to dabke music and the way I dance to Saidi music are fairly similar at times, even though I know they are different things

Nf course I didnt say that.But it's sth strange for me to see dabke as saidi.

Thank you so much for your post!!!!

 

[Yame]

Yes!That's why I posted the dabke dance in the song "el tanoura"

I get it now. I guess you were trying to give an example of someone dancing Saidi to a dabke song.

But I don't think she was really trying to do either. I am familiar with Sabreena on youtube, and she had at one point used a famous dabke song (an arrangement that, to her credit, did sound similar to Saidi) for a cane piece and labeled it as Saidi. I explained to her that the music was not Saidi, but dabke, and she changed her labeling. She then asked me about Fares Karam (before she posted this video), and I told her that's also dabke.

I don't think she labeled anywhere in that video that what she was doing was Saidi, because she knew it wasn't (since I had told her) and either way I am not going to be the belly dance police to go picking at all her labels all the time.

I did feel the need to point that out the first time because I would have liked someone to do the same for me if I had made such a mistake. But I wasn't throwing stones, because it's an honest mistake and I am sure every belly dancer who isn't from the Middle East would have made it at one point or another.

I think in this video, Sabreena's dancing is more about the prop than about being folkloric. I think she has little, if any, folkloric training, and is just trying to do this dance based on other cane videos she has seen, as opposed to authentic folkloric footage or instruction. I am not saying this in a condescending tone, by the way. Not everybody has access to this kind of instruction or interest in folkloric stylings. I am saying this in a matter-of-fact way, to explain why her dance can't really be called dabke or saidi. If you'd like though, when I get home I can point you to a few videos of other dancers doing Saidi to dabke music and calling it Saidi.

In fact, I even have a performance of my own, where I am belly dancing to dabke-flavored music with a cane, and I do a few Saidi hops here and there. It's not because I think dabke is Saidi, but because it gives a nice folkloric feeling. When I dance to Saidi music, I do a lot more hops, and when I dance to dabke with a cane, I do mostly "regular" belly dance with a few modified dabke steps and some Saidi hops. I don't really know as much dabke as I would like (I only know 1 or 2 variations of the line dance), so for now my "dabke belly dancing" isn't as dabke-flavored as I want it to be, but once I have learned more I think I will be better able to get the "this is dabke" point across.

I've been searching for ages for an authentic source on dabke near me so that I can learn as much as possible. I convinced my teacher to sponsor Karim Nagi at our studio and one of the topics will most likely be dabke. This will happen in May and I am absolutely psyched... if anyone on the East coast is interested let me know and I'll send you the details. Karim is a great folkloric teacher and an awesome drummer and one of the few people out there doing workshops on dabke, as far as I know.

Nf course I didnt say that.But it's sth strange for me to see dabke as saidi.

Thank you so much for your post!!!!

I didn't mean to imply that you were saying that. I was just trying to be very clear about what I was meaning to say. I agree that it is strange, it is strange once you know the difference. I had posted a similar topic to this one on bhuz a while back, where I asked why so many dancers use dabke music for their Saidi pieces, and call it Saidi. And it's true, a lot of dancers just don't know the difference, but I think it's relevant to point out that some dancers do know the difference and purposely sort of "mix" the two for effect. Whenever there are dabke topics on Bhuz, always someone says that you shouldn't belly dance to dabke, etc etc, so I wanted to be clear that is not what I was saying, and that I have seen Lebanese dancers themselves belly dancing to dabke... with or without folkloric flavor, with or without stick or cane.

And by the way, I think this is a great topic and (clearly) I love taking parts in discussions like this one. I have learned a lot from forums like this one, and I am sure a lot of people will learn a lot from your informative post, and that some people will have more to add that will increase our knowledge as well, so thanks for posting this topic.

 

[Greek Bonfire]

This thread is very educational for me because I don't hear enough about debke. I hardly ever see it discussed on any forum so I will be watching closely.

 

[Yame]

Well, they are both folkloric, so I can see the confusion! Debke (or dabke) is a form of dance we see in many cultures, saiidi is more a part of the Egyptian culture. Wish I had more to add but this is the only thing that comes off the top of my head.

Just to add what I know to this statement (and please someone correct me if I am wrong about any of this), dabke is a line dance from the countries of the Levant. It is done in Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, Syria, and Jordan (and Iraq also has its own "dabke," called chobi). There are variations from country to country and also from region to region within those countries. Dabke also refers to the folkloric music from those places, which is used for the line dances.
Dabke line dance is characterized by its strong stomps and hops, it is possible it may have come from the tradition of building rooftops from wood and dirt and having to compact the dirt by stomping.

Saidi is a dance from the Said (also known as Upper Egypt, in the south of Egypt), so it's very specific to one region of one country, and it is not a line dance like the dabke, but both are folkloric dances.

 

[Greek Bonfire]

Just to add what I know to this statement (and please someone correct me if I am wrong about any of this), dabke is a line dance from the countries of the Levant. It is done in Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, Syria, and Jordan (and Iraq also has its own "dabke," called chobi). There are variations from country to country and also from region to region within those countries. Dabke also refers to the folkloric music from those places, which is used for the line dances.
Dabke line dance is characterized by its strong stomps and hops, it is possible it may have come from the tradition of building rooftops from wood and dirt and having to compact the dirt by stomping.

Saidi is a dance from the Said (also known as Upper Egypt, in the south of Egypt), so it's very specific to one region of one country, and it is not a line dance like the dabke, but both are folkloric dances.

That's how I understood both dances to be too - saiidi is definitely in a class by itself and is not debke. You may be right on where the dancing came from. The Greek line dances also have a lot of stomping and kicking, most notably the Tsamiko, which is also a sort of warrior dance that the men do to show their strength and struggles.

 

[Yame]

So, I just re-read the original post and I think I have a better understanding now of where you were trying to go with this thread, and if my interpretation is correct then this is a question I also have.

When does dabke (music) cease to be dabke? When a song that is a famous dabke tune, whose melodies all Levantines will recognize, is re-orchestrated by Greek or Egyptian musicians (or something else) and made to sound almost or completely endemic to Greek or Egyptian culture (because of the change in languages/accents/dialects, lyrics, instruments, etc), should we cease to treat it as dabke, or should we still throw in a "nod" to it's "dabkeness" when we dance?

 

[Greek Bonfire]

Yame, my uneducated guess at this point would be the song's lyrics and the region it came from. But I have a friend who is quite acquainted with the differences so I am going to contact her and hopefully have an answer within the next few days because I too would like to know the answer to this.

 

[Daimona]

I once got a tip to look for the artist - if he/she is lebanese, it is probably debke and not saidi.
I've also been told that debke have a slightly lighter feel and from time to time appears as faster than saidi, but I must admit I'm uncertain myself as I haven't been exposed much to debke.

 

[Yame]

I once got a tip to look for the artist - if he/she is lebanese, it is probably debke and not saidi.
I've also been told that debke have a slightly lighter feel and from time to time appears as faster than saidi, but I must admit I'm uncertain myself as I haven't been exposed much to debke.

Looking for the artist can help, but in and of itself it doesn't mean much. A Lebanese person, or a Turkish person, or an American person could all sing or play Tahtil Shibbak, but that wouldn't make the song Lebanese, Turkish or American. The song would still be Egyptian.

Likewise, someone from any nationality could play a dabke song and it would still be dabke, unless significant modifications are made, in which case it gets complicated. Plus, there are plenty of Lebanese artists who cross boundaries and genres... for example Diana Haddad and Myriam Fares, who are both pop singers who also dabble in Khaliji.

 

[seona]

On one of the tribe chat rooms (for percussion) they've discussed this , I will look later when I've more time!

 

[Daimona]

Looking for the artist can help, but in and of itself it doesn't mean much. A Lebanese person, or a Turkish person, or an American person could all sing or play Tahtil Shibbak, but that wouldn't make the song Lebanese, Turkish or American. The song would still be Egyptian.

Likewise, someone from any nationality could play a dabke song and it would still be dabke, unless significant modifications are made, in which case it gets complicated.

Yeah, I know the tip isn't perfect, but looking for several versions of the same song to see where the majority of performers come from could help you slightly reduce the uncertainity.

 

[nouraki]

There is nothing wrong with doing cane to dabke music, by the way. I know some dancers don't like it, but the truth of the matter is, Lebanese dancers do cane work to folkloric music just like Egyptian dancers choose to do cane work to folkloric music. The Lebanese do use Egyptian music, but they ALSO use their own folkloric music for this.

Assaya was used in 1950’s and 60’s in baladi songs that now is not something that we see. Assaya we see also to be used by the men in Saudi songs. So the assaya to be used or not in some songs, is not the case
Things are changing into time and we can see a lot of variations as you mention but the main body remains the same. You can do dabke with assaya but still is dabke.

I am not going to be the belly dance police to go picking at all her labels all the time.

I did feel the need to point that out the first time because I would have liked someone to do the same for me if I had made such a mistake. But I wasn't throwing stones, because it's an honest mistake and I am sure every belly dancer who isn't from the Middle East would have made it at one point or another.

None of us has intention to be “bellydance police” cause no one has the knowledge for everything. But what someone knows is good to pass it to someone that doesn’t know and not with a critical view but with a sincere love to Arabic music .And if sometimes truth is told is not necessary someone to think that stones is thrown to him/her.

Just to add what I know to this statement (and please someone correct me if I am wrong about any of this), dabke is a line dance from the countries of the Levant. It is done in Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, Syria, and Jordan (and Iraq also has its own "dabke," called chobi). There are variations from country to country and also from region to region within those countries. Dabke also refers to the folkloric music from those places, which is used for the line dances.
Dabke line dance is characterized by its strong stomps and hops, it is possible it may have come from the tradition of building rooftops from wood and dirt and having to compact the dirt by stomping.

Saidi is a dance from the Said (also known as Upper Egypt, in the south of Egypt), so it's very specific to one region of one country, and it is not a line dance like the dabke, but both are folkloric dances.

Two years ago I had the pleasure and opportunity to learn Palestinian dabke from a man that was a teacher in a university of Cairo. And I have to say that he was very strict about the way we dance a song. I remember once he saw a performance of Ya Ain Moulayetein to be done as a normal Egyptian song (like someone was dancing Akteb Aleyk), and he was furious.
In one way, i can understand him because in Greece we have more than 3,000 folkloric dances. Each dance has its own kind of music and costume. And even though we don’t know how to dance even 1% of them, we can recognize several types, and of course, the main rhythms and dances we are familiar since the day we were born (And I think this is common for every country that has tradition and folkor ) . And to make myself more clear, I’ll give an example.
Lets say I’m watching a performance supposed to be originated from the south part of Greece and the dancers indeed they do the specific dance, but the music is from another region, or lets say that the music is from the right part but the dance is completely different.
How should I feel when I’m watching this ??

 

[Yame]

Assaya was used in 1950’s and 60’s in baladi songs that now is not something that we see. Assaya we see also to be used by the men in Saudi songs. So the assaya to be used or not in some songs, is not the case
Things are changing into time and we can see a lot of variations as you mention but the main body remains the same. You can do dabke with assaya but still is dabke.

Excellent point. One of the things I love about stick/cane, is that it's a prop you can play around with, but you can do it while still dancing, and you don't have to modify your regular dancing too much to work the prop.
So you can do baladi with a cane and it will still be baladi, you can do Saidi with a cane and it will still be Saidi, you can do dabke with a cane and still make it look like dabke, or you can do good ol' Oriental with a cane and it will still be Oriental. And of course, you can do a mix of any of these. A lot of music can't really be neatly classified, and neither can a lot of dance. But we can still do our best to understand music and the dances that go with it.

None of us has intention to be “bellydance police” cause no one has the knowledge for everything. But what someone knows is good to pass it to someone that doesn’t know and not with a critical view but with a sincere love to Arabic music .And if sometimes truth is told is not necessary someone to think that stones is thrown to him/her.

That's exactly what I mean. I point it out because I'd like for someone to correct me if I made a similar mistake, as well. But a lot of people don't like being corrected, they get defensive and offended, which is why I don't like to keep bringing it up to the same person. At some point, we all need to take responsibility for our own education.

Two years ago I had the pleasure and opportunity to learn Palestinian dabke from a man that was a teacher in a university of Cairo.

Lucky!

Lets say I’m watching a performance supposed to be originated from the south part of Greece and the dancers indeed they do the specific dance, but the music is from another region, or lets say that the music is from the right part but the dance is completely different.
How should I feel when I’m watching this ??

I can't tell you how you should feel. But I can say that being that we're not from the Middle East, unless we spend decades studying there we will never really know all the variations of dabke. Heck, even if we *were* from the Middle East *and* spent decades studying, we still wouldn't know everything. Honest mistakes will always be made.

If someone wants to be offended by that, that's their prerogative, but I'm not going to waste my energy being offended by people who are giving it their best but just happen not to know as much about a very specific subject. We are all in this situation at one point or another, because we can't all become dance scholars, and even those who can, they can't be a scholar on every subject related to dance.

What is offensive is when people don't even try to learn anything, or when they deliberately misrepresent a culture.

 

[nouraki]

I didn't open this subject in order to blame any dancer who gives the best of herself.I don't want my words to be misunderstood.
On the contrary,because I watched some videos like this, and from my experience in my country.....I see that this songs are confusing for a lot of dancers. I put all those videos cause even me I have some doubts and I realized that this phenomenon is not only occured in Greece but in other countries as well.

That is the reason I opened this subject, in order to help ourselves and to realize what is so confusing.I put it at the "music" category cause there I wanted to focus. The dance comes after. When we know the music, then we know how to dance (at least most of the times).

So, what it makes it so confusing? What is the rhythm of dabke? Dabke rhythm has also saidi into it? or it is completely different and autonomist? How we can seperate?

I tried to answer to some questions. And I really wanted to hear your opinion and to learn from each other. Maybe in this way we can reduce our mistakes regarding our dance!

 

[Yame]

I get what you mean. I think it's a great discussion.

That is the reason I opened this subject, in order to help ourselves and to realize what is so confusing.I put it at the "music" category cause there I wanted to focus. The dance comes after. When we know the music, then we know how to dance (at least most of the times).

So, what it makes it so confusing? What is the rhythm of dabke? Dabke rhythm has also saidi into it? or it is completely different and autonomist? How we can seperate?

I think a lot of dabke music (but not all) does have a similar rhythm to Saidi, and also similar instruments. I think this is what makes it confusing.

There are belly dancers who are much more experienced and musically inclined than I am, as well as musicians, who could contribute a lot more to this discussion.

With my limited knowledge, I can say that dabke comes in many rhythms. There is dabke in a maqsoum rhythm, and also in malfouf. I think those might be "special" versions of the maqsoum and malfouf, not necessarily the ones we are used to in Egyptian music, but it's similar. But I think the rhythm most commonly associated with dabke is the nawari rhythm. I don't know if there is any other music that uses the nawari rhythm, but once again, a musician would be best fit to talk about this.

What I can say though, is that nawari is very heavy on the doums, more so than Saidi. It's also a 4/4 rhythm and depending on where you start counting it, it can seem very similar to Saidi, but it actually starts on the tek, unlike Saidi which starts with a doum.

 

[Tarik Sultan]

Confusion

Don't be too hard on yourselves. Remember, you are always going to be learning and even if you were born in an Arabic speaking country you'd still be leaning because each country has its own unique cultural aspects. No one can know everything about anything.

Having said that though, I think the only way to be able to differentiate what is what is from the experience that comes with time. I can't give a technical explanation, but my ear can tell the difference most of the time. That came over time. Saidi and Debke are not the same. Most people assume the second they hear a mizmar and tabl baladi that its Saidi, not realizing that those instruments are used not only in Egypt, but very other country in the region all the way up to Turkey and across North Africa and each country uses them in their own unique ways.

One of the ways that will help you distinguish which country the music is from is to atune your ear to the language. Even though you may not speak the language, Lebanese Arabic has a very different sound than Egyptian Arabic. That should give you a very big clue..... unless of course its an Egyptian song sung by a Lebanese singer... ready to pull your hair out yet? Don't.

Part of the problem is because we are not native to the culture, we can become very anal about aspect that people in those cultures don't neccessarily make a big fuss over. Dance is personal expression, something done for the most part in private. There are no pannel of judges sitting on the couch with score cards. Although a song may technically be a Debke, there is no rule that you can't use it for an Oriental, or an assaya if you want to. People in the culture understand the context. After all, Debke is a line dance and unless you can make all your alternate personalities cooperate, a dancer can't be a line. Its very common for dancers in Lebanon to dance on Debkes. Its very common for Lebanese dancing socially to shake their biscuits to a Debke song. Case in point, the late Nadia Gamal: She starts dancing to the song in question about 7:00 mins into the clip.