So confused!!!

[Zeph]

Hi there! I’m kind of writing this in distress, please do not judge me for I’m speaking my mind without putting anything in bad or good.
I’m so tired of watching video of BD on Instagram of these dancers in Egyptian weddings which people deem as BD. I feel it has become more of a skinshow (pls I’m not against it; I go topless at nude beaches) rather than showing artistic skills. It’s about hips going whoosh whash and shaking bbs. I’m restarting my BD journey and I don’t know where to learn authentic and non fusion BD. No hip hop or ballet BD, I want intensely honest dance with knowledge. PLS HELP, if you can tell me who to watch on YouTube or who to read on Google. Workshop recs are welcome too even tho I don’t have any plans to travel and oh I live in Toronto.

thank you xx

 

[Greek Bonfire]

I'm not sure what you mean here as hips sometimes do go <whoosh> and that is authentic. I'm also not sure what you mean by skin show because some skin does show, unless you are talking about the skanky costumes they now wear in Cairo. You might want to look for Cory Zamora on Facebook and connect with her on taking online lessons. She's more old school and is pretty true to the Amcab form.

 

[Zeph]

I'm not sure what you mean here as hips sometimes do go <whoosh> and that is authentic. I'm also not sure what you mean by skin show because some skin does show, unless you are talking about the skanky costumes they now wear in Cairo. You might want to look for Cory Zamora on Facebook and connect with her on taking online lessons. She's more old school and is pretty true to the Amcab form.

Thank you for replying! Couldn’t put my finger on it, by whoosh I meant lacking technique. I don’t mean discouragement towards diversification in BD but from my eye it’s become an empty market selling show with less artistic knowledge. By skinshow- what you said, skanky costumes in Cairo which has become the face of the art but in true manner it’s deeper than Cairo shows.

I’ll be contacting Cory, thank you for the recommendation!

 

[Tourbeau]

I was planning on going back to being a full-time lurker, but since this post is relevant to what I said the other day, I will link it here and say some more, because those comments really didn't belong in the other thread anyway.

http://www.bellydanceforums.net/threads/selling-the-forum.20116/post-244000

The reason you are seeing "garbage dancing"* is because that is representative of the current state of dance in Egypt. There are very few native belly dancers of high caliber working, and their gig industry is dominated by Eastern Europeans who dance a very energetic, balletic, and aggressive version of the dance. (I was going to say "Egyptian dance" there, but the truth is they also beat up Khaleeji and Iraqi music with the same enthusiasm, too.)

The Egyptian gig industry has never completely recovered from the Arab Spring, and a good chunk of what's left has become tourist kitsch (as if COVID didn't devastate tourism). If you've ever done or seen a public gig in North America, you know non-natives usually aren't discriminating consumers of nuanced artistry. Many of those foreign tourists to Egypt (or the Emirates and their nightclub scene, for that matter) actually like trashy costumes and too-much-cowbell dancing because that's what Hollywood has conditioned them to think belly dancing is, and the locals who think belly dance is immoral aren't going to tell them otherwise.

Then there's the music and the generational shift. This video is from 2020, but it explains a lot. Sorry, Zorba, I know...

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=2797275590552020

And this happened Last. Month.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-59960477
https://m.republicworld.com/world-n...ated-after-activists-support-articleshow.html

Dancers were bemoaning that traditional raqs sharqi was on life support a decade ago, and the situation has definitely gotten worse.

* So I do have to acknowledge that the Wokegentsia are not incorrect to say that Egyptians should be able to do whatever they want with their own culture. If young Egyptians want to listen to somebody rhythmically yelling over beat loops, and jump around like they are in a hip-hop video circa 2003, who are we imperialists to oppress them by pointing out that the older music was compositionally superior and the dancing was more elegant? If they want to reject their indigenous arts, we can't--and on some level shouldn't--stop them. But I'm not going to go much farther down this road, because it turns into an argument that people shouldn't care about studying and preserving Latin because it's a dead language and everybody in Italy speaks Italian now.

 

[Tourbeau]

Anyway...There are a number of Egyptian teachers who promote themselves on Facebook. Wander into any regional MED group and you can probably find Ahmed Hussein and Nada El Masriya posting, but both of them are going to be bringing some ballet with them.

It has been a growing problem that after the "Nerve Is All You Need to Call Yourself an Expert" era ended for traditional belly dance, teachers who wanted to promote themselves as dancers of authenticity became increasingly dependent on having professional folkloric experience (e.g., Reda Troupe) or at least studying under somebody who did. This means the few teachers who were qualified to teach "Real" style and not heavily influenced by staged professional folklore (the ones who dance as "just folks") became increasingly rare. There are still some of them out there, but they're not always easy to find.

If you want a general Arabic throwback style, you might look into Alia Mohamed in LA. I don't know if she does remote lessons, but I think she is one of the best retro dancers out there. (I personally wish she would build a higher wall between her MED and burly pursuits, though.)

Finally, if you are in Toronto, so is Yasmina Ramzy and a number of her former graduates. https://www.yasminaramzyarts.com/ I'm sure there are other good teachers in that area, but one of my teachers had experience with Yasmina and was very impressed by her.

 

[Zorba]

Tourbeau - I for one am glad to see you out of lurk mode. Please stick around!

 

[Shanazel]

I'm moving this thread to instructional resources.

Carry on.

 

[Tourbeau]

Thanks, Zorba!

 

[Greek Bonfire]

Yasmina is an EXCELLENT source! She is frequently promoting her classes and events on Facebook. I took a workshop with her several years ago when she was passing through Chicago and I was just so happy with it.

 

[hippyhips]

I liked your approach to this, to say that none of these arguments are invalid is great and I agree with you on 99.99% of this (and I'm not getting into what I don't agree with - its nothing of importance). But i have heard through the grapevine that things are starting to improve. Egyptian people are starting to "rediscover" (for lack of a better word) belly dance (and according to Randa Kamal) She is starting to see more Egyptian people taking HER classes also. there has been a "lessening" of restrictions of late too, ive seen floor work being done in Egypt and sagat being played by Egyptian dancers. While the over all "oppression" of the art remains, there does seem to be a light somewhere. After a discussion with a friend who goes to Egypt regularly, it may be, in part, due to the involvement of belly dancers in night clubs again, a sort of ,"bring the dance to the people," rather than, "put it behind a large paywall." (and although the dance remains in homes and weddings for the average citizen, its the dance as a performance that suffers) ive seen dancers in night clubs dance in long slip type dresses in those clubs. Yes, its may not what we think of when we think of belly dancers, but its something to begin with.
Of course this is all just a shortened version of the nuances.

 

[hippyhips]

The reason you are seeing "garbage dancing"* is because that is representative of the current state of dance in Egypt. There are very few native belly dancers of high caliber working, and their gig industry is dominated by Eastern Europeans who dance a very energetic, balletic, and aggressive version of the dance. (I was going to say "Egyptian dance" there, but the truth is they also beat up Khaleeji and Iraqi music with the same enthusiasm, too.)

The Egyptian gig industry has never completely recovered from the Arab Spring, and a good chunk of what's left has become tourist kitsch (as if COVID didn't devastate tourism). If you've ever done or seen a public gig in North America, you know non-natives usually aren't discriminating consumers of nuanced artistry. Many of those foreign tourists to Egypt (or the Emirates and their nightclub scene, for that matter) actually like trashy costumes and too-much-cowbell dancing because that's what Hollywood has conditioned them to think belly dancing is, and the locals who think belly dance is immoral aren't going to tell them otherwise.

I liked your approach to this, to say that none of these arguments are invalid is great and I agree with you on 99.99% of this (and I'm not getting into what I don't agree with - its nothing of importance). But i have heard through the grapevine that things are starting to improve. Egyptian people are starting to "rediscover" (for lack of a better word) belly dance (and according to Randa Kamal) She is starting to see more Egyptian people taking HER classes also. there has been a "lessening" of restrictions of late too, ive seen floor work being done in Egypt and sagat being played by Egyptian dancers. While the over all "oppression" of the art remains, there does seem to be a light somewhere. After a discussion with a friend who goes to Egypt regularly, it may be, in part, due to the involvement of belly dancers in night clubs again, a sort of ,"bring the dance to the people," rather than, "put it behind a large paywall." (and although the dance remains in homes and weddings for the average citizen, its the dance as a performance that suffers) ive seen dancers in night clubs dance in long slip type dresses in those clubs. Yes, its may not what we think of when we think of belly dancers, but its something to begin with.
Of course, my rather short post does not cover all the nuances within.

 

[Tourbeau]

I'm curious about what you disagree on--looking to learn, not argue. We're all sort of like the blind men with the elephant in the old fable here. No one can see the whole picture when there are so many possible valid positions and opinions across cultures, subcultures, socioeconomic strata, immigrant experiences, points in time, etc.

If you'd rather DM and discuss offline, that's fine, too.

 

[hippyhips]

I'm curious about what you disagree on--looking to learn, not argue. We're all sort of like the blind men with the elephant in the old fable here. No one can see the whole picture when there are so many possible valid positions and opinions across cultures, subcultures, socioeconomic strata, immigrant experiences, points in time, etc.

If you'd rather DM and discuss offline, that's fine, too.

its grand, its not even anything about something we disagree on:

"So I do have to acknowledge that the Wokegentsia are not incorrect to say that Egyptians should be able to do whatever they want with their own culture. If young Egyptians want to listen to somebody rhythmically yelling over beat loops, and jump around like they are in a hip-hop video circa 2003, who are we imperialists to oppress them by pointing out that the older music was compositionally superior and the dancing was more elegant?"

id only argue that its only, "youth culture" that we see - (and in a way arnt the dance style that follow are somewhat "folk dancing"? even more so seeing at the "powers that be," no longer promote it). i love Mohammed Mohsen who sings traditional styles and more elegant modern styles (will give a youtube link) i agree with everything you say about it though, but was that style of music what the youths were listening to in the 1940s or 1950s (genuine question - i actually don't know) ? was the music we see from the golden era the style the ordinary folk were dancing to?.

 

[Zorba]

Modern day American music is polluting the world...

 

[Tourbeau]

Gather around, ya sohabi, while I pontificate for thousands of words across multiple threads...

id only argue that its only, "youth culture" that we see

Pop-culture media is usually targeted at the middle of the bell curve, and young adults tend to have more time and interest to pursue frivolities than middle-aged people with families, or older folks who might worry about looking foolish and immature. With about 60% of Egypt's population under 30, that's a lot of youth culture to see.

- (and in a way arnt the dance style that follow are somewhat "folk dancing"? even more so seeing at the "powers that be," no longer promote it).

You're absolutely right. "Folk dancing" is how folks dance. If it's multicultural gyrations learned off TikTok, that's what it is, whether foreign belly dancers like it or not. Bedo has as much right to poach moves from BTS as Mahmoud Reda had to borrow from Gene Kelly. I'm only seeing what's online (since I'm in the US and not getting personally invited to street concerts in Cairo), but, yeah, if "indigenous social dancing" in Egypt looks more like the dancers in a Beyoncé video than the dancers in an old Farid al Atrash musical...

i love Mohammed Mohsen who sings traditional styles and more elegant modern styles (will give a youtube link)

I was familiar with Mohsen in passing, but I haven't listened to any of his music in a while. He does have a nice voice. I guess I had been kind of mentally grouping him with people like Maryam Saleh and Dina al Wedidi--singers who are clearly influenced by the older music but not quite purists--but upon closer examination, maybe he's more of a kindred performer to Carmen Soliman or Shireen? Both of them occasionally go back and sing the older classical songs.

 

[Tourbeau]

i agree with everything you say about it though, but was that style of music what the youths were listening to in the 1940s or 1950s (genuine question - i actually don't know) ? was the music we see from the golden era the style the ordinary folk were dancing to?

This is just my personal intuition, but I assume the mid-century ME experience was similar to what was going on in the US, which I have second-hand familiarity with via my mother, who graduated from high school during WWII. There was a large, dominant segment of media and most people, regardless of age, participated in it because it was what most folks had access to and there weren't a lot of other choices anyway. Everybody saw the same movies and listened to the same radio. Older and younger people might tend toward different segments (in the 1940s, my mom liked Glenn Miller's jitterbug songs, and my grandparents preferred his ballads), and older people also always had the option of regressing into the music of their own youth (my grandmother was still enjoying ragtime when I was a kid). It wasn't until the later half of the 20th Century that young people in the US were seen as an important marketing demographic beyond toys and treats.

I think Egypt had the same sort of thing, although perhaps lagging the West a few decades, just because of logistics and economics. Everybody watched Farid and Samia in the theaters. Everybody tuned in for Umm Kalthoum's radio concerts. As far as I can tell, the shattering of the Egyptian media monoculture started in the late 1970s. Cracks were already starting to form in the 1960s with the start of sha'abi as a mainstream commercial art form, which some people viewed as crass and indecent (AKA "catnip for young people"), and musicians who were experimenting more aggressively with Western sounds (well, if Abdel Halim Hafez, Baligh Hamdi, and Umm Kalthoum say Omar Khorshid's electric guitar is okay...).

By the 1980s, a couple of significant elements had come together, including the arrival on the scene of artists like Sha'aban Abdel Rahim (if you thought Ahmed Adaweyya was crude...), 4M and their pop-ification of traditional music, and Hamid al Shaeri and his "al Jeel" sound. Technology also contributed by the proliferation of cassettes (not everybody could afford a tape deck, but they were definitely cheaper than a vinyl record press, and now it was easier to duplicate and share music)--and with the availability of synthesizers/keyboards capable of playing quartertones, live music no longer required a takht of classically trained musicians.

The "al Jeel" era meant the Egyptian musical landscape was suddenly filled with sounds that left older Egyptians feeling like Abe Simpson: "I used to be with ‘it’, but then they changed what ‘it’ was. Now what I’m with isn’t ‘it’ anymore and what’s ‘it’ seems weird and scary." Were there still mainstream musicians holding down the traditional style? Sure. Were all young people into the new sounds? No. Were some folks still listening to their old 78s of adwar and taqatiq (earlier musical forms)? Yes. But there was a major shift with the ascendance of "music of the young generation."

But Abe Simpson's quote ends with the ominous "It’ll happen to you!", and it did. The 21st Century Internet gave the next generation of young people a window into what the rest of the world was listening to, and it was rap and hip hop. The elements of frustration, disenfranchisement, and anger that fueled so much rap and hip hop in the US and elsewhere were already percolating into the live music scenes over there, and the Arab Spring provided the catalyst to launch mahraganat, techno-shaabi, and rap arabiyya into the cultural forefront.

 

[Tourbeau]

And the fall of the Mubarak regime knocked Egypt's mainstream music industry back on its heels. Almost overnight, artists of the "al Jeel" era like Amro Diab, Mustafa Amar, and Ehab Tawfiq were struggling for relevance, and even second-wave singers like Tamer Hosny and Mohammed Hamaki could no longer simply take success for granted because they had the backing of the establishment. The Musicians' Union tried to fight the rise of the newer styles by passing all sorts of onerous rules for membership (and consequently, the right to perform legally), even having artists arrested for immorality, but the new Western-influenced music just rolled on undeterred.

Where their music industry used to be primarily an album game, it's mostly singles now, encouraged by the same kinds of online distribution channels as we have. Independent artists can take their music directly to the masses across the globe online. The "dinosaurs" still put out albums, and occasionally younger singers do, too, but it's nothing like it used to be. Fifteen years ago, I could easily keep up with streaming every new Arabic music release, since it was a couple of albums a week. Now, it's the equivalent of an album or two every day.

This is not to say the older styles of music don't continue to have devotees. They do. Some young people still study formal Arabic music, and traditional music is standard performing fare on TV singing competitions.

Many of the mahraganat singers could make more traditional music if they wanted to. There was a story circulating a few years ago after Hany Shaker (who was head of the Musicians' Union at the time) proclaimed he would give licenses to any mahraganat singers who could demonstrate their musical competence. A bunch of them dutifully tromped down to the Union and proved they could sing a Zachariyya Ahmed mawaal and half of "Inta Omri" or whatever else Hany cooked up for the test, and Hany had to grit his teeth and give them their union cards when they passed. I know Hoda and Tito Bondok were among the ones who succeeded.

Omar Kamal (who occasionally collaborates with sha'abi legend Abdel Basset Hamouda) could sing more traditional music if he chose to (because sometimes he does), and in hindsight, "Bint al geeran" (which he collaborated on and is considered a milestone of mahraganat) isn't really that far removed from the sort of sha'abi Hakim and Saad al Soghayer were recording at the time (minus an objectionable lyric or two), but then Omar will go off and work with Hamo Beka, and whatever goodwill he built up with the Union goes pffft.

Then you add into the mix all of the other non- and neo-traditionalist artists, everything from rappers to rock bands to hipsters to musicians/producers and guys like Islam Chipsy (who believes he's on a mission to simultaneously respect and modernize Arabic music), and...oh, Amro Diab, I forgot you were still here....

Other Arab-speaking countries that were already making kindred-philosophy music to rap, particularly Algeria and Morocco, have seen stylistic branching off raï and cha'abi, respectively, with new substyles more obviously influenced by Euro club music and hip hop. Palestinians, who had long ago embraced the lo-fi, DIY aesthetic of rap grew that style. Lebanon flirted a bit with Western alt-rock. But all of those places still continued to put out a lot of traditional, pop, and folkloric-pop music. If I see new music tagged as coming from the Levant, Iraq, or the Gulf, I can expect it to be pop/traditional. But Egypt? Mostly (like upward of 75%) very modern sha'abi, mahraganat, rap, and some banal pop stuff these days.

 

[Tourbeau]

Modern day American music is polluting the world...

So much of the current Egyptian music just mushes together in a big, repetitive, Auto-Tuned blur for me. I suppose if you can speak better Arabic than I do, at least the lyrics give you something to differentiate between the songs...unless it doesn't matter, because I sort of feel the same disinterest about Travis Scott and Megan Thee Stallion, and I can understand what they're saying.