Dancers

Dancers

Friday, January 26, 2018

Safavid Miniature


Let's talk a little about this image from the 1500s.

We have a picnic with a young noble and his(?) lady friend.  I often hear that women never danced for men because Islam. Well, clearly there are two women dancing in front of a bunch of men: the noble, his servant, and literally every single musician.

The main instruments are a daf and a ney, and we can note that both dancers are holding percussive instruments. The three on the bottom left seem to each have small instruments, but I can't quite make them out.  The one in the center seems to be playing something similar to finger cymbals.

The dancers both have a braid case. So far, Persian dancers (and only dancers) are the only people I have ever noted wearing braid cases.  If you have evidence of someone else wearing them, I'd love to see it.  Anyway, the figure in yellow is in a pose that I have seen in other miniatures.  her face is turned away from the direction of her hands.  This is a very similar pose to one we see in classical Persian dance. In Persian culture, longing (and never having it come to realization) is a regular motif in stories and poetry. This dance move in classical Persian dance is portrayed as a come-hither movement, with the head facing the arms, and then the face turning away, as if to say, but-no-I-cannot! This pose could also indicate a swooping around of the arms, possibly over the head gracefully. Other miniatures might show poses that could go with it. The arms bent in the same direction indicate that she is not doing undulations, since those are typically moved in opposition to each other. The figure in red is also frozen in the middle of a common classical Persian pose.  In this particular move, the arms cross in front of the heart, and swoop out to barrel-of-monkey arms.


Thursday, December 28, 2017

Pre-Islamic Dance Images

Pre-Islamic Egyptian Dance with Duchess Faizeh

First, all my research is springboarded from the research and class taught by Mistress Rosalind Mihrimah (mka Kristina Kelly).  My historical knowledge comes initially from her handout and sources, and then the Google Cycle went from there.  My primary goal when studying ancient and medieval dance is to recreate the movement, and that is what we will be attempting to do in this class, utilizing the art imagery from the time period.

For the purposes of this, we will be focusing on the followers of Bacchus (Dionysus in Greek), particularly the Maenads (the wild women) and their rituals.





























Tahtib

Tahtib is an ancient Egyptian martial art.  “Tahtib” is actually short for "Fan A'Nazaha Wa-Tahtib,” or “the art of being straight and honest with a stick.”

This martial art has been practiced as far back as Pharaonic period. 

This image is from the Temple of Ramses III


  This image is from the Louvre Museum, and is “Ancient Egyptian.”
According to Egyptologists, the first technical manual describing the art was found on a bas-relief of a sepulcher of the Fifth Dynasty 2470-2320 BC.  It was clearly practiced in the Pharaonic period at least through the New Kingdom, which ended 1778 BC.  The following image was taken by a belly dance colleague in the tomb of Kheuruf near (modern day) Luxor, and it is likely that was built around 1350 BC.

Later, the slave warrior class known as the Mamluks emerged, and were elite fighters with a strict chivalric code of ethics. The Mamluks were Arabs who controlled Egypt and Syria until the Ottoman Turks invaded. One of the reasons the Mamluks were defeated was because the Ottomans used firearm weaponry, and the Mamluks were basically an elite warrior culture, who viewed the use of gunpowder as dishonorable. They were extremely skilled in hand-to-hand combat and swordsmanship.
The music used for tahtib is a mizmar and a “folkloric drum.”






Sources:

Rogan, Eugene, The Arabs, A History, Basic Books, Basic Books, 2012
Reda, Mahmoud, Dancing is My Life

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Temple_Ramsis_III_Tahtib.jpg



Saturday, November 9, 2013

Welcome!

Hello!  I love Middle Eastern dance.  I love Central Asian dance.  I love North African dance.  Sensing a theme here?  I make my living teaching and performing modern styles of belly dance, but I am a firm believer in knowing the cultural roots.  For my hobby, I study medieval Central Asia, and this blog is going to focus on my journey recreating the dances of the Islamic world, as well as pre-Islamic roots of belly dance.  I'll probably also talk about folkloric dance as well.  I hope you enjoy it!