Teaching Ethnic Dance: The Raqs Sharqi Experience
By Zarifa Sa'id    July 1998

I was recently invited to be a guest instructor in a class in World Dance in the University of Florida's Theatre and Dance Department. This summer class consisted of five weeks. Each week contained four days of one and one-half hour instruction. What was unusual was that each week featured a different culture. The session began with Barata Natayam, followed by Middle Eastern, Chinese, Spanish and Brazilian. The guest teachers were invited to attend all of the classes as observers. We had a preliminary meeting where the instructors met each other and the students and where we each introduced ourselves, relayed our credentials and introduced the dance form we would teach.

Some things became painfully clear, both as a result of that meeting and as a result of observing the development of the Barata Natayam class. First of all, I would be the only one teaching an "ethnic" dance for which there is no teaching technique developed to teach the "ethnics" of the countries where the dance originates. This is not to say that there are no classes. There are some for the dedicated and aspiring performer who can search out Master practioners or troupe directors for lessons in choreography and presentation. There is no curriculum, however, which takes a dancer from the basics through advanced step technique, integrating choreographies into the lessons as appropriate for each level. There is no method of instruction that lays out a definition of what constitutes Raqs Sharqi as compared to other dance forms. There is no description of the boundaries of this dance form although master teachers in that country have a clear idea in mind about what is "Oriental" and what is Western dance, such as ballet. In addition, a variety of styles exist each of which grew out of the specific experience of a particular country, region, village's efforts to express movement in response to rhythm. Some styles contain more twisting movement; some more up and down hip movements; some more upper body movement than others. While these styles might be identifiable by observers, the stylistic differences have not been articulated by the peoples of those locations with some few possible exceptions (Tunisian folkloric, for example). Finally, a further complication is that "ethnic" choreographers have in recent decades been strongly influenced by Western dance forms, especially ballet, in their staging of folkloric and even "Oriental" dances.

In addition to the above difficulties, I was confronted with precocious students who were well trained in ballet, modern and jazz technique but who had almost no exposure to ethnic dance of any kind. The realization dawned on me that I could not rely on the usual approach which I use in my classes that continue for weeks or even the approach used in Belly Dance workshops where most people have some idea of what we're doing. I had to succinctly explain to them what we in Twentieth Century America are doing with this dance form, how to identify it and how to do it, as well as how this relates to how the "ethnics" perform this dance form and its function in those societies. The problem was compounded for me by the fact that the program director had introduced me as teaching "Egyptian" dance. The confusion about what constitutes "Egyptian" dance that currently exists in our field due to a wave of interest in that styling did nothing to heighten my self confidence in presenting myself to this class.

There are two main topics that I tried to explain to these students: the development of a Western teaching method for Raqs Sharqi--what it is and how it changed the dance-and an explanation of how one might define Raqs Sharqi. My discussion of these topics is strictly an outgrowth of my personal experience rather than the result of extensive academic study. I'd like to share my discussion of these topics to help clarify (obfuscate?) what we are doing. I am not attempting to write a history of the introduction of belly dance into the U. S. nor am I attempting to give credit to everyone who made major contributions to that introduction. I am tracing what I consider to be an important influence in the way that belly dance teaching methods developed in this country and what effect that had on the way that we in the U. S. perform Raqs Sharqi or Belly Dance.

The development of a teaching method for Raqs Sharqi occurred largely in the early 1970's. The 1960's had been a period where ethnic night clubs flourished and the Middle Eastern clubs featured "Belly Dancers". Many of the dancers during that time period were ethnic - from Turkey, Greece, Lebanon and Syria. The '60's were also a period of social change in the U. S. - the feminist movement developed along with the "sexual revolution". Flower children may have heralded the way, but in the early seventies American women discovered "Belly Dance". It became one way for women to discover themselves, and women flocked to newly opened studios that taught only belly dance - for exercise and fun. I remember the Scheherezade School of Belly Dance on one of the main streets in Tucson. There were veils hung from the ceiling and across the front window. I sort of crept in the door, hoping no one would see me. But I became hooked and even practiced my finger cymbals while waiting at bus stops. In those days there were 40 people in a beginner class and we paid more than I can charge for classes today!

Sometime in the early 70's, Aisha Ali and Leona Wood conducted field research in Egypt, Tunisia and Morocco and brought the music, steps and dances back to the U. S. Aisha taught workshops to share that information that focused primarily on Egyptian Ghawazee and Tunisian Folkloric dance, as well as danse orientale. In addition, Jamila Salimpour developed a teaching format based on her experience working in night clubs with dancers of varied ethnic backgrounds. The teaching format included steps and technique which introduced Raqs Sharqi to western dancers. As a method for teaching beginners and for teaching layering of isolation movements to advanced students, this method has possibly been the greatest influence in the teaching of American Belly Dancers. The teaching method included steps and technique from Egypt, Lebanon, Tunisia, Morocco and Turkey which were blended into what I now call "generic Raqs Sharqi". In addition, the hip movements were taught as coming from pressure points in the feet. The dance resulting from instruction in this technique resulted in quite beautiful movements and credibly "authentic" presentations. By this I mean, that when I had an opportunity to dance with Shaadia Maazin on a cruise boat in Luxor in 1981, I used the technique I had learned from students of Jamila and from a week long workshop with Jamila. The Egyptian audience and the folk musicians who accompanied Shaadia complemented me. They accepted what I had done as a reasonable representation of the dance that Shadia was doing which was folkloric style raqs sharqi.

There are a couple of issues to discuss with regards to the way "generic Raqs Sharqi" is taught. One has to do with the way dance movements are transmitted from a different culture. We tend to filter movements through the prism of our own experience with movement, just as we filter our understanding of other cultural elements based on our own cultural expressions. In Western culture, dance is primarily expressed through movements of the arms and legs and by creating visual images in space. In Middle Eastern culture Raqs Sharqi is performed by movements primarily of the torso to visually reproduce the rhythmic patterns in the music. In order to teach belly dance, then, to Americans who had a completely different concept about movement, music and dance, the use of pressure points on the floor and the use of the skeletal frame to create torso movements became an important way to coax a reasonable facsimile of raqs sharqi movements from American women.

Another cultural difference which makes it even more difficult to properly teach these movements to Americans is that in our culture we are taught that the proper use of abdominal and thigh muscles is hold everything in the surrounding areas as tight and still as possible. Imagine a dance form that uses those very muscles to create movement! The problem is that those are exactly the muscles that an Arab or Turkish women uses to create the isolated torso movements that make up the dance steps of Raqs Sharqi. I wondered for years how Sohair Zaki achieved the strength of hip movements in her "figure 8's" and hip circles. Well, she used her muscles to pull the movement rather than her skeletal frame to push the movement. This may be a fine point, but it is an essential point if one wishes to truly reproduce the movement quality of ethnic Raqs Sharqi. This technique is difficult to convey in classes made up of Americans and it is difficult for American students initially to appreciate the difference in movement quality.

The second issue has to do with performing dances that are true to a particular styling, such as Egyptian or Turkish. The "generic" teaching method that has evolved in this country does not really differentiate between different country styles. The best we do is to differentiate between folkloric and oriental and specialty dances such as Ghawazee, Tunisian or Saudi. Are there differences that can be articulated? I believe I see some differences. For example, I think that the upper torso movements that we use in "generic Raqs Sharqi" would be found more in Turkish Belly Dance than in Arab versions of that dance. Also, Egyptian and Lebanese versions might use more in the way of up and down hip movements while Moroccan and Tunisian belly dancers might use more twisting movements. When I was in Tunisia, I was able to take classes from a couple of Tunisian women who taught Raqs Sharqi. The styling reminded me of what we were learning in this country in the early 70's. But that came from Turkish dancers, or did it? Sometimes I think that there are more differences between individual dancers within a country, than there are between countries. Bert Balladine told me that there are no Egyptian or Turkish dance styles, there is only Egyptian or Turkish music.

So I end this part of the discourse with a question, as I do in my classes and as I did in the University class. What is Raqs Sharqi and are there differences in styles? And, how do we get Americans to learn ethnic technique or do we care? Part of me says I care and part of me says we produce a beautiful performance art anyway. The next discourse will continue with examining what Raqs Sharqi is and with the great gap in our dance education - the music.

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