Ba Olek Eh - Amina's Daily Blog
(tell you what)
December 31, 2011
Happy New Year
I can't think of a better way to spend the last day of
the year than to spend it dancing. I didn't do too much today in the way
of real cleaning and culling but I did spend some time in the dance studio
plus I taught a couple of privates.
After the privates I did more organizing and started some bags to go various
places like the Goodwill or in the studio "free box". Managed
to give away 5 purses. Haven't even reached the bottom of the purse collection
yet, hopefully tomorrow. Purses (at least some of my purses that are huge)
take up a lot of room in my closets. I am hoping to be able to allocate
and keep only my favorite ones and fit them all on one shelf.
Rose thinks I suffer from horror vacui. Wikipedia says:
"In visual art, horror vacui; from Latin "fear of empty space",
which might be represented by white spots; also cenophobia, , from Greek
"fear of the empty"[1]) is the filling of the entire surface
of an artwork with detail."
She's probably right or maybe I want her to be right and that I'm not
just a hoarder: 'someone who collects and stores, often secretly, a large
quantity of something such as food or money for use in the future."
Well, if I am secretly storing away money, please tell me where I'm hiding
it. But, regarding food....hmmmm. Maybe I am a bit of a hoarder there.
I could tell you stories, but maybe another time.
So, I'm a collector. There's no problem there; however it seems to have
rubbed off like a virus.
There's room in one house for one collector, but when there are two, it can be a problem. Home
December 30, 2011
Tarabiya with sunglasses and a hanky
Started the day trying to catch up on unfinished dance
business. It's almost 2012 and I promised myself that I would get my closets
and upstairs rooms organized so that 2012 would enter nice and neat. Well,
it's just not happening and short of lighting a match or renting a dumpster,
I don't know how it will happen. I think I have TOO MUCH STUFF and I'm
tired of just moving the stuff around. I thought I would spend some time
working on unfinished dance business from my "to do" list, so
I spent the day working on my web, inserting future events and starting
a new page for the Side
Show at Carnival of Stars I promised Pepper
that I would make the Side Show even better than last year and have a
few ideas. I'm open to any suggestions and help, so let me know if any
of you want to help in any way. I'm into having a planning meeting for
this sometime soon.
Talked to Atlantis and we finalized the plan for her teaching a workshop
at COS. She will teach "How to Dance to a Drum Solo". Well,
I have Susu teaching a short drum class and leading a "drum circle"
at the Side Show on the same day, so I think you can read my mind.
After the Side Show and COS on Sunday, the Pasha Band will be performing
at Al Masri for Sausan's traditional after party. Who said belly dancers
ever slept or rested? As of this moment, the Pasha Band is Husain, Younes,
Jalal, Chakib, Susu and me. Atlantis will be performing too. And I will
be collecting names of others who want to perform. I know all this seems
like so far from now, like next year even, but if I get most of it planned
now, I'll rest better and be able to forget about it for a while.
When I talked to Atlantis about my teaching at BDUC, I told her that I
wanted to change from teaching Shaabi which I taught last time to teaching
how to dance to Om. I like Shaabi and always will, in fact I was excited
about teaching Ahmed Adaweya, but then decided I didn't want to be typecast.
This was especially because I learned that I would have to perform what
I was teaching. I just didn't feel like putting on more "white face"
and wearing another blonde wig. So I will teach an Om song. Now I need
to find a suitable song to teach to. Here's my class description:
"Included in the workshop will be a short history on Om plus an analysis
on the musical, rhythmic and lyrical structure of the songs. Amina will
use one song as an example and will teach a choreography that will lend
itself to improvisation if desired. There is no word in the English language
that accurately defines the word "Tarab". In Arabic culture
"Tarab" is used to describe the emotional effect of the music
on the listener. These emotions evoke ecstasy and trance. Amina
hopes to show how you can bridge these emotions to the audience through
the music and song of Om Kalthoum.
So, instead of a ticky tacky dress maybe I can wear a glamorous gown. Wonder if I should wear sunglasses and hold a lavendar hanky. Home
December 29, 2011
Books are softer
Today I thought about and made plans for spiffing up my
website. I wish I were more computer savvy and had more up-to-date equipment.
Maybe if my computer were a little newer I wouldn't have to know more
about technology because the computer would do it for me. I'm getting
tired of not having the latest technology. It's pretty lame when the newest
thing in my life is my phone, which I am sure, will soon be obsoleted.
When Shadia was here she needed to walk to the local coffee shop to use
her computer. Our computers are all hard wired and her computer only recognized
wireless.
Now I hear that next year they will be obsolescing CDs. When I was at
Costco a couple of weeks ago I couldn't even find blank CDs. I really
don't know what to do since this is the way I operate. I do know that
when I go out to do a show I need to have a boom box in my car for back
up because some places only are set up for the ipods.
I think I'm the first one - last one? - on my block to NOT have my music
on itunes. Yes, I know I have itunes on my laptop computer but it is good
for nothing except copying CDs. My other computer - the one I use - is
so old that it won't allow me to copy CDs anymore because the itunes is
too old. The one on the laptop isn't, I don't think, but it's not hooked
up to the Internet because I don't have wireless. I do have 4 (yes, four)
routers and DSL but nothing is compatible.
Do I throw in the towel? Do I give in to technology? Do I go wireless?
I still use a pocket calendar that I bought at Staples.
I still write phone numbers in a little black book and use my home phone
for making calls. In fact, my mobile is mostly used for email and the
ringer is permanently turned off. And what about you tube? Well, yes,
I do access that on my phone also especially since my computer is too
old to watch anything.
And no, I don't want a kindle. I like to touch pages and fall asleep on
books. They're softer.
So, I guess rather than spiff up my website, should I just give in to
2012 and go wireless? I'm still not sure. Maybe it'll be on my list of
things to do before the end of 2012. Home
December 28 2011
State of my mind
Today was spent going trying to organize my closet. I
have always felt that my mind is the state of my closet and right now
my closet is a mess. Well, it's very cluttered with too many things just
like what is going on in my mind.
I have two closets - one with clothes and some of my shoes - and another,
this one that I am trying to tackle - has more shoes, large hats, big
purses, dressy clothes, Aswan costumes, blankets and spare bedding, large
photo frames and miscellaneous large 2'x3' photos, Cathy's, Susu's and
Vinny's high school memorabilia that they threw away and I recovered,
belly dance one piece dresses and bedlahs, Middle Eastern folkloric dresses
for Aswat shows and Mexican folklorico costumes, two 4' high large chests
of drawers filled to the brim with more things such as belts, a drawer
of fur and faux fur hats, sweaters, dancewear, a drawer of broken jewelry
and findings, a huge chest (2 1/2' wide x 4' long) filled with I don't
know what - probably vintage clothing, and stacked to the ceiling on the
chests are bins with kilos of beads, numerous packages of sequins and
jewels by the gross (all the strung sequins and trim by the spool already
made their way to the first floor with my boxes of fabrics) and other
miscellaneous shiny things to be used for costume-making. If any of you
have seen the storage room called my garage, well, this closet is just
an annex.
At one time this closet was my sewing room and I had my sewing machine
and all my sewing supplies set up in there. It was quite cozy and peaceful
and I used to spend hours in there listening to music and sewing. Now
it is just an annex of the state of my mind. This will soon be changed.
Today I think I made a dent, however small. Well, I really only just moved
things around, but somehow it does look neater and organized. And my calendar
and list of things to do seems to make more sense also. Home
December 27, 2011
Choreographies
Today I had a private in which I envisioned, staged and
mapped out a group choreography in the time it took to listen to the song.
The trouble was that the choreography wasn't for me or my group, it was
for someone else. If the choreography goes according to plan, it should
be a really nice dance with lots of different emotional dynamics, floor
patterns, tempo and level changes. While I was doing this, I was wondering
why I couldn't do that for myself and my group.
The difference is that lately when I choreograph for the Aswans I get
stuck on steps and counting. I hate steps and counting even though they
are so important to use in group choreography. It really seems to be backwards
from what I like doing. The next time I choreograph - first I need to
find a catchy song - I think I will go back to choreographing the other
way, my preferred way. That is, I will program the music to repeat endlessly,
make sure the room is suitably dark, deposit myself on one of the beds
in the drum room, close my eyes and let the song dance in my head until
it is ready to be physically danced. Then and only then will I trip over
steps and analyze the counts and measures.
Finding the right songs for the Aswans is important. In fact, it's most
important. The songs need to be short enough, lively enough, folksy enough,
different and modern enough but with a twist. I really don't like sticking
to the traditional folkloric or the traditional Oriental, so finding the
right song is usually 85% of the challenge in doing the choreography.
Lately I've taken to redux-ing old favorites. It's more about how much
I like the songs than anything else.
I won't be having practice until January which really is next week. It
would be nice to start the New Year with a new song and dance, that is,
if I can find a nice piece to work on by then. Maybe I will employ my
new mantra, "I will not be lazy!" to help make this happen.
I guess I will listen to and choose various songs while cutting, draping,
sewing and then allow myself to be lazy while choreographing in a horizontal
position. Home
December 26, 2011
Back to normal
Between now and March I think every weekend is filled
with some sort of music and or dance event, plus I finalized a few dates
for the Pasha band's schedule at Al Masri. I will now seriously think
about what I will teach and perform at BDUC.
I thought Atlantis wanted me to teach another Shaabi class, but she said
I didn't need to if I had something else in mind. Since I will be teaching
something more traditional in my March "Wahedeh we Noss" workshop,
maybe I could practice at BDUC.
Maybe I'll teach a choreography. That would be totally untraditional for
me. Maybe it would be too traditional for BDUC. I get mixed messages from
Atlantis. I just don't know what I should do. In the past I have taught
or performed musicality, drum (how to play it), Shaabi, beledy, cane,
spinning, debke, just about everything except veil. No, I don't want to
teach veil. I just don't know. I guess I'll have to sit on it a bit longer.
Atlantis wants to know by this weekend so I can't really sit on it too
long.
The problem is that what I teach is what I am supposed to perform and
then the bigger problem is what I will wear. I know that it's still a
couple of months away, but time flies and the BDUC weekend will be here
before I realize. I think the biggest problem is what will I wear.
I don't really perform that much anymore so I never really think about
costumes. I really hate the idea of buying costumes. I always have. I
always liked the more personal costumes that I made myself. I know I have
bought many costumes in the past, but quite honestly I really prefer the
more simple costumes that I make myself. That means I will have to drape,
cut, sew and not be lazy. OK - My New Year's Resolution will be: I WILL
NOT BE LAZY!
Now that that is said, I need to find a design and devise a way to cut
it. Most of my best designs have been mistakes, so I guess I will just
have to start draping and cutting until the proper mistake shows itself.
"I will not be lazy!" I will have something concocted by next
week. Then I can start decorating whatever it is that I make.
Since I have boxes and boxes of fabric in every color imaginable waiting
to be used all I need to do is repeat, "I will not be lazy!"
until something happens. Usually it's that first initial step of deciding
to actually do something that is the hardest. In my case I first need
to mentally decide on the design and then decide on committing to that
first cut. After that, it's pretty easy. Of course very rarely is the
final design anywhere close to the design envisioned. But that doesn't
matter. It's just making the decision to start. And I will. "I will
not be lazy!" Home
December 25, 2011
Christmas day
Christmas day has been traditionally my day for me to
do what I want to do. On Christmas day I most look forward to organizing,
cleaning and putting things in bags to be tossed or passed on. Today I
pulled costumes out of storage in the garage - multiples of costumes -
4, 6 or 8 of each - Aswan costumes - and found new storage spots for some
of them in a new chest of drawers that Susu gave me. While doing this
I pulled out a few for repair, ironing, or cleaning. I also found yards
and yards of material and trim for costumes planned but never made. These
I put aside and who knows, maybe something new will get made this year.
I know this sounds like a totally boring way to spend Christmas, but for
me this time is a luxury and is my moving meditation. If I don't do some
sort of organizing/cleaning on Christmas day my entire year is a mess.
Tomorrow when I look at my calendar and fill in dates it will be with
a clear head. Home
December 24, 2011
Christmas Eve
In the past when most of my relatives lived in the city
we had a tradition of starting Christmas Eve traveling caravan style from
one house to another kind of like the posada. However, rather than spending
nine days traveling (representing Mary's nine months of pregnancy), we
spent one night and traveled to each relative's house looking for "lodging"
or in actuality, something to eat. Each of our houses had a little nativity
scene and snacks. Most of the snacks were rooted in Filipino tradition.
I liked going to my aunt's house best because she had American snacks
such as a sugared ham or smoked turkey, a cheese plate, See's chocolate
and a Blum's coffee crunch cake.
We always ended at my house because my father was the oldest male relative.
Since our house was the last stop we had the most desserts - flan, arroz
con leche, bibinka, brazos de Mercedes, polvoron, meringue, pies and lumpias
with banana, coconut and tamarind candies and stuffed dates were only
some of the desserts. Of course we always also had pancit, sotanghon,
lumpia and pork adobo with rice for the still hungry. As the family died
off, mostly from old age, or as the next generation moved outside of the
city, this tradition changed until now it is just a potluck at my mother's
house. It still is on Christmas Eve and we still have the nativity scene.
But the potluck is different. My mother is too old to remember anything
and I'm the only one left who seems to appreciate or know the Filipino
food or desserts. So there is no longer the smell of soy sauce, garlic
and apple cider vinegar or the desserts made with sweetened condensed
milk, coconut and bananas.
When my family saw the desserts I brought, the younger ones wondered what
they were. Only my mother and I seemed to enjoy them. If my daughter Cathy
were here, she would too. But she lives in Switzerland and is always trying
to find ingredients to make kutchinta, palitaw and ginataan. This last,
ginataan, is something that I need to learn to make to continue the tradition.
My mother taught Cathy but she only taught me to eat it. It is a soup
that can be eaten warm (if impatient) or cold and the main ingredients
are coconut milk, tapioca balls, langka or jackfruit, ube, camote, saba
bananas and sago. Some of the fruit in this soup is also available at
Mitchell's Ice Cream on 29th and Guerrero. When Cathy comes for a visit
in February we plan on making a Mitchell's run, making ginataan and banana
(saba banana) lumpia. Home
December 23, 2011
Shopping
Today while having my morning coffee I checked my calendar
for the rest of December and except for a few privates I am completely
free to rearrange my life and house for the next year. Of course I won't
even start my organizing tasks until after Christmas Eve Day.
It seems like nothing much is happening this time of year. Everything
seems to be quiet in the/my music and dance world this week. That is good
because I haven't done any Christmas shopping yet and my family celebrates
on Christmas Eve, which is tomorrow. And I just got news that they want
Christmas Eve to begin at 3 pm. That's an ungodly hour to be celebrating
Christmas Eve but at least it gets dark early and it will seem like it's
Christmas Eve even though it will be Christmas Eve Day. This of course
really meant that I had to move my power shopping up even earlier. Fortunately
I had thought ahead and already had my potluck food contributions taken
care of. So after procrastinating all day, this evening armed with a list
and Gregory to keep me on track and away from the shoe stores we were
able to take care of everything including fine dining in the mall. Home
December 22, 2011
Traveling Spirit Masters
Last year a book I ordered called "Music and Media
in the Arab World" arrived on December 24. It was a compilation edited
by ethnomusicologist Michael Frishkopf who specializes in the music
of the Arab world and West Africa including Sufi music and Islamic rituals.
This book included a couple of articles on one of my particular interests,
Shaabi music. It took a lot of self-control to leave it at home when I
went to my mother's house to celebrate Christmas Eve with the family.
The family party was fun, but it was even more fun knowing that this book
was waiting for me at home.
Today sitting on my porch was a package from Amazon. In the package was
a couple of books including one called "Traveling Spirit Masters"
about Moroccan Gnawa trance and music. I couldn't think of a better Christmas
present or a better way to start off the New Year.
Last month at an Aswat party I met Maha Marouan from the University of
Alabama who was at the Museum of the African Diaspora talking about the
origins of Gnawa and their religious practices. "Their presence dates
back to the Trans-Saharan slave trade that, from the 18th century till
the early 20th century, brought thousands of Sub-Saharan Africans to Morocco.
Like the majority of Moroccans, Gnawa adhere to Sufi Islam, but place
particular emphasis on music and trance."
I had asked Maha for information on trance and Sufi music and she suggested
a couple of books. I ordered one for starters and when it arrived today
I immediately started reading it. Since I had just seen a documentary
called Gnawa a couple of nights ago, this book arrived with the trance
images and music still fresh in my mind.
The author Deborah Kapchan describes going to a lila (a Moroccan zar or
ritual that takes place in the evening or leil) and sitting on the floor
with the other women. She describes in detail the ritual and the possession
and I wonder about the similarities and the differences with the lila
and the Egyptian or Sudanese zar. I feel that the more I read or learn
about the lila the more the two are similar in possession and use of ritual
and animal sacrifice although somewhat dissimilar in music, rhythm and
reasons for possession. In Egypt the zar spirit seems to possess because
of frustrations in the home including economic and in Morocco and the
Gnawa the possessing spirits seem to stem from the historical reality
of their slave origins. The instruments and the rhythms used are also
different.
Although the Gnawa came from different parts of Africa, most came during
the 15th and 16th centuries through Timbuktu. The possessing spirits are
called mluks (owners). In an interview on afropop (this interview is quite
long, so if interested in knowing more or if you have a bit of time, click
here) Deborah
Kapchan states:
"So one is inhabited by spirits, but also possessed, owned, by spirits. The trauma of slavery, on the other hand, is something that can be worked out in ceremonies such as possession ceremonies. People are going into trance, and there are a lot of mortification rights. For example people slash themselves with knives. People burn themselves with the flames of candles, but while in a very different state. That is, they are performed as if they were possessed as slaves, but they are in a transcendent state where they are not vulnerable. In a sense, they can go from being the victim of a spirit to what they call "working the spirits," a kind of mastering of the state of possession. And there's a healing involved in the whole ceremony."
Reading more and more about the Gnawa reminds me that I know nothing about
them except that I like their music. It will take quite a while before
I feel otherwise. If ever... So I guess learning about the lila and the
Gnawa is just part of the long list of other things I want to know about.
Maybe I can just start with the fact that they are considered to be Shaabi...one
of my favorite types of song. But it really isn't like Egyptian Shaabi
or even Algerian Shaabi, which is Rai.
Is it enough that I've played some Moroccan songs with Rachid Halilal
and Younes el Maqboul in which
Moroccan Shaabi was the rhythm. When I play with them I wonder how
I play. Rachid always told me "If you can sing it, you can play it."
Well, some of you out there know how well I sing.
So, here it is, I've spent a lifetime learning one style of music and
am still learning. Is it too ambitious to want to know about another style?
Well, I'm not planning on joining any Gnawa group in this lifetime, so
I guess it's OK. But, in the meantime, Husain invited Chakib to join our
Pasha band. With both Younes and Chakib in the band it will be inevitable,
we will on occasional travel musically to Morocco. I'd better learn how
to sing.Home
December 21, 2011
BDUC
Sumaia told me that I will be teaching a workshop at BDUC
so I checked the BDUC site and saw that Yes, I am teaching and performing
in February. That's only 2 months from now. Better get it together. According
to the BDUC schedule I will be teaching a "How to dance to Shaabi"
class. Well, that's easy, but of course there's not enough time to really
teach it - just to give it a taste. I guess that's better than nothing.
At least I can lead people in the right direction.
Since we have been on a Kulu aala Kulu kick lately, I guess I will use
Ahmed Adaweya songs. Since he is considered
to be the godfather of Shaabi music it will give everyone a good foundation.
There are so many songs to choose from, I just don't know which ones I'll
use. For sure I will need to use a few examples plus his mawaweel. How
in the world will I be able to teach all that I need to teach in the short
time allotted to me?
Well, I guess I will do as I usually do and that is to practice teaching
the Shaabi workshop in my classes and have the class help me pick and
choose only the most important aspects. This will be hard, as I like to
be thorough and know that in such a short time I can only touch on the
subject. I guess that's why I don't really like teaching workshops.
In the meantime, I guess I will saturate myself with Adaweya music. Night
and day, fee youm we leila. Well, in reality I have been doing that anyway
since I've been trying to find a couple of more songs for the Pasha band
to learn. The more I think about it, the more I think that we should rename
ourselves the Basha band since that's what most Arabs will call it anyway.
Ahmed Adaweya and Abdel Basit Hamouda
Maybe we can use Abdel Basit's Ya Basha as a theme song. Yes! I think
I'll get Husain to learn that song and it would be a great song to start
off our shows. The song is nice, it is danceable and it's fun. Yes, that
would be great to have a Shaabi theme song for our band that plays classic
music. Well it is pretty common that Egyptian Shaabi and wedding bands
play everything from Shaabi music to traditional to Om Kalthoum to classic
and muwashshahat and classically trained musicians usually only know classic
music. So, our "Basha" band is versatile and loves and plays
it all. OK. Need to keep researching these songs for the "Basha"
band and for the BDUC workshop. I guess some of these songs will also
appear in my annual class CD. Home
December 20, 2011
Wahda we noss
When Karim invited Debbie, who lives in Cairo, to participate
in raqs Egypt, it coincided with a medical convention that her husband
was attending in San Francisco. Of course she would come to San Francisco
to both accompany her husband and to also be part of raqs Egypt. For a
short time we toyed with the idea of doing our own separate workshop in
addition to Karim's raqs Egypt since she would already be here. But this
didn't happen because we were too busy working on the raqs Egypt seminar
material. We decided that for sure the next time she came to the U.S.
we would do our workshop. Fortunately there would be another couple of
medical conventions in the states in 2012 that Yasser, her husband, was
interested in attending.
Well, last week Debbie and Yasser bought tickets to the states and will
be returning in March. So our workshop will be happening then. The focus
will be pretty much the same as all our other ones with a strong emphasis
on how the dance is related and interconnected with the music, the language
and the culture.
The name of our proposed workshop is ala wahda we noss - on the one and
a half. So what does that mean? Well, to be quite honest with you, it's
a term that can mean a lot of different things. It's like a maqsoum rhythm,
but it's also like a chifte telli or a sombati. It seems to be specifically
an Egyptian term and it also can be related to dance. In other words it's
a vague term for a language that is just as vague.
I remember being at an Aswat rehearsal learning the words to a song. In
the room there were about half Arabic speakers from various Arabic countries
and half non-Arabic speakers. One of the Americans asked the meaning of
the song and the meaning of some of the words. Well, if there were 10
Arabs in the room, there turned out to be 10 different translations of
the songs with just as many definitions of the words.
Samir Rizkallah, my first Arabic teacher spent the first hour of our first
Arabic class explaining that Arabic was a vague language. With the Arabic
rhythms in drum talk, this also is so very true. What is beledy to one
drummer is masmudi to another and maqsoum to another. And what is maqsoum
to one may be fellahi to one drummer or wahda we noss to another. Or maybe
it's called chifte telli or is it wahda kabira. Get the picture? If you
hang out with the same drummers, you start to understand their language,
but hang out with other drummers and, uh oh, it's easy to be misunderstood.
As a back-up drummer I really need to remember which drummer is talking.
So if we're talking wahda we noss, then we also need to know the tempo
to know if it's maqsoum or sombati (what I call a short chifte telli or
what one of my teachers called old chifte as opposed to the 8 count Turkish
chifte). Often the musician will tap out the tempo or better yet, tap
out the rhythm. Then you can know and you don't even need to speak drum
talk.
But wahda we noss and dancing? Hmmm....methinks we're traveling in another
area, more like a maqsoum and doing the baladi - as in baladi taqsim or
ashra baladi (aka baladi progression)- not the dance (stick or country)
or the rhythm. This is all too confusing. Kind of like that Sami
Ali song Shokolata where he is singing numbers - khamsa, arbaa, talata
we noss, two we noss, wahda we noss. Click here
to see Soheir doing the wahda
we noss with our guy Adaweya.
So, I guess we have until March to try to standardize all these terms.
But, if we really want to stay culturally accurate, then what we really
need to do is to stay vague!
vague- adj 1. not clear in meaning or intention 2. not having a clear or perceptible form 3. not properly validated or having no clear or identifiable source 4. unclear or incoherent in thinking or expression 5. not clearly felt, understood, or recalled Home
December 19, 2011
Gnawa colors and Nass el Ghiwane
Tonight Hana and I watched a French documentary
called Gnawa. It was about the
sub-Saharan zar type rituals and Sufi music of southern Morocco and
Algeria. In the documentary we are treated to ritual animal sacrifice.
We had been pre-warned so we were able to watch the ritual with our eyes
closed. The documentary explained how in the lila the participant dances
and enters the trance state evoked by the
seven different colors, incense, musical patterns, melodies and rhythms.
The incessant plucking of the gimbri or bass, the constant clacking of
the karkabas and the hand clapping all call and enable the spirits to
meet the body in trance and in dance.
This brings to mind my favorite Gnawa musicians
Nass el Ghiwane. I thought I discovered them when I was in Morocco
in the 1980's and bought their cassettes. But I later learned that they
had been around since the 1960's and upon looking for them on you tube,
I found that Martin Scorcese refers them to as the Rolling Stones of Morocco.
So much for my best kept secret discovery. Well, at least I have the same
good taste as about a few million other Moroccans and music lovers. But
seriously, the first time I heard them I felt that I would trance out
any second and I wasn't even aware of the colors or animal sacrifices.
The Nass el Ghiwane aren't even traditional Gnawa musicians. They are
however doing their bit in helping to popularize this style of music thereby
helping to prevent it from slipping into oblivion.
Today I am told that Gnawa music
is all over the Djemaa el Fna in Marrakech. Looking at travel videos of
the square that is now so intolerably crowded with tourists, I wonder
just how authentic or traditional this music is today. Certainly it is
based on tradition, but I wonder how much tradition is there on the square
or is it just saved for more private moments or has globalization changed
the tradition?
At the zocalo in Mexico City (and now in San Francisco's zocalo aka 24th
and Mission) you can see the Aztec dancers replete in feathers, plumes,
shells, seeds, and conch and not much else. How much is tradition and
how much is performance art? When I was in Morocco in the 80's I wondered
then - 30 years ago - if the
Gnawa musicians I saw were just for the benefit of the tourists -
and at that time, there weren't many. To quote a you tube poster, he wondered
if they were even authentic. Whether these musicians are authentic or
not, at least just like the Nass el Ghiwane, they are maintaining a tradition
that could easily become an endangered species. Home
December 18, 2011
Let's play kulu aala kulu
Today I introduced Husain to Abdel Basit Hamouda. Well,
not personally, as I only know him through his music. But I have a cassette
I bought a couple of decades ago where Abdel Basit sings Adaweya songs.
Abdel Basit was probably the first Shaabi singer who had the foresight
to make live recordings when he did weddings. Although he recorded his
own music, outside of his big hit Andak
Alby, I think most of his popularity at the time was singing Adaweya's
cover songs. The cassette I played for Husain had a great rendition of
Adaweya's Kulu aala Kulu recorded live.
And, as I've mentioned in previous blogs, Kulu aala Kulu is the new hit
song with the Pasha band. Husain and I discussed the importance of the
chorus in this version and decided we needed to have a rehearsal with
the band in order to give the song the right flavor. Of course for this
Shaabi sound we would need to have a horn section, crash cymbals and Egyptian
tura/finger cymbals. So, who knows where this new craze will go. Husain
also writes music, so perhaps we will someday end up with our own original
Shaabi hit song. I always wanted to write a Keda Ho, 'Awee 'Awee song.
Maybe the opportunity will finally come. We did talk about it. Well, we
did talk about him writing some music - not about me writing the lyrics
But... ba olek eh... hashoufek... insha'allah... fil mish mish.
At Susu and Terri Anne's open house party to inaugurate the new Moroccan
suite, we found Vince and Coralee warming up the crowd with some classic
songs on the kanun and the oud. Of course with Susu playing the tabla,
I felt compelled to take out my riq and Husain pulled out his oud wishing
it were a violin in order to complement the group. But two ouds can be
louder than one, so it sort of worked. That is, until a few more percussion
instruments were added and soon Vince gave up and put his kanun away.
Well, actually the room held quite a few drummers and drums, so soon the
room was rocking with drum solos and drum groupies. By this time Vince
had decided, if you can't fight'em, then, may as well join'em. And, after
all, he was the senior drummer in the room in all aspects.
I decided that riqs also are too delicate and quiet in a drum circle,
so I just ambled up the stairs in search of the ultimate brownies. Yes,
here were many to choose from. So many that I couldn't even begin to make
a dent in the brownie/dessert table. Delicious! Food for the gods as the
Aztecs say. Here we were in the Mexican kitchen. It seemed that each room
had a specific theme or country. Yes, Mexican kitchens are perfect for
ingesting the rich, creamy, mouth-watering, decadent food for the gods.
It was truly a holy, mind-altering and spiritual experience.
Soon it was time to hit the road and get to North Beach to continue the
auditory and sensory salivating experience. Pena Pachamama has an incredible
chocolate cake that also defies description. It needs to be tasted in
order to be fully appreciated. Next time you're at Pachamama you need
to try it.
At Pachamama we had a full crowd, a full line-up of dancers on the dance
floor and in the audience and a full stage of musicians with Fernando
on set drum, Husain on bass, me on riq, Tony on tabla, Khader on keyboard
and Georges on violin. At the end of the night when we were choosing songs
to play for the audience to dance to, Husain was requesting Kulu aala
Kulu. The band didn't feel confident to play it well, so we passed.
However, on the way home Husain played Abdel Basit's version of Kulu aala
Kulu for Georges and now he is hooked! Next week we plan to meet, have
coffee and practice the song the Abdel Basit way. Now it's my job to get
this version to all involved in the Georges Lammam band and the Pasha
band. We'll start the New Year's with everything Topsy Turvy.
Kulu aala kulu: Topsy Turvy – Everything on top of everything.
lama shufu aala_When you see him, tell him
we hua fakirna eh_What does he think we are, does he look down on us?
mish malyeen ainak eh_We don’t fill your eyes, we’re not good
enough for you?
ruh ‘ul hassad eh_Go tell him what happened
marra wela barra meen_Whenever and one time and who is outside
law il da hilhabat arefna meen_And if the door is making knocking noises
we’ll know who it is
da ha maalimeen_After all, we’re bosses and we know what’s up,
we’re no chumps
alby hua mish masra li tamseelak_My heart, it is not a stage for your
acting
You can’t play with me. I’m not a nobody. We know what’s
up
December 17, 2011
More shopping
Started the morning doing some volunteer work at the Arab
Film Festival office. It was really an excuse to hang out with Angela
and have coffee and apple fritters. Well, we did do some work too. It
was the kind of work that I really enjoy...mindless folding, stuffing,
collating and stamping. Unfortunately I couldn't stay as long as I wanted
because I had to get back for a private and to meet with Shadia to go
"shopping"!
It really is quite fun having a house guest who likes to do the same thing
I like to do. A few days ago I had bought a special lipstick at Walgreen's
on Mission Street and tried to encourage Shadia to get one too, but no,
she didn't want it. Then every time we passed a Walgreen's she wanted
to go in to look for the special lipstick. None of the 10 or so other
Walgreen's carried this particular brand. I told her that each Walgreen's
caters to a different clientele and we'd have to go back to Mission Street
to find the lipstick. Today she finally admitted that we needed to make
a special trip to Mission Street to get the lipstick. Since she had a
coupon for $5 off if we spent $30, we made it a point to spend about $35
to get $5 off this $7 lipstick. I think she should have bought at least
two. Never mind, when she got her receipt the cashier gave her another
$5 off coupon. I guess we'll be back spending more money to get another
$7 lipstick for only $2 after again spending more than $30 in order to
make use of the $5 coupon.
We passed a garage sale where Shadia bought 2 suitcases to fit all her
purchases. After trying on a real leopard print pill box and not buying
it - but it sure looked good - I found and bought 3 assuite veils. I don't
know if this was my lucky day or if I'm just a hoarder. I don't even know
why I bought the assuite except that it was there. I already have a huge
suitcase full of assuite. Here's Soheir Zaki
dancing in an assuite dress. One of the pieces assuite that I bought has
so much silver you can hardly see the black. The other two are like her
dress, but in white with gold colored metal design.
Shadia was no help either as she was encouraging me to buy it. Maybe I should have bought a suitcase too. Home
December 16, 2011
Do I want to drive a limo?
Spent the day in Sausalito at a Christmas party and then
went home for a couple hours to change and get ready to go back to Sausalito
to play for a Christmas party with Georges Lammam and brothers.
Husain called me and asked me if I wanted to drive his limo. He was playing
too and needed to take his amp and big bass with him. I guess he knew
it wouldn't fit in my little car. But, me drive a limo? I don't think
so. I sometimes feel I can barely drive my own car. Sometimes I think
other people think that too. Well, I do drive slow enough that nothing
will hit me as they have lots of time to get out of my way. I guess Husain
likes to drive as much as I do. So when I told him that I wouldn't drive
his limo he said that he'd try to find someone else to drive him. In the
meantime, Linda called and offered to drive Shadia and me to Sausalito.
Of course I took her up on the offer.
We got to the Seahorse in Sausalito with plenty of time for an adequate
sound check. Tony hadn't arrived yet, but I had my dahola and it was fun
listening to Georges play the drum for the soundman. Susu had played the
night before at the Arabic Cultural Center Christmas party with Georges,
Tony and Elias and told me that she had a pretty good time, so I was really
looking forward to having a good time tonight. We had a pretty good lineup
of dancers with Hana and Rebecca scheduled to do solos - they have two
totally different dance styles - plus Sherry Brier had her two dance troupes
with veils and swords ready to perform during the break.
This was the second time that we've played at the Seahorse
as a group and I hope we do it again. We have a different audience
at the Seahorse. It's a nice mix of ancient mariners, Arabs and Marin
county dancers who don't like to come to the city.
But if you like to come to the city, we'll be at Pachamama on Sunday. Home
December 15, 2011
Like the Nile
Tonight was the last class before the holidays. As wonder
why I am cancelling the rest of the classes this year, I have to remind
myself that in the holiday season things come up, last minute shopping,
holiday parties, people go away and I will be too busy doing other things
also.
To continue the latest Thursday night theme of dancing to drum solos,
I started off by showing a Soheir Zaki performance at Merryland in 1983.
It was a very typical show of her dancing when she was in her prime and
included, her "Princess of Cairo" routine, Lessa Faker and a
drum solo complete with the 10/8 rhythm. These all seemed to be part of
her trademark performance. It is interesting that Soheir is performing
to the music that I call Princess of Cairo and this music is found on
a CD with a red cover with Nagwa Fouad on the cover. I never could figure
out why people associate this music with Nagwa.
Soheir
I only know it as Soheir's routine because this is what she used in performance that night at Merryland and at other performances when we saw her. To me this music was her show.
After watching the video we danced to the red CD and one of the girls
in class kept remarking that she felt funny dancing Soheir style to Nagwa's
music. I asked her where she saw Nagwa perform to it. She admitted that
she never saw Nagwa dance to it, but Nagwa's picture was on the cover
of the CD. ??Duh?? The power of the press, or in this case, one picture
is worth a thousand moves? Well, if it was Nagwa's music as the CD stated,
why have I only seen Soheir dance to it and never saw Nagwa use this piece.
Nagwa
When we return after the holiday break I am going to research this. I
think in class I will play Soheir's show simultaneous to the "Nagwa"
routine and try to figure this out. Anyone out there see Nagwa dance to
this routine? I'm really curious because at this time in the Egyptian
dance world I think that star dancers such as Nagwa and Soheir only used
certain music - their own music - sort of like a trademark.
Also at the time Soheir had two other pieces that seemed to be only associated
with her and that was the song Lessa Faker and using a 10/8 drum rhythm
as part of her show and drum solo. When the girls heard Lessa Faker, they
noted that it really didn't sound like the melancholy Lessa Faker that
they are so familiar with. This Lessa Faker had no singing and was played
in a very upbeat manner.
At this time in the dance world most dancers did not dance to the music
of Om Kalthoum. It seemed that her music was too revered to dance to;
and in addition, Om Kalthoum had stated that Soheir was the only one capable
of dancing to her music. And this Soheir did. After Om died, very gradually,
other dancers followed in Soheir's footsteps and started using Om's music.
At first it was only as a musical as in the DVD we watched tonight. Later
it was to other people singing Om's songs until finally it was typical
to even enter to an Om piece as I often saw Lucy
do. Today following Soheir's tradition it seems that in order to have
a complete dance show, one section needs to include an Om Kalthoum piece.
When class resumes in January, I will continue to work on the Soheir theme
but of course include drum solos. After all this is why we were watching
Soheir in the first place. It is so hard to stay on a solitary theme or
section of a dance without straying and incuding all the peripheral sections.
So then, of course, I will probably have to start touching on beledy taqsim
as well. So we will also start work on another Soheir piece,
Shik Shak Shok. Looks like I have 2012 already planned out. Just need
to stay on track. Dance class is like the Nile. Every time you turn there
is a new tributary. Home
December 14, 2011
Mohamed Amin and Egyptian hospitality
Today Shadia and I had a date to go to Union Square to
window shop. We took each other to our favorite shops. Mine was Designer
Consigner on Sutter Street. There we tried on all sorts of outfits especially
the furs. Baby, it's cold outside. She especially liked the black leather
jacket lined in black mink. Actually it was reversible. I especially liked
a red fox jacket that had sculpturally cut sleeves. Well I really liked
it until I tried on another great coat - a lipstick red velveteen coat
that turned out to be red-dyed sheared mink. Since these jackets were
not PETA endorsed the prices were really right. But in the end we left
with a gold sequined top and a zebra print handbag.
It was then time to do some serious window-shopping, which we did and
after leaving Nieman Marcus, Shadia and I went to her favorite store which
was Saks. They happened to have a huge sale on fur and faux fur accessories
on the first floor so we had a ball trying on the hats and fur scarves.
Finally we decided to get serious and go to the third floor fur department.
Since we couldn't decide what to buy we decided to leave.
Upon leaving we saw a beautiful silk brocaded Sino-Russian styled coat
with bright red fox fur trim. It looked very similar to what I happened
to be wearing - like it looked like the same designer. I was wearing a
two-piece outfit with purple faux fur trim bought from a Russian woman
for $30. The red coat with real red fur trim at Saks was only twenty nine
ninety five. That was $29, 950. Mine could have been more expensive except
for the decimal point.
On the way home we decided to drop in on Mohamed Amin at his Vitamin Store
on Ninth Avenue. Mohamed is a musician who plays keyboard and nai. We
all used to work together ages ago at the Bagdad and the Casbah. Now he
plays at Al Masri the last Sunday of every month. Since I couldn't find
parking in the very busy shopping neighborhood I decided to sit in my
car in a driveway and let Shadia pay her respects. Well, a minute later
Mohamed comes running out of his shop blabbering a mile a minute in Arabic
telling me to find parking because we needed to visit and have tea. I
realized that he wouldn't stop until I did, so I told him I'd find parking
and meet him inside his shop.
When I finally parked and got to his store I found him standing out in
front impatiently waiting for me. Shadia was already inside in the back
of the store with Sausan (not Sue from Al Masri) his wife and they were
catching up on the last ten years. Dina and Sofia their daughters were
already young adults in college and Shadia got to meet their youngest,
seven year old Karim who was shyly flirting with Shadia.
Mohamed kept insisting we have carrot juice, celery drink, vitamins and
other healthy things even though we told him that we had just finished
a huge late lunch. We didn't to the healthy route but we had to suffer
through tea, a large bag of chocolate chip cookies (they tasted good and
not too healthy) and freshly baked pita bread and falafel. Since we didn't
really eat the falafel because the cookies were so filling, he packed
them up for us to take home.
Just as Reda did, Mohamed and Sausan asked Shadia to move back to the
U.S., however Sausan took it to the next level and told her they had a
spare room. Shadia is happy to be living in Egypt, but I think it made
her happy to know they missed her. And Mohamed knows how to make me happy
too. He asked me to come play with him at Al Masri. He sings Ahmed Adaweya
better than anyone else around here. He has the same rough quality plus
he has the Egptian accent and I just adore his singing. I'm sure I'll
be making a lot of requests for Adaweya when he plays. Because of the
holidays, his next regular "last Sunday" will be in January.
Wonder where I'll be the last Sunday in January. Home
December 13, 2011
Visiting Reda Darwish
We were driving down to Mission Street to do more shopping
and Shadia suggested that we drop in on Reda Darwish at his shop MultiKulti
on Valencia. So I took a left on Valencia and found that God also wanted
us to see Reda. There was a parking place right in front of his shop!
This is highly unusual in this popular neighborhood. Shadia gets out before
I finish parking and I hear excited screams of delight, laughter and kissing
on the street. Yes, they are pleased to see each other. When I finally
park and get out of the car, it starts all over again as Reda and I exchange
hugs and kisses of joy at seeing each other. Yes, it's been too long since
I last saw Reda.
His shop is even more jam-packed with all kinds of goodies than the last
time I was in his store. There are various sorts of little gift ideas
- perfume, make up, jewelry, purses, dresses, scarves, you name it - if
it is trendy, shiny, glittery, practical or impractical, he has it. Reda
reminded Shadia that when she lived in SF that once they were out window-shopping
together and she dragged him into a Victoria Secret store. He was so embarrassed.
And now he owns a little gift shop that carries all sorts of unique accessories
including little sequined teddies and metallic Mylar boy shorts and rhinestone
and glitter other female wearable accessories.
By the time we left, we had a couple of bags of rhinestone earrings, 6
fluorescent colored suspenders, a lipstick, 4 liquid eyeliners, 2 rhinestone
hair clips, fingerless gloves, red and black leggings, a very gaudy golden
necklace, a couple of bracelets and I was wearing a brand new full length
sleeveless faux fur coat. We had only just begun to shop. But we had run
out of quarters for the parking meter so we had to leave promising to
return.
I remember once going to his shop and seeing a 6 foot golden Egyptian
sarcophagus in the window. By the time I left, there was a sold sign on
it. Guess where it went? We got to talking about Egyptian furniture and
who knows maybe someday there might be a container arriving from Egypt
with golden King Tut chairs. And I wonder where they might go. Wonder
if this is all wishful thinking on my part - an addiction, a compulsion
or a...psychological disorder?
Do I need to join hoarders or collectors anonymous? Or does it mean that
for every new item to enter the house, another older item needs to leave?
It's good that Lucy, my mother's caretaker, ships a container of goodies
to Tonga every so often. Home
December 12, 2011
Sherihan
I guess I still have Ahmed Adaweya on the brain. I can
never get enough of him and I love using him in class. Usually I don't
use the cassettes that are devoted to his mawaweel (mawals) but tonight
I thought it would be great to use for practicing arms, wrists, fingers
and shimmies. But of course we couldn't just move without wondering what
he was singing so of course I had to pull out my binder with translations.
After finding the translation I thought about the person who translated
it for me. It was a Jordanian high school kid named Firsan al Kurdy who
wanted to be Egyptian.
I first met Firsan years ago when I went to a new Arabic club south of
Market to see Susu who was drumming with the band.
(This was one of those clubs that ended up being very short lived. I don't
even remember the name.) People were on the dance floor social dancing
and I remember seeing a young Arab boy dancing up a storm. Susu told me
that he was the owner's younger brother. He was one of the best dancers
I had seen in a long time and it was a delight to watch him. I enjoyed
watching him more than the belly dancer who was quite good.
At the end of the night when I was leaving Firsan came up to me and said
that he heard I was a dance teacher. Hah! I wonder who told him. He then
asked me if I would be his dance coach.
Me coach him? I gave him my number and told him to call me. Well, by the
following Saturday he was at my studio dancing. He
lived in San Bruno with his family and his brother would drop him off
at my studio every Saturday so he could spend the day dancing with me.
It turned out that when he asked me to coach him, that he had a specific
purpose. He wanted to belly dance for a school assembly. Belly dance for
a high school assembly? A young Arab boy belly dancing? Uh oh. It was
time for a discussion. I wasn't too sure that I wanted to teach him a
belly dance for his classmates. It was one thing for him to come to dance
class, but quite another for him to dance at his school. So we agreed
that he would do an Egyptian dance ala Michael Jackson. We worked hard
on flexibility and spins so he could do some jazzy type tricks. He was
a good student and learned the choreography.
When it was time for the performance he was well prepared and outfitted
in black pants and shirt adorned with a flashy gold Egyptian type belt
and Pharoah type headdress. I went to see him and to meet his parents.
Firsan turned out to be the best act. No, I'm not biased or anything.
And his parents seemed to be very proud of him and his new style of dance.
I say his parents seemed to be proud of him because his parents, his mother
dressed in a caftan and head scarf and his father in a dark brown robe
type gallabiya complete with keffiyeh looking like a Bedouin did not speak
a word of English.
Firsan spent his Saturdays with me for a couple of years or more. I put
him to work translating songs for me. He would also accompany me to Samiramis
and help me choose videos to watch. He loved Sherihan and lent me some
videos of her dances. Her brother was Omar Khorshid who played electric
guitar for Abdel Halim. Abdel Wehab and Om Kalthoum.
During Ramadan Sherihan entertained the Arab world with her
fawazeer dance extravaganzas performing all sorts of dance styles
from various countries. She was quite a versatile dancer. Sherihan was
also an actress and the video of her play
Sharia Mohamed Ali is considered to be a classic. If you can find
this video (probably on the internet) you will find it very interesting.
I have a copy but it is only in Arabic.
Speaking of Sharia Mohamed Ali Street, this is what Debbie and I presented
in a couple of workshops and I feel we haven't finished with it yet. Debbie
will be back probably around March and I hope to continue with yet another
workshop on another phase of Mohamed Ali Street aka Sharia al Fan - the
street of the artists. Home
December 11, 2011
Kulu aala kulu
Sue had a fun event at Al Masri tonight. Shadia, who danced
under the name of Dalal, is visiting from Egypt. She used to work at the
Grapeleaf, Powell Station, the Bagdad and the Casbah and most of her gang
of friends was here tonight to party with her and catch up on the last
20 or more years. It was a packed house and you could not tell who the
older dancers were because we all know about hair dye.
To add more fun to the night we added live music and of course dance performances
by some of her friends and her friends' students. The band organized by
me of course included me. That's my perk. It was the Pasha Band. Younes,
Husain, Jalal, Susu and me. We were squeezed into the corner on folding
chairs except Jalal, who opted for the King Tut throne chair. Husain tried
to give him a more comfortable lower chair but Jalal insisted that he
felt more at home in the King Tut chair. Actually he did. I was wishing
there was some way I could just pack that chair into my drum bag and leave
with it at the end of the night. Well, really, while I'm at it, I would
love to pack all Al Masri's Egyptian artifacts into my house. It's a beautiful
place and makes us all feel so regal - or at least Egyptian.
Lately at these dance events there are always too many dancers. About
a year ago it seemed that dancers didn't want to dance to live music,
but now that isn't the case. I wonder if there are just too many dancers
out there. I really do wonder how many dancers and dance students there
are in the world. Probably millions. When I started dancing - performing
- working - there was probably between five and ten dancers in all of
San Francisco. Now? I wouldn't even know how to start counting.
But getting back to Al Masri...five musicians squeezed into a little corner
was pretty cozy.
We were given the set list and immediately I realized that the Pasha Band
needs to have a meeting. Between the five of us we must know hundreds
and hundreds of songs from Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon,
Palestine, the Khalij, Egypt, Turkey, Iran and other places but we don't
know what we all know together as a band. We are all in Aswat and do know
the music that Aswat plays, but most of that music is not danceable. Besides
most of that music is arranged for Aswat and should remain in Aswat's
repertoire.
The Pasha Band needs another set of songs. Well, we all agreed - if we
play for dancers - we need to get together and at least make up our own
list of songs that we know in common and that dancers like to dance to.
In addition, I will make up a CD for all to listen to with Oriental openers.
In the meantime, our new favorite song is Kulu aala Kulu by Ahmed Adaweya.
We played it twice. So, the Pasha Band is moving from Abdel Wehab to Ahmed
Adaweya. On the way home Husain played Adaweya songs on you tube. By next
week the band will have another Adaweya song for our list.
Doesn't everyone just love Adaweya? Here's a kid dancing to a you tube clip of Kulu aala Kulu by Adaweya. Home
December 10, 2011
The Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts
I always look forward to Saturdays because I spend
most of my day in the studio doing what I like doing best. It doesn't
matter whether I am teaching class or just being in the studio doing other
dance or music related things. It seems that Saturdays are my days for
my moving meditations. Sometimes it is hard to end my last class if I
don't have anything else planned like practicing drum, archiving and organizing
the movies that I copy off ART or working on a special dance or song project.
Last week I had to end "early" (that means end on time) because
I was doing a Giza Club event and today it meant ending "early"
because I had to rush to the MCCLA's End of Semester class performance.
Dannhae, her students, Kim and Hana were performing in the program. It
was a full program with teachers showing off their students' progress
in all styles of Latino arts - dance and music - and "Belly Dance".
The M.C. said that although Belly Dance was not a Latino art, it was loved
and adored by the Latinos and was taught by a Latina. Dannhae. Her being
Latina was good enough to make Belly Dance the exception.
Being at the MCCLA watching a student performance made me very nostalgic.
I had spent many years, many Saturdays, teaching at the MCCLA (Mission
Cultural Center for Latino Arts) when it was simply known as The Mission
Cultural Center. My long time association with it ended sometime around
1990. For over ten years I had spent every Saturday rushing from my classes
in my studio to the MCC (at that time it was not the MCCLA) dragging a
boom box, cassettes and other paraphernalia such as canes, cymbals, tambourines
and veils to the Mission Cultural Center to teach my classes. This was
my community service. I taught free classes at the MCC in competition
with my classes on Elizabeth Street where I charged for lessons. I taught
Belly Dance and for a few years also taught tambourine. When I taught
tambourine sometimes Susu and/or Tony Lammam would donate their time and
teach for me. Those were the days. It was such a hassle to take things
from my studio to teach somewhere else. Inevitably I always had better
music left in my studio. But it was fun and I enjoyed being involved in
a community outside of my small belly dance world on Elizabeth Street.
Because of my association at the MCCLA I ended up doing lots of other
interesting things such as dancing in parades - including Carnaval and
Cinco de Mayo - taking other Latino arts dance classes, taking ballet
(taught by a Latino) joining, co-teaching and forming Estrellas Mexicanas,
a Mexican folklorico troupe. It seemed that if I wasn't in my studio or
at the Bagdad, I was at the MCC on Saturday afternoons, miscellaneous
nights and every Friday night.
During that time, Mission Street from 24th to St. Mary's Park and beyond
30th seemed to be my home away from home and I knew and haunted every
bakery and restaurant in the area. What I especially liked were the cheap
and late night ones like the ones around Mission and Army (Cesar Chavez).
I used to have a routine. I would make the rounds of various places and
had favorite places to get the coconut buns, other breads, meat pies and
empanadas, the pupusas, the platanos, the icey guanabana drinks that would
attack the sinuses, macapuno, avocado and buko ice cream, little bags
of chicharrones, cochinta, pozole, and sweet and salted chile tamarindos.
The list goes on and on and I get really hungry thinking about how I ate
my way through the Mission. But I need to be writing about dance and not
food.
As I was sitting in the MCCLA theater I was reminiscing about various
shows we did there and other places in the Mission. Although I really
loved watching the belly dance show and felt a certain sense of pride
watching the girls' performance, I also felt a bit of melancholy thinking
about the other dance and music groups I was involved with in that time.
But the MCC was another time in my life - and now it is the past. Even
if I'm involved with it now as the MCCLA it is not that same time. I'm
not teaching there anymore. When I left it was because they were transitioning
from the Mission Cultural Center - MCC - to the Mission Cultural Center
for Latino Arts - MCCLA - and they did not want belly dance there or at
least not being taught by what they perceived as a non-Latina. For a while
I tried to change my name to Amina Vazquez (my mother's maiden name) but
being from the Philippines didn't seem to qualify me as Latina. Never
mind that for hundreds of years that the Philippines were a Spanish colony
and that Spanish was my first language. So I just quit teaching the belly
dance and stayed on for a while with the folklorico - Estrellas Mexicanas
- until I finally decided to just quit the MCC altogether and concentrate
on getting paid and teaching classes in my own studio.
So, wistfully watching the other inspiring Latino acts and remembering
pasts shows, I pulled myself away to meet with Shadia and Linda. We were
going to go to Brava Theater on 24th Street to see the Dance Brigade's
version of Nutcracker. At Brava Theater more memories came back as I remember
when Brava Theater used to be called the York and I had performed there
on stage with Roberto during a Day of the Dead Celebration for the MCC.
We were Calaveras dancing over a tequila bottle.
Estrella's Mexicanas
Roberto and Amina performing Jesusita
Yes, it has been hard going back to the MCCLA as an outsider but it has
also been great working with their belly dance teacher Dannhae on a couple
of shows there - Fiesta Arabe-Latina in 2008 and Tarabiya this past October.
We are planning on continuing our collaborations and hopefully will have
more shows scheduled in 2012. Another Tarabiya? Maybe a Ritual and Zar
show? Who knows? Every day is a new day with new ideas. Home
Husain, Faisal, Younes
The audience after Tarabiya show
(Dannhae dancing with Jason of the MCCLA)
The Zeffa Band
Hector, Hana, Husain, Sandy, Jalal, Amina
Younes and Jalal
December 9, 2011
And the band played on and on and on
Today Aswat's mini band played at a Christmas party at
Pak Oriental Rugs in SOMA near all the design galleries. They set us up
in their gallery and each of us were given a $2,100 chair to sit on while
sitting in front of thousands of dollars worth of silk and wool hand knotted
rugs.
Younes, Jalal, Husain, Faisal, Amina
Mia from Aswat met us to make sure we got to the gig on time. Even though
we had Friday's traffic to contend with miraculously we were all on time
and even a bit early. So, right on schedule we sat down to play - for
the owner and his two sons Ahmed and Hassan. Since no one else was in
the place yet Husain decided we should practice muwashashahat - Andalusian
poetry and music in odd rhythms from centuries ago. Halfway through the
piece Mia came over and told me that the owners wished that we would play
something more upbeat. I told her to tell them that it was tradition to
warm up the instruments with these rather slow pieces. As people started
entering the gallery we changed our warm-up songs to more upbeat songs
like music for Om Kalthoum.
This was an all-acoustic gig - we were a traditional takht playing background
music for rugs, people, wine, stuffed figs and brownies. The acoustics
seemed to be too good and I felt that my tambourine was too loud. Faisal
doesn't naturally play loud and I needed to remind myself that there were
no mics and that this wasn't Pachamama.
It was interesting to play in this setting with people meandering about
balancing plates of food with glasses of red wine and little children
using the 3 and 4 foot high stacks of fine Oriental rugs as trampolines.
I was wondering what the owners were thinking or feeling. Red wine, children
and rugs. I, myself, was cringing, hoping for no accident, but Ahmed and
Hassan just stood there smiling and looking pleased and videoing us with
their cell phones.
The party was an early one - from 5 to 8. Since we had been playing a
lot of upbeat Feiruz songs, after our break we decided it was time to
switch from Lebanon and get back to Egypt. So Husain started playing Ahmed
Adaweya and directing us to join in the responses. He really is surprising
us with his two loves - Abdel Wehab and now, Adaweya. I wonder if Abdel
Wehab liked Adaweya. I wonder if Faisal liked Adaweya. Since it was close
to 8, Faisal, aka Abu Safi decided that it was time to leave. So we just
continued on with Adaweya. I wonder if Adaweya liked how we were doing
Adaweya. It needs to sound less like Abdel Wehab. I think I need to expose
the guys to more shaabi music. And because they don't know that much shaabi,
or actually, any shaabi, they decided to get back to Abdel Wehab. After
playing Ya Msafer Wahedek they went all the way back to all the really
really old Abdel Wehab. And where was my drum that I always promised myself
I'd have in my car? Faisal had taken off with his and I only had my duf
and my tambourine that seemed to sound too loud. Oh well, I really like
Abdel Wehab too so it was great fun - and a challenge - to play some of
his old songs that I had never played before with a loud clanging riq.
Oh how I wished I had my drum! I always feel more comfortable with the
drum when there isn't any other percussion instrument - especially when
I don't really know all the changes. It is so much easier to fake it with
a drum.
All the partygoers had already left and the owners seemed to be enjoying
us and we were enjoying us so we kept playing and playing and playing.
What a luxurious practice hall. We didn't want to stop. Finally when we
kept practicing the same phrase over and over trying to perfect it, we
realized that maybe the owners were tired and wanted to go home. So, reluctantly
we stopped. We wondered if we should pay them for letting us go over time
so long.
I guess they enjoyed the hour-long private practice performance. They
invited us to come back and hold our own events there. We talked and who
knows, insha'allah.
Well, the boys still wanted to continue so they took off for a Persian
restaurant with their instruments. I wanted to go too, but had dinner
waiting at home. So...oh how I wish I could be two places at once. Home
December 8, 2011
Less is More
Lately we've been working on drum solos. The Thursday night class assignment
has been to choose a drum solo, analyze it, dance it at home and then
perform it n class. Following up with last week's class my homework was
to find and show some Lebanese dance and drum solo performances on video.
Last week we had talked about the differences between Lebanese and Egyptian
drum solos plus the fact that a lot of Egyptian dancers do not place the
same importance on drum solos that we do here in the West. The most famous
drum solo dancer in Egypt today is probably
Soraiya Zaied
and she is from Brazil and uses a lot of
Brazilian influence in her drum solo.
I chose a number of short clips to show. First, because my friend Shadia
was visiting, I chose to show her in a performance in San Francisco many
years ago. I just wanted class to start out with a little internal Egyptian
femininity before moving on to what I call the Lebanese style that can
be very superficial and aggressive. We saw Shadia playing cymbals performing
a beledy style dance. This was a performance at the Capp Street Music
Center and the musicians were Jad Elias (oud and voice) from the Bagdad,
Hoda el Artiste (keyboard and accordion) from Cairo and Susu (tabla) and
the Cairo Cats (Susu, Daria, Gregangelo and me). In this performance Dalal
(Shadia's stage name) did a very feminine Egyptian style drum solo led
by Susu.
I next chose to show Nabila Metwalli, a Lebanese dancer who performed
with the Arabian Knights Band at El Valenciano while touring the U.S.
Although beautiful and with good technique, her dance contrasted greatly
with Shadia's and it was clearly in the more aggressive and busy Lebanese
style.
I then showed two of Lebanon's favorites - the cute little Amani from
the 90's and Lebanon's esteemed national treasure, Nadia Gamal. Although
these dancers are not on my list of favorites, as I am so very biased
in my love of the Egyptian style of dance, I felt that I needed to show
Lebanon's best. These two dancers hold the bar for excellence in Lebanese
drum solos and I wanted to show examples so we could compare and see the
difference in style as Lebanon has produced so many drummers and dancers
that we know in CDs and DVDs.
There truly is a difference between the Egyptian and Lebanese style of
music, dancing, drumming and drum dancing. Just because they speak the
same language doesn't mean they speak the same dialect. Even in language
the biggest difference seems to be the simplicity in the Egyptian dialect.
It's interesting to hear Arabs make fun of the Egyptian language as being
this or that and not being true or pure classical Arabic. While in a car
going to a gig once we all had a discussion about Arabic language and
the qualities and differences between Moroccan, Algerian, Iraqi, Palestinian,
fusHa and Egyptian dialects. Quite interesting. Each person's nationality
of course biased the differences. I guess it's the same in dance and I
guess in my studio the mother country is Egypt.
While there are many differences in how a dancer executes and translates
a drum solo depending on the country of origin dance style, (we Americans
also have our own dialect), one inherent bond in dancing to a drum solo
should be less is more and repetition is important. The dancer needs to
connect to the drummer in order to make the solo make sense and it doesn't
matter whether the drummer is a CD or a live person. Before going off
and doing all the fancy moves and tricks, first the dancer needs to establish
a strong and common base language and connection with the drum -be it
CD or live drummer . (Hossam Ramzy calls this the "the rule of four".)
The audience needs to feel this connection too and if the dancer does
not establish the connection in the first few drum riffs, the dancer will
come off looking like she doesn't know what she is doing, fighting or
competing for attention with the drummer or looking like she suffers from
A.D.D. or A.D.H.D. Once the connection has been made, then it is time
to work with the drum solo and create a little or a lot of magic.
Next week I will show one of my favorite dancers, the Egyptian dancer
Suheir Zaki.
She was known for her classic feminine style and also for her drum solos.
I have a few examples I will show in class. Now that we took a requisite
field trip to Lebanon, we can get comfortable again back home in Egypt.
Home
December 7, 2011
The Pasha Band
This weekend we will be playing on Friday and on Sunday.
The "we" is the newly formed or named Pasha Band. I suppose
it is named in honor of Pasha Restaurant since Jalal, former owner of
Pasha Restaurant is an integral member of the group. The business card
belongs to Husain and on one side it says Pasha Band and on the other
it says that he makes ouds. I suppose if it were a three-sided card it
would also say Limousine service.
Actually Friday the Pasha Band will be aka Aswat and it will be Jalal,
Husain, Younes, Faisal and me. On Sunday at Al Masri the Pasha Band will
be Jalal, Husain, Younes, Susu and me. I'm looking forward to playing
at Al Masri on Sunday night. It will be a reunion for friends of Shadia's
and should be a lot of fun. Gregory asked me if it would just be "old"
people dancing. In fact, the answer is no. Most of the "old"
people aren't dancing anymore, so it will be a nice mix with young people
too.
Shadia used to dance at both the Bagdad and the Casbah so hopefully there
will be a nice mix of dancers who we don't usually see at these events.
I'm really interested to see how the band does. As a group we usually
play classic songs although we all know all the standard pop/traditional
songs. However I'm not too sure how many mergence's they know. We'll see
on Sunday.
It's been interesting playing with Jalal. We've known each other since
the Bagdad days before he was known as a kanun player. When I first worked
with him he was a student at SFSU I believe and he played drum at the
Bagdad. This was before he met his wife Andy (known as Saida Asmar in
those days). This was before he worked as a santour player and before
he worked as a kanun player. Of course this was before he bought the Pasha
Restaurant. I never worked at the Pasha because I was working at the Bagdad,
but whenever we wanted to do a big show with musicians we would have the
show at the Pasha.
At that time Georges Lammam used to work at the Pasha. I remember a couple
of shows that the Aswans did there with group choreography. I would go
after Tuesday practice sometimes alone, sometimes with some of the Aswans
and ask Jalal and Georges to play certain songs. On Tuesdays after 9:30
it was usually pretty quiet so we could take over the place and do whatever
we wanted. If Georges played the songs to our satisfaction we would sometimes
rehearse right on the spot or just rehearse the dances in our heads. I
remember a couple of important dances that we had choreographed exactly
to the measure and we did not physically rehearse them. When it was time
for our performance we just trusted that they would be played exactly
as we rehearsed on CD and thanks to Georges' exactness they were exact.
Susu used to work at the Pasha so sometimes we would do some of her Cairo
Cats drum choreographies there.
The Pasha was a beautiful venue and large enough to hold a good-sized
audience. It's really a shame that it's gone. But the rent there was horrendous
and it really is great that Jalal is finally able to relax and just enjoy
his music. And with the new configuration of the Pasha Band now you all
can enjoy it too.
Home
December 6, 2011
Shaabi and drumming
Last night when I played the old Shaabi music I really got nostalgic for
all the songs that Ahmed Adaweya sang in the 70's. We used to go to Samiramis
almost weekly looking for new cassettes for Adaweya because he had the
best percussion.
I remember listening to some of his songs with Susu and hearing a ting
ting sound that we thought was a spoon rhythmically hitting a glass. Of
course we realized later that the sound was really the heavy Egyptian
cymbals and they just weren't available here. There were cheap tourist
cymbals from Syria and India and some real tinny ones from music stores.
But these cymbals sounded just that - tinny and cheap and the Indian ones
could break.
So we used the professional Zildjians - the same brand as the crash cymbals.
They were from Turkey and there were two types - a thin and a thick style
in a gun metal dark grey sandy grained color and they had a single hole
that made it nearly impossible to thread with 1/2 inch elastic. But we
did it with the help of time, a ballpoint pen to push the elastic in and
needle nose pliers to pull the elastic through. The thick ones were preferable
but they were more expensive. They were loud and had a beautiful tone,
and we always had to have two sets as we played them so much and so hard
that they would virtually crack and look like someone ate a wedge of a
pie. And they were expensive. I forget now, but somewhere between $50
and $75 for a set of four. And I am talking about 40 years ago.
Then we found that we could special order from a cymbal maker in Boston
named Naz Minassian. He had some great cymbals that were lighter, brass
colored, not so loud but also with a great tone. These were better as
they didn't crack - but they curled at the edges from all our cymbal work
and sometimes they would lose their tone and sound off key. Then we would
have to cook them in the oven. They also had a single hole that required
much effort to thread. And they weren't as much money either.
Those two cymbals were the preferred cymbals that most of us used. And
we had to play them almost constantly during the fast parts of our dance.
But I'm straying from Adaweya. At Samiramis it was heaven when Samir would
get in a new shipment of Adaweya cassettes. Aside from the cymbal playing,
he had the greatest drummers
and it was our goal to sound like those drummers. Well, I never ever got
to sound like those drummers - but Susu did. The best I could ever do
was to play his music in class and dance to the drumming.
I've gone through phases of playing his music for months on end. I haven't
done it for a while but since Husain started playing Adaweya about a week
or so ago, his music has been creeping back into my life.
Here we are at the bookstore warming up to play non-Shaabi music.
Adaweya has become Husain's new favorite singer. So tonight in class I decided it was time to bring Adaweya back to class where he belongs. There are Shaabi singers and there is Adaweya. The only one in my opinion who comes close to him - in voice only- is Abdel Basit Hamouda. In fact, I have a version of him singing Kulu ala Kulu that really talks to me and the class kind of agreed too. It is a live recording and has great drums. It's so danceable. This will go great with my other class project of drum solos. Home
December 5, 2011
Shaabi cover music
There's nothing like the originals. Whenever I play music
in class and play a "cover" song or a new rendition of an old
song, I like to also play the original version. Sometimes new versions
can be better for performance because the newer version may be better
quality - better fidelity, better mixed and have more or clearer drum
tracks. Also if it is on a dance CD, the tempo may be reworked and made
a more danceable speed. But it is always better to know the original -
especially if the newer version is only a musical and the original had
lyrics. This is so true when listening to one of the countless "tribute
to Om" CDs that have no singing. If you listen to Om singing and
take the time and trouble to find a translation of the lyrics, the newer
CD version will have so much more depth and significance thereby making
the dance more meaningful and emotional.
Tonight in class I was asked to play a musical called something like baladi.
It turned out to be two shaabi songs with a baladi taqsim in the middle.
The songs were pieces of two songs by Sami Aly and Ahmed Adaweya - two
of the first shaabi singers from the 7o's and early 80's. The song was
not shaabi in feeling at all, but actually sounded kind of sweet and sentimental.
I felt that it was necessary to play the original recordings in order
to give a little history and relevance to the new recording. It is so
important to sing the song to yourself (and know what the song is about)
when performing. Otherwise the dance will look empty.
Ahmed Adaweya looking so cute and
young.
In drum class later, I finally did it! I think the class is caught up
to my level. I only feel qualified to teach beginner's level and now we
are working on rolls, riffs, tricks and drum solos? Yikes. I don't know
how I can do this class anymore. Well, I am still a little ahead of them
but barely enough to teach. But this is GOOD for me. I've been a perennial
beginner for so many decades and it is time to take that leap. So after
we reviewed our old drum solo, Lilli asked if we could do a drum solo
from a CD. Like break it down riff-by-riff - work on the technique - figure
out the rolls - memorize and break it down. Well - we listened to the
solo first and I realized - ok - it's fast - but actually very doable.
We knew all the rolls and riffs. OK - we couldn't really do the tricks
that well, but we'll make it a project and work on it.
So by the end of class we had actually done the entire drum solo. It was
sort of scary at first but when we did it, we realized that it was the
same drum solo done twice. The first time with 4 repeats and the second
time with 2 repeats. So it wasn't that daunting or long but there were
about 7 or 8 riffs and it was a fast maqsoum. But we did it. We were pretty
sloppy in parts but I do see it as a very real project that we can actually
play. At this point I don't see us doing it alone - ever - but playing
along with the CD makes us sound almost professional.
Next week I think I will have the drum solo mapped out and written out
and we will go through it riff by riff and perfect the rolls, scratches
and pops. Of course when playing alone without the CD we will go much
slower - but that is a good thing. Practice will make almost perfect.
Someday, insha'allah.
Home
Adaweya with Fifi
Adaweya with Abdel Basit
December 4, 2011
Shaabi at the bookstore
A few days ago Husain called me and asked me for the address
of the bookstore where we occasionally perform. I sent him an email with
the address and promptly forgot about it. Today as Shadia and I were just
getting ready to go out shopping, I got a phone call from Husain asking
me to bring a mic and cord to the bookstore. We were supposed to start
setting up in an hour.
??? Huh??? Well - it turns out that either he forgot to tell me, or I
forgot to write down that we had a gig there - today.
Actually - it was another of Faisal's gigs at the bookstore. But, since
he was babysitting -again - Susu was going to play. So, Shadia and I decided
to postpone shopping and go to the bookstore. Today's group was Husain,
Jalal, Younes, Susu and me. If we get any bigger we will be too big for
their tiny stage. It is interesting playing with this group now. They
were calling themselves shorbet or soup. Husain from Iraq; Younes from
Morocco, Jalal from Azerbaijan, Susu from Petaluma and me from Noe Valley.
The added dynamics of Jalal turned our little educational chamber music,
salon type takht to a club sounding band. Now we had more mikes and monitors
and little boxes to control the echoes, the reverbs and all the other
extra effects. It was kind of interesting how just one other person could
change our sound. Jalal took over as MC and today we were the "Pasha"
band. Jalal was almost ready to ask everyone if there was "a birthday
in the house". Almost, but not quite.
But down there amongst the audience which has been mostly bookish neighborhood
type beats, bohemians and oldies with grey hair, beards, power caps and
macrame were now women dancing in the aisles and good old faithful Ali
Jon ready to turn the place into a cabaret. Usually the drink of choice
has been apple cider or tea - today it was glasses and glasses (ok, plastic
glasses) of wine.
We were very international in our choice of music - We didn't just do
Egyptian like we usually do. We did everything from Persian, Turkish,
Iraqi, Moroccan, Lebanese and Egyptian. But the big winner of the day
was Ahmed Adaweya's Kulu ala Kulu with Husain and Jalal encouraging everyone
in the audience to clap and sing along. And this they did. I was expecting
Shadia to get up on stage and start dancing, but I think she felt a little
shy. Before we started playing today, Husain played Kulu ala Kulu as a
warm-up practice. I really didn't expect it to be in our repertoire but
now Husain has declared this to be his new favorite song. Wonder if I
can get him to start learning the new shaabi songs too. Home
December 3, 2011
Giza Club and Holiday Hafla
Today was a day devoted entirely to dance. I started in
the morning with a private lesson, went on to teach two other classes
and then set up the room for the last Giza film session of the year. Well,
maybe it's the last official film session of the year - I might add another
one or two sessions - but only for select Giza members.
We watched two documentaries - one by American Sabriye Tekbilek that I
got off you tube and a French documentary, "At Night they dance".
Sabriye's documentary was first and very interesting as she narrated how
she got involved in working in Egypt and all the pros and cons. It included
some nice footage including a scan of the 30 costumes that she needed
to have in order to fulfill a dance contract. This dance career contrasted
greatly with the other documentary "At Night they dance" which
followed the lives of Reda, the mother of three girl/women working and
dancing in Cairo. They came from a poor and unfortunate existence and
compared with Sabriye's journey to Egypt to dance to "live"
music, made me feel so very grateful to have been born with different
and better life opportunities. Sabriye's dance career was a choice to
fulfill her desire to perform and in the other documentary the women had
no choice. And having no choice, they seemed destined to a life of hardship
and poverty.
My friend Shadia watched both films and was greatly affected and embarrassed
by the second documentary telling me that this was not representative
of dancers in Egypt.
Upon reflection later though, she did admit that there were only two dancers
that she knew of - Do'a and Dina - who did not come from unfortunate circumstances.
And other dancers such as Fifi and Lucy who did, only managed to overcome
the poverty obstacle through a tremendous amount of hard work, talent
and probably lots of luck.
After Giza Club we went to Adriana's Christmas Hafla. It was at Angelica's
Bistro in Redwood City. The dance performances were already happening
when we arrived but we managed to see quite a few dancers. Although the
place was pretty full, I was taken with the fact that I did not know about
90% of the audience and only knew 3 of the performers. This was an entirely
different crowd of dancers from the South Bay and Santa Cruz areas. What
also struck me was the choice of music, different ideas of musicality
and dance styles. I felt out of it. The dancers danced differently than
what I am accustomed to. It was almost as if I was caught in a time machine
of a different era. It was a relief when Adriana came on stage. Finally
I saw dancing that I could relate to. She performed to Murad on keyboard
and drum machine with Fadi backing him up on vocals. It was really nice
to see and hear them and I made a mental note to myself to not be a stranger
to places south, east or north of San Francisco. It can be quite fun -
an adventure - to visit other lands and see other styles of dance. For
sure I will visit Fadi and Murad at their place, Sahara, in Burlingame
very soon. Hopefully before the year is up. Home
December 2, 2011
Two from Badia
Spent various times during the day thinking about what
kind of show I'd like to work on next year. Have a few ideas other than
what I had planned before and really don't quite know which direction
I should take. I guess I really need to just make a few CDs of different
types of music I want to work on and listen to them. Now the themes of
the show seem to be changing. Every time I listen to a different piece
of music I change what I want to do. Yesterday it was zar, the day before
it was mulid, and today it's the music of Mohamed Fawzi or maybe the dance
vignettes from Ismail Yasin movies.
Mohamed Fawzi (1918-1966) was born in Tanta, a small city north of Cairo
known for its mulids. His father was a Koran reciter and gave Mohamed
Fawzi a strong background in pronunciation and phrasing. When he was 12
he already was working as a wedding singer and shortly after that he went
to Cairo to find opportunities to sing. After studying music in Cairo
he started working for Badia Masabni and from there he performed in plays
and eventually in the movies. He had a long career in the movies and starred
with all the major actors, including comedian Ismail Yasin (1915-1972)
who also got his start with Badia Masabni.
With Ismail Yasin he performed in many musicals with the great dancers
such as Taheyya Karioka and female singers of the day like Leila Murad,
Shadia and Sabah. Mohamed Fawzi composed and sang many songs you may find
familiar including this one that
we often sing at Aswat as part of our Fawzi medley. While many of
his musical dance numbers were Western dance numbers, usually when he
played in movies with Ismail Yasin they included Oriental dance pieces
both for solo and group. Whenever I see an Ismail Yassin movie I'm pretty
much guaranteed that I will see at least one of the main Oriental dancers
from the Golden era.
Mohamed Fawzi was very clever in his career as a singer, actor, and composer
and also was very active in the movie, radio and recording industries
especially with film and record producing. Ismail Yasin, on the other
hand, was probably one of the most prolific actors in Egypt including
having 15 movies used with his name in the title (such as Ismail Yasin
meets Raya we Sakina and Ismail Yasin in the Army) and he died broke.
He was not a businessman.
I guess I can relate to Ismail Yasin more than to Mohamed Fawzi. Although
not being business minded, in Ismail Yasin's movies, he always seemed
to be planning and scheming. Mohamed Fawzi was more of a romantic lead
and maybe too serious for the likes of me. Ismail Yasin's movies were
more goofy but he had great traditional music and dancing. In Mohamed
Fawzi movies the music and dancing was great but usually with a Western
or Latin flair. Although I like both styles - the traditional and the
fusion, I guess if I had to choose I'd go with the traditional even though
I do like some fusion.
But what to plan for a new dance show production. Probably a little bit
of both. Maybe Mohamed Fawzi's
ideas of stage production with
Ismail Yasin's love of traditional dance with a slightly humorous
twist. Home
December 1, 2011
Drum solo and zar
I don't know how I did it, but I managed to get everything
put away except for some of the collections on the two kitchen tables.
But Shadia's room - which I also call the "drum room" because
years ago Susu used to teach drum there, was cleared, ready and waiting
for Shadia.
It was easy to find Shadia at the airport. She was wearing a neck collar/brace
just like when we went Egypt together so many years ago. This must be
part of here travel attire. And just like so many years ago, she looked
EXACTLY the same. I hope she thought the same of me. But I was running
late this morning and hadn't had time to put on much makeup. It's amazing
to not see someone for so long and be able to pick up and just be like
it was yesterday.
Moving on to other things - class tonight was great. I
had already decided that because of the Thanksgiving break everyone had
forgotten their assignment. So I was just going to go with a song for
performance class. But it turned out that everyone had remembered and
actually worked on the assignment, which was to break down a drum solo
and work out a little choreography. I shouldn't sell them short. I got
to watch their drum solos and we talked about how drums solos are different
than dancing to songs. I talked about
Nadia Gamal and how she influenced
Lebanese Amani and her dance and drum solo.
Nadia Gamal, who had a strong background in ballet and jazz, was of Greek
and Italian heritage, born in Alexandria, Egypt. Farid el Atrache helped
her career in dance in Lebanon and she became the most well-known and
influential Lebanese dancer. She was known to be the first dancer to put
the zar dance in her routine and many Lebanese dancers copied her and
added floor dance with head whirls as part of their acts also. I remember
when we, The Arabian Knights Band, invited Lebanese dancer Nabila Metwali
to perform with us at El Valenciano, she bragged that she could
whirl her head/hair something like 29 times. If you watch this you
tube clip to the end you'll see her zar dance. I think I have a drum solo
and zar blip on DVD from when she performed with us at El Valenciano.
I will try to find it for class next Thursday when I show various drum
solo examples. Home
Husain
Adaweya now
Adaweya before
Contact u
December Blogs: Arabian Knights Band, Lebanese dancers Nadia Gamal, Amani, Nabila Metwalli, Zar, Mohamed Fawzi, Ismail Yasin, Taheyya Karioka, Leila Murad, Sabah, Badia Masabni, Shadia, Adriana, Dina, Do'a, Fifi, Lucy, Angelica's Bistro, Sabriye Tekbilek, "At Night they dance", Husain Resan, Ahmed Adaweya, Jalal Takeh, Younes el Maqboul, Susu Pampanin, Faisal Zeidan, Sami Aly, Abdel Basit Hamouda, Kulu aal Kulu, Samiramis, Naz Minassian, Zildjians, Georges Lammam, Bagdad, Casbah, Al Masri, SFSU, Pasha, Soheir Zaki, Hossam Ramzy, Capp Street Music Cener, Hoda el Artiste, Jad Elias, Cairo Cats, Daria, Gregangelo, Dalal, El Valenciano, Soraiya Zaied, Mohamed Abdel Wehab, Ya Msafer Wahedek, Om Kalthoum, Pachamama, Pak Oriental Rugs, SOMA, MCCLA, Tarabiya, Dance Brigade, Brava Theater, York Theater, Tony Lammam, Dannhae, Kim, Hana, ART, Grapeleaf, Powell Station, King Tut, Ramadan, Sherihan, Mohamed Ali Street, Fawazeer, Sharia al Fan, Omar Khorshid, Firsan al Kurdi, Michael Jackson, Reda Darwish, MultiKulti, Sausan, Mohamed Amin, Nieman Marcus, Saks, Designer Consigner, PETA, Shik Shak Shok, Lessa Faker, Nagwa Fouad, Merryland, Seahorse, Rebecca, Sherry Brier, Arab Cultural Center, Elias Lammam, Linda,Walgreen's, Angela Ramzy, Arab Film Festival, Khader Keileh, Vince Delgado,Coralee, Shaabi, Andak Albi, Nass el Ghiwane, Gnawa, Djemaa el Fna, Rolling Stones, Sufi, Karim Nagi, Debbie Smith, raqs Egypt, BDUC, Chakib, Rachid Halihal, Deborah Kapchan, Rai, Maha Marouan, University of Alabama, lila, Museum of the African Diaspora, Michael Frishkopf, "Music and Media in the Arab World, "Traveling Spirit Masters", Mitchell's Ice Cream, Blum's, Atlantis, "Wahedeh we Noss" , Aswan Dancers
November Blogs: Lonely Planet, Rough Guide, Saad el Soghayar, El Einab, Sittu Bess Basbusa, Ahmed Adaweya, Shokolata, Sami Ali, Mahalabeya, Hakim, Khokha, Riko, Koskosi, Essam Shabula, Koshary, Barur, Eshta, Said el Artiste, Khamra ya 'uta, Vitaminak, Hari Kari, Manga, El Hantour, Dinga, Giza Films, Gregory Burke, Jannah,Stasha, Karim Nagi, Susu Pampanin, King Tut, Sphinx, Yousef Mustapha, Hallah Safi, Hanan, Zizi Mustafa, Bagdad, Om Kalthoum, George Dabai, Hobi Eh, Lemby, Mohamed Saad, Fadil Shaker, George Wasoof, Nur Mhana, Nancy Ajram, Georges Lammam, Khader Keileh, Husain Resan, Gabriel Navia, Hala, Aisha Ali, Debbie Smith,Ghawazee, Rose, Pachamama, Mohamed Ali, Nicteha, Nicole, Rahda, Reabecca, Kim, Hana, Judi, Sausan, Giza Club, Terri Anne, "Rakasa", Sameh Abdl Aziz, Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts, Tarabiya, raqs Egypt, Randa, Dina, National Geographic, Banat Maazin, Aswan Dancers, Aswat, Fort Mason, North Beach, Mohamed Abdel Wahab, Aziza, Amira Restaurant, Enta Omri, Fantasy Nahawand, "The White Rose", "Wheat Song", "Satin Rouge", Zikr, Zar, Aswat, Arcane Dimension, Pepper Alexandria, The Ghawazee Gazette, Carnival of Stars, Sahara Sands, Cory Zamora, Mahsati, Susu Pampanin, Yousef Koyoumjian, Fatma Akef, Elena Lentini, Atlantis Long, Shu Shu Amin, Seahorse, Al Masri, Sinda, Rhea, Rana, Dr. Sary Dowidar, "Zahma dunya Zahma", Jesus, Tarabiya, Shaykh Sayed Makawi, Ya Msarahni, Koran, Sex Pistols, Frank Sinatra, Reda Darwish, Azza Sharif, Casino Opera, Badi Masabni, Farid el Atrache, Mohammed Abdel Mottaleb, Mohamed Fawzi, Taheyya karioka, Samia Gamal, Katie, Hoda Shamsadine, Naima Akef, Beba Ezzadine, Ibrahim Akef, Jodette, Kamellia, Busby Berkley, "Raqs el Hawanim", Kristo Klaadex, Naguib el Rihani, Sayed Darwish, S.K.Thoth, Nadia Hamdi, Najib Bahri, Basem Yazbeck, Katherine Dunham, Zack Thompson, Jimbo's Bob City, Perez Prado, "Drums on Fire", "Caravan", Art Blakey, Ahmed Khalil, "Kabareh", Samiramis, Nabila Mango, ICCNC, "Zikrayati", Hilda's, Mohamed el Qasbji, "Wedad", "I Loved you for your voice", Ahmad Rami, Glen Miller, Dexter Gordon, Elvis, Frankie Lymon, Little Richard, Buddy Holly, Janis Jopliln, Sid Vicious, Selim Najib, Guitar Center, Marriott Santa Clara, "Du'ul Mazaher", Hamza el Din, Feiruz, "Arjii ya alf leila", "lamma bada yetathana", Mary Ellen Donald, Mahmoud Reda
October Blogs:Arab Film Festival, "Hawi", Mohamed Ali, Karim Nagi, "Hobi Eh", "Ghanilli Shwaya Shway", George Wasoof, Farma Sirhan, Om Kalsoum, Ibrahim el Batout, Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts, Dannhae, Hana, Fairmont Hotel, Faisal Zeidan, Jalal Takesh, Husain Resan, Younes el Maqboul, Abdel Halim Hafez, Mohamed Abdel Wehab, Nadia Hamdi, Marcela, "Fakkarooni", Abdel Wehab Mohamed, Raqs Egypt, Georges Lammam, Steve Jobs, Debbie Smith, Khader Keileh, Skyline College, Vince Delgado, Coralie, Loay Dahbour, Ozlem, Real Doner, Susu Pampanin, Georges and Tony Lammam, Leyla Lanty, Carnival of Star, Mahmoud Reda, Nabila Mango, SF City Hall, Hassania, Skyline College, "Ana Hurrah", Kan Zaman, Aswat, DJ Raffy, Mina House, Nadia Lutfi, "Abi foq il shagara", "Ganal Hawa", Nicole Ibrahim, Kim, Al Masri, Sausan, Bagdad, Aswan Dancers, Firqet Aswan, Devi Ja, Aswan Cultural Center, Jazayer, Mimi Spencer, "Lailet Hob", "Alf Leila wa Leila", Gawaher al Fan, Ahmad Rami, Tarabiya, "Zahma Dunya Zahma", "Du'ul Mazaher", Mahmoud el Leithy, "Eh il Hakaya", ART, "Mass Culture and Modernism in Egypt", Ahmed Adaweya, Michael Jackson, Cassanova, Travolta, Pasha Restaurant, Arabian Knights, Jacques al Asmar, Reda Darwish, El Valenciano, Cairo Cats, George Dabai, Fadil Shahin, Yousef Kouyoumjian, The Farm, Sir Lawrence Washington, Tropical Heat Wave, Tropical Outer Space, Sunset Scavengers, Carnaval, El Faro Taqueria, Marlene, Cole Valley Gym, Karem Mahmoud, Adela Chu, Tower Market, "Habibi Lasmar", Fee Youm we Leila", Hossam Ramzy, Chalo Eduardo, Jacque Barnes, Jose Lorenzo, Laura, Amr Diab, "Habibi Nur el Ain", Aisha Ali, "Procrastination", Zawaya, Omar Abbad, Curves, Hakim, Saad el Soghayer, Edwina aka Qamar el Moulouk, Habibi, Santa Fe Folklore Museum, SF Free Folk Festival, SF City Hall, Mayor Ed Lee, "Ya Zalemni", Riad al Sombati, "Salama", Munira al Mahdiya, Cleopatra, Mark Antony, Dancing Drums - Live at the Giza Club, Sahar Hamdi, "Daret el Ayam", Samir Sumaidaiie Iraqi Ambassador, "Secret Ballot", gildedserpent.com, Faruk Sarsa, Naemet
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