Homework for week one:

• Topic: Arms
  
  
• Take some time to watch video of your favorite professional belly dancers and watch specifically for how they use their arms to frame their body or to dance with. Choose a favorite arm movement or framing position and be ready to share it in next class and tell us who you got it from. Here are a few of my favorites to look at: Samia Gamal, Mona al Said, Naima Akef, Soraia Zaied.
  
  
• Spend your practice time with your attention focused on your arms, look at their extension, notice your wrist, hands and fingers, use them to frame your movements, pay attention to the negative shapes created by them, and spend some time dancing just with your arms.
  
  
• A good instructional video for arms:
  
  • Sahra's Signature Series Arms and Torso
    

 

Homework for week two:

• Topic: Feet
  
  
• Watch this video clip of the famous Egyptian Oriental dancer Mona al Said. Pay close attention to her foot work. Look how delicately she places her feet and how she points her toes. Watch for the patterns of footwork we covered in class, a simple walk, step-together-step forward and backwards, step touch and the sharqi step. Look for other patterns we didn't discuss in class, identify them and try them out at home.
  
  
• Watch this video clip of the famous Egyptian Folkloric dancers Farida Fahmy, Mahmoud Reda and the Reda troupe. Notice how their foot work differs from Mona al Said's foot work and notice where it is similar. Watch for the patterns of footwork we covered in class, pas de bourree, step touch. Look for other patterns we didn't discuss in class, try one out.
  
  This is a clip from an old movie and the dance they are doing is a very theatricalized version of what I'm guessing is a fallahi dance or farmer's dance (fallahi = farmer). The women are wearing tulle bi telle (net with hammered metal designs) dresses which are often called assuit dresses (here is a photo of Samia Gamal in an Assuit dress in a movie with Farid el Atrache), called after the region famous for making this kind of material, Assuit, Egypt.
  
  
  
  
  

Homework for week three:

• Topic: Hips
  
  
• Close your eyes during this weeks practice and internally identify what muscles you are using to move your hips. Touch your thighs and sides with your hands and feel the muscles working as you lift and drop your hips. Consider what the adductor muscles are doing, as well as your quads, glutes, hamstrings and your obliques.
  
  
• Watch this youtube clip of the famous Egyptian Oriental dancer Souhair Zaki. Pay close attention to her very controlled a beautiful hip work. Try to imitate the quality and style of her hips. Here is another very fun clip of Souhair Zaki to watch from an old film.
  
  
• Watch this youtube clip of the famous Egyptian Oriental dancer Fifi Abdo dancing to the famous Um Koulthum song Ana Fi Intizarak. Take a good look at her shimmy. This is an interesting clip because you can see her legs in it. Think about how she drives her shimmy and guess what muscles you think she uses. See if you can shimmy like Fifi. Also watch this clip to see her shimmy in a more traditional belly dance outfit. Take a look at her other hip work, compare how it is the same and different to Souhair Zaki's hip work.
  
  
• Watch this youtube clip of the currently very popular Egyptian Oriental dancer Randa Kamal. Pay attention to her shimmies and hip work. How are they different from Fifi's and Souhair's? Try to mimic some of her movements.
  
  
• Find your own shimmy. Practice the shimmy floor drills we did in class to some music with a steady beat. Do each for a minute or two a piece. Shimmy for 5 to 20 minutes straight, trying to focus on different impetuses until you find your most natural shimmy.

 

Homework for week four:

• Topic: Torso, Head & Focus
  
  
• Think of your rib cage being attached to a rope. Imagine that rope pulling you up, down, forward, back, side to side and diagonal to diagonal. Start small, just moving your ribs around, then let your ribs move you across space drawing shapes in the air, high low, fast and slow, driving you across the room and around space. Put on music and let the music speak to your body as your rib cage moves you through space.
  
  
• Put on music and do normal belly dance movement, but think about leading traveling steps through your ribs, think about the angle of you torso and rib cage and use your ribs to transition between movements.
  
  
• Think about how you use your head when you dance. Practice different belly dance movements using the focus of your eyes to draw attention to the working part, a hip, a hand, a shoulder, etc. Think about the angle of your head and the direction of your focus when you pose and turn. Think about leading a turn or transition with your head.
  
  
• Watch these youtube clips of the very famous Egyptian belly dancer Dina, Enta Fein wa Hobbi Fein & Ya M'safer Wahdak. Pay attention to how she utilizes her torso and rib cage when she dances. Play with mimicking some of her movements.
  

Homework for week five

• Topic: Lines & Transitions
  
  
• Find three poses online from photos of Oriental dancers that you feel have beautiful lines you'd like to emulate. Practice those poses. (If you want you can email them to me, I'd be curious to see what you chose.)
  
  
• Practice a traveling step, think about the movement you do to change direction, practice a transition we did in class, consider creating your own transition.
  
  
• Practice one step and then another, but concentrate on the movement between the two steps. What patterns do you arms draw? What shifts happen in your torso and your feet? How does your focus change?
  
  
• Watch these two youtube clips of the famous Oriental Dancer Tito from Egypt, clip two Tito in Hawaii. Watch how he transitions between movements, notice how much time he takes, notice what movements he uses, notice if the transitions are simple or complex. Try to mimic a couple of his transitions. Take a look at this golden era Egyptian dancer Katie. She has a very fun and flirty style that is a little different from Tito's. Look at how she transitions between movements. Do you see similarities? Do you see differences? Look at them and think about them. Feel free to mimic some of your favorite moves that Katie does. Here's a couple bonus clips if you just enjoyed watching Tito and Katie as much as I do: Tito dancing to Eshta Ya Amar and Katie in a classic film.
  

Homework for week six

• Topic: Patterns, Repetition & Variety
  
  
• Choose a piece of music to analyze. Write down on a piece of paper labeling each section, how many counts there are in it, where the melodic phrases begin and end, note any short bridges between melodic phrases, and how often the melodic phrases repeat. After making a basic chart, go back in and make additional notes for each section, for example: what instrument is being used? is it the whole band or just one instrument? is it singing? is it loud or quiet? has it changed speed or feeling? are there any really strong accents you think are important? and so on.
  
  
• After analyzing your music, dance to it. Choose a musical phrase and choose a movement you think goes well with it, repeat the movement for the whole musical phrase. Remember to start your new movement on the first count in the phrase and to stay on the beat.
  
  
• Come back and dance the phrase again, now do the movement you chose for 1/2 the counts and vary it for the second 1/2; either change direction or size or level or layer something on top of it.
  
  
• Come back and dance the phrase again, do your movement with it's variation and take the last 2 to 4 counts of the musical phrase to put in a transitioning movement.
  
  
• Take a moment to map the path you made on the floor with your combination of movements in this musical phrase.
  
  
• Next take a piece of paper and map several potential paths you can take on the floor, include circles, squares, straight lines in all directions including diagonals, diamonds, figure 8s, Xes, Vs, Ws, loop-de-loops, zigzags, a figure 8 with sharp corners, etc. Take this into account as you repeat the whole exercise on the next musical phrase in your piece of music.
  
  
• Watch and analyze this youtube clip of the famous Egyptian dancer Mona Said. Watch how she starts each new series of movements at the beginning of a new musical phrase. Watch how she steps on the beat. Pay attention to how she repeats a single movement and how she varies it and then transitions. Map the patterns on a piece of paper that she makes on the floor. Take note of the variety or lack thereof, pay attention to direction and dynamics (small or large). Here is a second clip to analyze, this one is the Egyptian dance legend Tahia Carioka, try to map this one as well, although this one will be a little more difficult due to the changing camera angles. And finally, analyze this clip of the famous Egyptian dancer Randa Kamal doing her interpretation of a Saidi number.

 

Homework for week seven:

• Topic: Middle Eastern Instruments and their Interpretation
  
  
• Learn to identify and recognize by sound and sight several different musical instruments used commonly in the Middle East:
  kanun - demonstrated by Umut Yasmut
  oud - performance by the very famous Egyptian singer, actor and musician Farid El Atrache
  ney
  kawala - deeper sound than the ney but a related instrument demonstrated by İbrahim Savas
  tabla, darbuka or dumbek - demonstrated by Souhail Kaspar
  tabl baladi
  riq
  rebaba (kemengeh)
  mizmar
  zurna (mainly Turkish, related to the mizmar)
  kaman aka violin
  bendir, duff or tar - demonstrated by Karim Nagi
  sagat, zills or sil sil - demonstrated by Karim Nagi
  mihbaj or coffe grinder, 2nd mihbaj clip
  organ (keyboard) - demonstrated by Omar Khorshid for another very famous Egyptian singer and actor Abdel Halim Hafez
  accordion - played at another concert for Abdel Halim Hafez
  bagpipe - played for a Palestinian debke troupe, accompanied by the tabla
  clarinet - played by Husnu Senlendirici and Ismail Lumanovski
  bouzouki (mainly Greek)
  cümbüş (mainly Turkish)
  saz, baglama (There are many varieties of this insturment, but that are in the same closely related family) demonstrated by Hasan Genc, here is an extra clip with Ismail Altunsaray
  buzuq (also in the saz/baglama family)
  arghul
  
  
• Find taqsims highlighting some of your favorite instruments. I recommend getting the Serpentine Taqsim recording we used in class if you don't already have it. First listen and identify where you feel that instrument. Then practice dancing to it focusing on the following areas:
  -the impedus from the feeling
  -working through the body top to bottom or vice versa
  -isolating it in one body part
  -following the changing pace of the music, concentrating on the fast and the slow
  -following the range of the music, concentrating on the highs and the lows
  -changing levels
  -changing directions
  -considering lines, particularly the poses you take at the breaks in the taksim
  -looking for layers, is there a second layer and how do you interpret that?
  -pay attention to how each instrument makes you feel and move a little differently, compare particularly closer instruments, like an oud and a kanoun or a nay and a violin, if they are similar in smoothness, how are they different in what they make you want to move?
  
  
• Watch this youtube clip of the famous Egyptian dancer Dina and notice how she interprets the Oud in her body and how it varies from when she is interpreting the full orchestra. Here is a second example to look at, the famous Turkish dancer Nesrin Topkapi doing a very different interpretation of a beautiful nay piece. Here is a a lovely taqsim by the Spanish dancer Alika. I'm having a hard time finding taqsim clips on youtube with dancing that I really like (niether of the above are really taqsims, just songs), so if you find any good ones on your own, send them my way.
  
  
• Read the article "Things for the Belly Dancer to know about Middle Eastern Music". Choose a piece of music (preferably Arabic) that you will be working with for this session. Bring it to class next week.
  
  
  

Homework for week eight:

• Topic: Middle Eastern Musical Structure: Rhythms
  
  
• Every good belly dancer must understand her Middle Eastern Rhythms and know how to dance to them. I break down an understanding of rhythms into two categories: 1) musical and 2) cultural. If you are interpreting a rhythm musically, you will interpret its various dums, teks and silences with your body. If you are interpreting a rhythm culturally, you will find out what region and people the rhythm is from, what it is used for and what dances steps and movements are associated with it.
  
  
• Select a rhythm, listen to it and learn it's name. Pay attention to how many beats it takes up, for example it could be 2 beats, 4 beats, 8 beats, 9 beats. Count the beats as the rhythm completes itself. Pay attention to which numbers the dums and the strongest accented teks land on. You may have to count 1 & 2 & 3 & 4 &, because sometimes they land on the &. Once you understand the counts, clap or speak the rhythm to yourself. Then play the rhythm using your hip, chest or shoulder like we did in class. Feel free to experiment with different ways of playing the rhythm in your body, utilizing different parts of your body or mixing parts (like dums on hips teks on shoulders for example).
  
  
• Take the same beat and find out where it is from or in what kind of music it is used most often. You might already know, or you might need to ask somebody or look for information online. Find out if it is associated with a particular ethnic or folkloric dance. See if you can find footage of that dance and watch how the performers use the rhythm in their own unique cultural way. See if you can pick up some steps. Be ready to name your rhythm and present a step next week in class.
  
  
• The examples used in class:
  - Ayyub - musically it is a 2 beat rhythm. Here is the musical breakdown:
  

  1-+-2-+-|  
  D--kD-T-|

  Culturally ayyub is associated with the zar and sufi ritual religious practice in Egypt. Here are a few ethnic and folkloric exmaples of the zar ritual. When played slowly it is said to be the closest rhythm to our heartbeat. When sped up it is also used in some Egyptian Oriental entrances, drum solos and finales, like a malfuf. I'll keep my eyes open for good zar references in Oriental routnines to post some clips of.
  
  - Malfuf - musically this is another 2 beat rhythm. Here is the musical breakdown:
  

  1-+-2-+-|  
  D--T--T-|

  Culturally malfuf is associated with Egyptian Oriental entrances, drum solos and finales. I don't have a malfuf specific playlist, but feel free to puruse my Oriental entrances playlist and see if you can identify this rhythm is some of the clips. This clip of Mona does use malfuf as she first enters.
  
  - Karsilama - musically it is a 9 beat rhythm. Here is the musical breakdown:
  

  1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-|  
  D-__T-__D-__T-T-t-|
  
                    

  Culturally karsilama is associated with Turkish Rroman (aka gypsy) dances. Here is my Turkish Rroman youtube playlist.
  
  
• If you do not already own good rhythm CDs to help you in your dance study, I reccommend picking one or more educational recordings up. Here are some of my recommendations:
  
  The Dancing Drum by Issam - 14 Arabic rhythms & 3 nice drum solos by the drummer for the Belly Dance Super Stars.
  
  Jalilah's Raks Sharki 4 - 23 Arabic rhythms & examples of them in classic songs.
  
  Uncle Mafufo's 25 Essential Rhythms - 25 common belly dance rhythms including Arabic, Turkish, Greek, Armenian and Pakistani rhythms. He speaks the rhythm, then plays it.
  
  Nourhan Sharif Presents Arabic Rhythms Volumes 1(Wahid),2(Eitneen),3(Talata) and Rhythms from Around the Arab World - a series of CDs full of a variety of Arabic Rhythms. There is introductory information about each rhythm. Each CD has 8-10 rhythms and 2 drum solos.
  
  Souhail Kaspar's Awzan: Arab Rhythmic Modes - good variety of Arabic Rhythms some with other instruments as accompaniment.
  
  Rhythms of Turkey volume 1 by Tayyar Akdeniz - Turkish rhythm specific and it has gorgeous bonus tracks on there that I love! Right now you can get this CD through Artemis, but it isn't on her website yet, so just email her.
  

Homework for week nine:

• Topic: Middle Eastern Musical Structure: Maqam & More
  
  
• Learn about some of the things that make Middle Eastern music distinct from Western music by reading "Part 1: Near Eastern Music Theory for Dancers" you will have to scroll down a little to get to this section. Also peruse the Maqam World website. You can find some nice definitions on there of various musical forms. Get to know these musical terms:
  
  Monophonic - no chords
  Maqam pl. Maqamat - a specific set of musical notes
  Jins pl.Ajnas - a segment of a maqam
  Modulation
  Improvisation
  Taksim
  Aman - vocal taksim
  Mawal - vocal taksim
  Doulab - introductory taksim
  Flourishes
  Repetition
  Mircrotones & Quartertones
  Takht - basic classical Arabic musical ensemble: oud, qanun, nay, kamanga and rik
  
  
• Look for the beginning and ending of musical phrases in the song you are working with and make a song map, like the one I showed you in class, finding the musical phrases, counting how many beats they take up and labeling them A, B, C and so on, noting where it repeats.
  
  
• After making the map, see if you can identify special parts of the music. Is there a Doulab, Mawal, Aman or Taksim? If so what instruments are highlighted or what is the vocalist singing? Are there special flourishes? Are there repetitions? What are the variations in the repetitions? What is the size of the ensemble playing the music?
  
  
• After taking time to examine and understand your music, consider how this effects how you dance to the song. Are their cues as to when to travel and when not to for example? Are their cues for when to exude a certain emotional energy?
  
  
• Listen to a few different maqamat from maqam world. Explore the feeling and energy of them. See how you respond emotionally to one vs. another. Another resource that Nina pointed out to me was the common maqamat sheet music on Dorku.com, so feel free to check it out (and turn your musician friends on to this site.