I Don’t Camp
But I do peel oranges
and have duf, will travel.
By Amina Goodyear
Last year, I received a phone call from
and really didn’t have much to do with
a dancer/musician named Belinda
traditional Middle Eastern dance.
Underwood, from Portland. She told
Sometimes even the music for those
me that she was scheduling teachers for
two sections were western songs such as
her next Middle Eastern music camp
Ravel’s Bolero and Lawrence of Arabia.
in Portland and wondered if I would
At least that’s what they played at the
be interested in being part of it. My
Bagdad, the club I worked at in the 60s.
immediate response was “I don’t camp.”
Then she went on to tell me that she had
So I put away my Abdel Wahab and
Amina
and
Soraya
from
found my website on the internet and she
Om Kalthoum music, went to my LP
Portland Mid-East Music Camp
was interested in my teaching what I was
collection and turned my Eddie the
best known for. Well, I thought, “Maybe
Sheikh and George Abdo records into
I should do it – there aren’t that many people preaching
CDs for the camp. Then I started thinking about what
about Egyptian dance and its relationship to the music.” So
music I danced to in the 60s and remembered that the
I quizzed her on what exactly she wanted me to teach. Much
musicians played and sang Muwashshah (a classical Arabic
to my surprise, she responded that she wanted me to teach
poetic form and secular musical genre going back as far as
1970’s style American Cabaret like veil and floorwork. I was
the 9th and 10th centuries from the Andalus, North Africa
a bit stunned. All that was in the past and I really didn’t
and Syrian traditions), Levantine Arabic music in the style
think too much about American Cabaret except to wonder
of Sabah Fakhri’s Qudud Halabiya, and also Farid’s movie
why people still do it when most of the world has moved on
music including songs written for the great golden age
to Egyptian dance. I must admit though, that veil and floor
dancers Samia and Taheyya.
were my favorite parts of American
Cabaret and those were the two parts
I started to analyze the difference
Sinda and Sedona from
Portland Mid-East Music Camp
of the five part routines that I liked
between the dance we did then and the
the best. Odd. I had totally become
dance many people do now. I realized
a purist – or so I thought – because
– it’s all in the music. And when I
my two favorite parts of American
questioned why, I realized that the
Cabaret were the two least traditional
songs used then were simpler in that
parts. Veil work as we did it in the ‘70s
they did not rely upon the complex or
was a bit like a strip tease with some
multiple rhythm changes of today’s
waving of the veil from time to time,
mahgenses that tell the dancer what
and floor dancing, although slightly
steps to use. When musicians from the
acrobatic, was also a bit provocative
past tell me that the dancers from the
October 2015
The Belly Dance Chronicles
33