combination and create amazing choreographies to fit into the 4-5 minutes
allotted. Too much amazing choreography to recorded music. It made me
very aware that we – especially we in San Francisco – are so fortunate to
have so many performance opportunities and to live music no less.
We do have that phenomenon here too. Too many perfect dance steps stuffed
into too short a time to music that probably is cut and pasted to conform
to the time permitted. It’s a shame, but that’s life if one wants to perform at
events such as those. But what about events with live music? I’ve found that
many dancers would rather dance to CD so they can do their choreography
or will only dance to songs that they already have choreographed in the
hopes that the songs will sort of resemble the known recorded version. Then
instead of dancing to the music, it becomes a test to see if the choreography
will fit the live music. But what about listening to the music? A lot of times
that is hardly done. Instead of really listening to the music - listening to
the musical instrumentation - a dancer might only respond to the rhythm.
The dancer might do a khaligi hair dance combination because they’re
playing the khaligi rhythm; or do a Saidi step because the drum is playing
Saidi; or do an abandoned Zar head toss because Ayoub is playing; or do
chasse’s across the floor because it’s Malfoof. But what about the music?
Well, maybe the music doesn’t matter if the steps match the rhythms? But
it does! If there is a zeffa rhythm in the middle of an Om Kalthoum song,
should one zaghareet and run to don a shamadan? I don’t think so. The
music does matter! The music, the instrumentation, the lyrics, everything
should dictate the mood and the rhythm should keep the dancer on time.
Everything matters.
Rowan Storm deomonstrating frame drum
Susu’s Arabic drum class
Every year I hear my friends talk about going to Middle East Music
and Dance Camp in Mendocino. I went once, but never found the time
or money to go again. This year my daughter Susu was going to teach
drum at the camp. I again thought about going, but there were too many
other commitments telling me to stay closer to home. As luck would have
it, Susu broke her foot and then I felt I needed to go. Hang my other
priorities. I am a bag lady at heart and felt the need to carry drum bags
for Susu so she could feel free to just manipulate her crutches up and
down hilly slippery paths under the giant Sequoias. Also, since she was
handicapped, I’d have to be her assistant and she couldn’t really camp by
herself in her condition. Since many of my friends were also musicians
and would be playing and teaching, I felt I needed to also bring my own
drum, riq and duf for just in case…
Faisal’s Riq class
I arrived at camp the afternoon o