Dance Origin: Middle East/Lebanon Genre: Raqs Baladi/Middle Eastern Dance Choreographer: Samar
Nassar First Appearance in SF EDF: 2009 Website: www.myhipline.com
In the United
States, "belly dance" was coined for this form because
of its isolation movements in the pelvis and torso. In the Middle
East, the dance is called “raqs
baladi,” meaning “local dance.”
The evolution of the form is hard to trace, but it includes styles and
movements from Lebanon, North Africa, Egypt,
the Arabian Gulf, and Turkey. At Middle Easter family gatherings, all members of the family, women,
men, and children, dance together in celebration of their culture and music. A
formal technical style of the dance became popular on the stages of fancy
nightclubs throughout Egypt.
Then, in the 1940s, the Egyptian film industry brought gifted Middle Eastern
dancers to the silver screen, and audiences fell in love with the form. The
dance is popular today worldwide as a medium where women find confidence,
health, and a celebration of their feminine power. In performance, it is a
highly technical form, and the dancer’s quick response is essential, as she expresses
the emotional, lyric, and rhythmic qualities of the music.
Rhythm in Arabic music is organized into
cycles of beats and pauses, each with a fixed number of pulses. Within these
pulses, strong beats, weak beats, and silent beats define a groove. The baladi beat is a masmoudi beat contracted into 4/4 time. The drum is called a dumbek. For strong beats, called doum, the dominant hand strikes the
"sweet spot" of the skin. Weaker beats, called tek and ka, are played on
the drum's rim.
Samar Nassar is first generation Lebanese-Peruvian who has been belly
dancing for over thirteen years. She has performed on stages all over the world
and choreographed performances for the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. She
credits her belly dance style to her Lebanese heritage, a country she visits
often. She is the Owner/Creative Director of Hipline Belly Dance Studio in Berkeley.
Lebanese style
belly dance is explosive, upbeat, and fast, with wide movements and an emphasis
on percussion. In Drum Solo, Middle Eastern danceis stripped down to the basics: it highlights the soloist's technique,
as she responds to every single beat.
Samar's dress was designed by Eman Zaki; a prominent Egyptian fashion
designer to the stars. The cut accentuates curves helps the audience see the
subtle movments. The Isis wings evolved from the traditional veil usually worn for a dancer’s entrance.
Samar Nassar choreographed this piece in
January of 2006, and adapted it for this program. Drum Solo was originally commissioned for a performance at the de
Young Museum in 2006.
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