Thread: What style of ghawazee is this please?

Originally Posted by banatsusan

There's also another tape out called Latcho Drom that has a section in it where the children are peaking over the wall at a group where a woman is dancing and then she leaves the "stage/table" and collects her child and another woman takes her place to dance. Does anyone know the tape/scene I'm referring to? I believe that to be a clip of Ghawazee dancing--based solely on the stomping step the woman executes and which I have been taught is characteristic of Ghawazee dancing.

Yes this dancers' name is Raja Mottawa She is a true Ghawzia of the Bahlawanat Clan ( like the Nawar who can trace there roots to the Rom of the Sind Valley). She is not wearing the traditional Ghawazee costume because the director thought a gallabia would look more "authentic" to a western audience than the ghawazee costume. She is the main Ghawazee I learned this style from from.
Jalilah
Producer of "Jalilah's Raks Sharki" CD series
www.piranha.de/jalilah

Thank you for the information Jalilah! I thought the whole scene looked very much as I had imagined a family gathering might be. It's my favorite dance clip on the video.

Off topic but I gotta tell you I love your "Jalilah's Raks Sharki" CD series. Those CD's are among my favorites!!!!

Originally Posted by banatsusan

Thank you for the information Jalilah! I thought the whole scene looked very much as I had imagined a family gathering might be. It's my favorite dance clip on the video.
Off topic but I gotta tell you I love your "Jalilah's Raks Sharki" CD series. Those CD's are among my favorites!!!!

Thanks! Your kind words mean a lot!
I forgot to mention that the younger dancer's,who starts dancing after Raja sits down name is Najua Tewfif and shes's also a real Ghawzia.
Both dancers are from Qena,which is a smaller town than Luxor so they are not as well known as the Banat Mazin are.
I have not seen either of them for over 10 years since, I moved to Canada and had a kid, but I heard both have stopped dancing.

Jalilah,

Thanks for the info. I love that scene so much, and it is great to have such a detailed context or it. I just printed out your words (with credit!) and put them inside my Latcho Drom video box. :) What a great reference.

Thank you again!

Best,

Monica

Originally Posted by lizajuk

PS Have booked to do "Ghawazee" with Maria D'Silva at JOY so all remains to be seen.

How did it go?

Originally Posted by straightleftknee

How did it go?

Fabulous. We never stopped and she is one of the best. Lots of things to work on and think about!

We're having Habiba of Philly in Louisville, KY this November to do her famous Ghawazee workshop in case anyone is interested.

www.medsok.com

Originally Posted by aziyade

We're having Habiba of Philly in Louisville, KY this November to do her famous Ghawazee workshop in case anyone is interested.

www.medsok.com

I took her workshop here in MD and it was really wonderful. She knows her stuff. And she's lots of fun too! (We just roomed together at RakEast.)

This is definitely not tunisian shaabi which is characteristically danced on the balls of the feet and does have horizontal hip movements but they are pretty different...also doesn't look like banat maazin ghawazee. I think it is interesting..call it folk fusion : ). Also typically when dancers do ghawazee they will dress in ghawazee costume, same with Tunisian. If you want to know more about Ghawazee check out [url]www.aisha-ali.com. She is the woman to talk to!

Okay, what the dance video looked like to me is the style typically seen in SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism, a midieval/rennaissance history club) style dancing. A mish-mash of folkloric movements with a lot of American Cab. and ATS thrown in. Her outfit is typical of common SCA fakelore: 18th C. style Atira's pattern "Gawazee Coat" with skirt underneath, decorated bra, turbany thing, coin hip belt. Usually this dance is labeled as "Gawazee" because of the name of the commercial coat pattern and without doing any real research, you can claim there were Gawazee dancers in Egypt somewhere between 600-1600, the scope of time the SCA covers. There were dances that were like belly dance, mostly documented by foreign travelers. Currently the trend in the SCA is to get away from this type of fakelore, and perform dance in costumes re-created from extant period garments and reliable pictures. I don't mean to demean her a person or a dancer, I think she is very talented, but to present a specifc style of dance you need to research your costume, music, and dance style. I actually teach an SCA class in adapting modern belly dance skills into a more historically based presentation. And yes, I'm a card carrying member of the SCA! :)

Hi !!
I also love love love Ghawazee style, altho till now have taken workshops for Reda, or Reda infuenced style Ghawazee, with Faruk Mustafa, excellent excellent and great and beloved Khaled Mahmoud. Also from Aida Nour not whole workshop but movements.
Here i'm performing with my student Roza the Khaled Mahmoud choreo.
The costumes, as we asked was the simpliest we could do (no money for costumes lol) but worked ok. We had half the Egyptian Embassy in the audience that day and they were screaming and crying that they had to see Ghawazee from when they were kids. So I guess we had at least the correct feeling.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lQMYYkcjSc&mode=related&search="]YouTube - Oriental Soul, Ghawazee, Maria Aya-Roza - Greece[/ame]

Maria Aya