Thread: Dancing to Leylet Hob

Hi I thought that this topic deserves a thread of its own, sure it's an eternal thing to discuss, the classics, the big themes of Arab music.

For me, concretely: I would love to dance to Leylet Hob. I wouldn't say yet: choregraph Leylet hob because one thing is spontaneous dancing and another thing mapping out a choreo that will be visually interesting. My skills in both are rather medium... but lets say it's my wish to choreograph Leylet Hob one day and in order to do that I want to connect with the song emotionally and physically/movement-wise.
I had a very beautiful workshop on Oum Khalsoum and know the OK history, what a big figure she is...there is a site in the www that lists all the songs with author and composer and the year the song was first sung by OK. I found a youtube clip with her singing Leylet Hob and the music I have for dancing is the well-known version - oh I can't check it here, I think the Cairo orchestra. I know that the composer is Mo. Abdel Wahab. I also know the Suheir-Zaki performance to Leylet Hob, it's on youtube.

Now for connecting with the music I need to know the lyrics and maybe find a recording of OK singing it...can you help me with that?
What else would you recommend? For me that thing is first, getting to know the song, listening to it...remembering what she says where...
But I never was taught what is important when you lay hands on the big themes...apart from obvious things like that's a thing one must respect, it's not about showing off technique or flashy effects : no fake-feelings...

Hi Nouria, please could you post the clip of Oum Kalsoum singing it? I've looked for ages without success.

I'll be following this thread with interest since I'm dancing to Leylet Hob for the first time on Thursday night.

It was by fluke that I found it. Spelling I guess. There is a lot with Arab writing so if you can enter a song name in Arab letters I guess you will find a lot more.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Ggw4uN-BUc]YouTube - Umm Kulthum - Lelat Hob[/ame]

Leylet Hob lyrics needed in English - Belly Dance Forums

I think you are on the right track...researching the song, watching clips of Um K...the latter, seeing and hearing the live originals, is so important because it helps you get a sense of how Arab audiences respond to particular parts of the song. In other words, it lets you know which parts of the song really carry the most emotional "weight".

I also feel that when dancing to an Um K song, it helps to find some personal relevance in the song. i.e. find a way that the emotions/feelings of the song connect to one of your own life experiences. To me, that gives your dance emotional authenticity, and that is just as important as technical skill when dancing to this type of song.

I have to be in the right "head space" to really dance an Um K song well. My performances to Um K songs have been some of my best AND some of my worst performances...the good ones were good because I was able to really lose myself in the song, but the bad ones were horrible because I was nervous/distracted/whatever and ended up reducing the song to a technical exercise.

Nisaa

One of my all time favorites!

Keep in mind that most versions of Leylet Hob (Night of Love) consist of the musical introduction in the beginning and not the part where Oum Khoulsoum sings. What version were you considering?

The opening section, which is the most popular is actually very energetic, unlike most OK songs. Frequently bands used it as an opening so in a way in kind of breaks the rules for OK songs.

A couple of years ago I taught a choreography to Leylet Hob from the Voice of the Stars version on Belly Dance with Om Khoulsoum. That version consisted of all 3 musical interludes with kanoon transistions and a drum solo tacked on the end. Lovely but long as it's over 13 minutes.

If you're dancing to a version that is including the lyrical portion of the song then you have to pay more attention to the emotion. My biggest pet peeve is a lot of outward movement like kicks and spins when the music is very emotional. For instance if I hear a long kanoon vibrato, I think that calls for a shiver, not a spin. It's a more internalized, subtle movement that is more appropriate to the emotion in the song.

The biggest thing I can tell you about dancing to an Oum Khoulsoum song is from a line in the documentary, "A Voice Like Egypt". In the documentary, one person interviewed compared her with an airplane. The imagery stuck in my head because my teacher who was Arabic always told me basically the same thing.

Start off slow, like you are taxing down the runway, then you take off and climb towards the heavens before coming back down.

I have a translation to the whole song on my website with the transliteration so you can match the translation to what she is actually singing (thanks Aasiyah!)

link here: Arabic Song Translations

Oh thank you! That's great, a translation! Yes and Norma, so the Cairo orchestra version it's only the introduction? I'm going to analyse what I have and compare it to what Suheir Zaki has for music.
Yesterday I was so disappointed to see that the clip I thought I found there is no singing in it and it sounds like the singing is going to start when the clip ends...Emma sorry, I came across it only two days ago and hadn't even had the time to listen to it.

The plane comparison is funny. I listened to the whole of "El Atlal" and it made me feel like I had been somewhere else after it ended. But that haunting voice of OK to me is like of a priestess or maybe a singer like Homer would've been who takes you by the hand to show you a different country with a different history, something epic and eternal, like you close your eyes and you travel through times and places.

The clip that you posted is to the second musical portion of the song.

I don't have the Cairo orchestra version but almost all the "dance" version out there are to the introduction of the song. Can you pm it to me?

I was on youtube trying to find clips without success. But on one OK song a poster stated that listening to her voice was like ascending to the clouds before coming back to earth. So the plane comparison is pretty apt.

I found this commentary on a rather long article about OK songs.


While Abdel Wahab restrained himself in "Inta Omry," some of his later pieces for Oum Kalthoum indulge in whimsical juxtapositions of disparate styles. He has a perverse penchant for including waltz passages out of the blue. "We Marat El Marat" (1970) which contains some remarkable, more or less purely Arabic instrumental passages, bogs down in a waltz section for no apparent musical reason. Yet some of Abdel Wahab's late works for Kalthoum should have appeal to listeners who are in the mood for wild contrasts. Some of his material for her from the late '60's and early '70's, "Laylat Hob" for example, is colored by a vaguely camp/psychedelic quality which might be interesting to fans of Nino Rota's sound-tracks (the same is true, with even more extreme examples, in other recordings of that era, and later in the '70's, by singers such as Abdel Halim Hafez and Warda).

When I was going to dance to this music with a live band, I watched the two different versions of Suhair Zaki dancing to the song (apparently she danced to it twice in the movie) over and over again. I had remembered DaVid saying something about Arab audiences looking for certain dance tropes in O.K. songs, what a famous dancer did to it - so I looked for particular things that Sohair did that appealed to me, and then I paid homage to her at times when I danced

My "Tribe"-friend Adel helped me to find the clips! Yes, write the thing in Arabic and you will find it!

Part I
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_lRzAd5L9o]YouTube - ‫ام كلثوم - ليله Ø*ب 1‬‎[/ame]

part II
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEa8hFu54AY]YouTube - ‫ام كلثوم - ليله Ø*ب 2‬‎[/ame]

Part III
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Om9bUrbqkGI]YouTube - ‫ام كلثوم -ليلة Ø*ب 3‬‎[/ame]

Part IV
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Om9bUrbqkGI]YouTube - ‫ام كلثوم -ليلة Ø*ب 3‬‎[/ame]

FYI - Here's a small youtube playlist of Leylet Hob performances I compiled while I was choreographing to the song.

YouTube - Broadcast Yourself.

Thank you all for your help.
@Asra: Now that I know the lyrics it makes a huge difference. The lyrics are great!
@Norma: thank you for quoting from that article.
Thanks to god I got the clips. The waltz starts with the second clip. I love that rhythm, it has been internationally successful, think about the south-american valses, they are so beautiful and so totally different from the European ones, the Viennese, the Tchaikovsky waltzes...it's sweet and nostalgic, well and if you listen to Arab music of all times you know that the Arab musical world has always been a part of the whole world, so the author shouldn't mind that Abdel Wahab brought in other, not genuinely Arabic, stuff.
@jewels thank you for the compilation. You should also like my teacher Shammadan, check her recent clip where she dances to Eshta ya Amar (enter Shammadan 2008 in youtube, she's wearing pink), you also will find the modern Egyptian moves in her that you seem to like, judging from your performance.