Thread: Spinoff: Debke DVDs

The Dancing to Debke Music thread inspired me to revive an old question in the hopes that someone might have a new answer: Are there any good debke instructional DVDs out there? To say my debke is rusty would be an understatement!

The only one I know of is a Magdy el Leisy workshop DVD carried by Little Egypt, but the $50 price tag is a bit steep for me without knowing that the contents are really worthwhile. Can anyone comment on it?

I want to know too!

I really don't know of any. Adam Basma has some performances on his DVDs, and a few teachers like Roxanne Shelaby teach workshops on it (I think at one point she was mulling the possibility of making an instructional DVD for dancers), but most folks just learn whatever flavor of debke their local Levantine immigrant community does informally. There are some explanatory clips on YouTube like the one below, and lots of videos of theatrical and social groups dancing (search things like "Lebanese festival" and "Palestinian wedding" or "dabke"/"dabkat"/"dabka"/"debke"/"debka"), and like I said in the other thread, I've learned a lot from watching the crowds and backup dancers when Levantine, especially Lebanese, singers perform live. I posted a few clips over here http://www.bhuz.com/forum/music-trad...-tannoura.html to get started, and just keep clicking on the suggested links on the YouTube sidebar.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYxQMbsmPaw]YouTube - How to dabke[/ame]

Thanks, Tourbeau. I'll check out that thread for clips to add to my current playlist.

Any other leads?

Originally Posted by Ainsley

Any other leads?

You can also search on YouTube in Arabic with this term: دبكة

If the clips don't have dual English tags, you may be able to work backward to determine what country the dancing is from by running the text through a translating program, or by looking at the location of the poster on his or her channel page.

Thank you for the Arabic! Great suggestion. I'll resign myself to working from performance clips for now until a workshop or other resource comes my way.

Originally Posted by Ainsley

The Dancing to Debke Music thread inspired me to revive an old question in the hopes that someone might have a new answer: Are there any good debke instructional DVDs out there? To say my debke is rusty would be an understatement!

The only one I know of is a Magdy el Leisy workshop DVD carried by Little Egypt, but the $50 price tag is a bit steep for me without knowing that the contents are really worthwhile. Can anyone comment on it?

Amir Thaleb has one, he dances with male students, so of course it will be the male steps with masculine stylization. I am not good at debke, hardly know to dance it, but I picture seeing the male steps can at least give some idea.. I don#t know for sure though. Reminds me I need to find someone who can dance it. Strangely, no one I know does. I still enjoyed watching it, and it is so catchy, the music, the moves.. and the masculine stylization is rather beautiful to watch too :)

Originally Posted by dinavienna

Amir Thaleb has one, he dances with male students, so of course it will be the male steps with masculine stylization.

Thanks, Dina! Do you know anywhere to order it from? His website seems to suggest that you can only buy his DVDs in person at his dance school.

The video clip shows exactly what you'll be doing if you're in a debke line at a wedding or party. There are little differences depending on what town or village the dancers are from but basically its either fwd-back-fwd-back-kick-step or fwd-back-fwd-back-stamp-step. The fancy stuff is done by the 'boys of all ages' at the head of the line who are showing off, though its surprising to see the steps the girls can do in towering high heels without falling over.

If you're with the grannies it'll be step-shuffle-step-shuffle :-)