Thread: Afghan dance

Is anyone familiar with Afghan culture?

Here’s my question: we have a lovely Afghan restaurant in our ‘hood. The owners are immigrants.

The male head of the family is the host/server, the female head is back in the kitchen. My dance partner and I would like to meet her. I’d especially like to ask whether there are dancers in the family, who might be willing to teach a westerner the local (to their Afghan home) dance.

What do you think would be a good way to approach this? I don't want to cause offense.

Originally Posted by Taj

Is anyone familiar with Afghan culture?

Here’s my question: we have a lovely Afghan restaurant in our ‘hood. The owners are immigrants.

The male head of the family is the host/server, the female head is back in the kitchen. My dance partner and I would like to meet her. I’d especially like to ask whether there are dancers in the family, who might be willing to teach a westerner the local (to their Afghan home) dance.

What do you think would be a good way to approach this? I don't want to cause offense.

Could you go have dinner there at a time when it is not busy, either before or after the usual dinner rush. Strike up a conversation and then express your interest in the culture and then lead up to your interest in the dance. Maybe take a few visits there to accomplish this, get to know them and let them get to know you. See what develops.

I had a friend who is Afghan, and I knew her family very well. You must be humble and modest when speaking and in your actions. The male is usually the head of the household, so you may have to approach him first. Every family is different, but I would try introducing yourself and approaching casual subjects before you ask a favor. I hope this helps!

We posted our responses at the same time! I agree, that is the best approach.

My best friend's ex-husband is Afghan and while he's now firmly ensconced back in Kabul, she and her daughter have a fair bit to do with the migrant Afghan community here because my friend teaches them English. We got a lot of the Tampa refugees.

What I do know is, the women will not dance in the presence of men, but you may get to see men dance in mixed venues. I've seen the men's dance, it's kind of cool and very macho. They use a kind of sharp shoulder accent and, in the dance I saw, a sort of stomping footwork. And hankies. They're all about waving those handkerchiefs. According to my friend and her daughter, when they have seen women dance, it's mostly delicate pretty hand movements and not a lot of hip work.

I would not raise dance right away; maybe as you get to know them. If you express your interest in the culture, and perhaps comment on the music they play, that sort of thing, I think that would be good. If you're lucky, you might get invited to a wedding! Afghan culture demands tons of guests, and if you are friendly with these people and they have, for instance, new migrants arrive with not many family, anyone they know who they like will get an invitation. I went to one such wedding and my friend and her daughter have been to lots.

One last thing that is going to sound dodgy, and overly inclusive: in my (limited) experience, Afghans are pretty wild and sometimes crazy people. I have never yet met, or heard personal reports of, an Afghan who is not passionate and dramatic. Afghan people can be super OTT friendly - you're their sister or their mother - and super OTT ready to fly off the handle - they will cut their throat before acknowledging that Family X speaks Pashtun and not Dari, for instance (another friend of mine seriously had to do mediation between two groups of students over this!) Afghans in my experience are nice, just reeeeallly dramatic and will often radically disagree with each other, since they are quite a mixed people with lots of lurking historical issues. These are people who everyone's tried to conquer and nobody ever manages. They're tough and idiosyncratic folks!

it sounds really interesting.
i agree that you should take the slow approach.

maybe start by asking about their food first [easy b/c it's a restaurant], than ask about their music , explaining your interest in their culture. if they are cool with that and you get a little friendly with the women, then maybe they will be more open about the dance. if you approach it like "i'm facinated with your culture and i am a student of cultural dance forms..." they will probably be happy to explain stuff to you.

Thanks, all. I had eaten there several times before they had to close down due to a kitchen fire. (Fortunately, they've just reopened.) I've spoken to the owner. Very nice man but *very* limited English. I'll make a point next time to bring up the music and try to get a convo going. Thing is, his wife almost never appears outside the kitchen, so I'm wondering if there's some kind of taboo about her being in public.

In any case, I'll go slow and see what happens. Good thing they have great food, so it's not exactly a hardship to go there!

She might just be really shy. If his English is limited, hers is possibly even more so. And depending on where they come from, and/or her age, she may be someone who was used to wearing a burqa in public (places like Herat are very conservative and the women there still wear burqas by preference, even though they no longer have to) and just feels weird being around strangers without it.

I'm sure that like any new migrants they will be really happy to make a local friend, in any case!

Not sure whether that is any useful, but there are a few nice Afghani tunes that make me wanna dance (before anybody wonders: Of course, it's not strictly oriental-style music). Some are on the CD Spice Box by Helm, and there is a CD called Orient-Occident or so by Jordi Savall and Hesperion that has several lovely songs that are labeled to be from Afghanistan. I wouldn't suggest performing in a restaurant to that music, but it may help to know a bit about music from Afghanistan when talking about dance, e.g. to draw similarities, or share that one likes it?

Some Afghani music and dance shares similarities to Kathak dance, a northern Indian style of classical dance. A friend of who lived in India and performs Kathak frequently works with an Afghani band. The music is very similar to Indian Kathak music, but with Afghani-Farsi lyrics.

Afghanis definitely like Kathak, but I think that dance and music project was born more out of the fact that a lot of Afghani culture was destroyed as violently as the figures in Bamian. Although it was a nice gesture and a unique idea, their project bred a lot of heated argument by Afghanis, Pakistanis and Indians regarding their respective cultures, borders and politics. Who knew what havoc an Afghani singer, an Afghani rebab player, an Indian tabla player, an American rocking the harmonium and an American kathak dancer in traditional Afghani dress could wreak?!

Kathak apparently works with that music, but Afghani dance doesn't traditionally consist of such footwork or other parts quintessential the classical Northern Indian dance. I thought it was a cool idea, nonetheless.

The most common style of Afghani dance is Mogli, which is most easily counted in sevens. It shares a lot in common with Bandari and other Irani dances, but it the music seems more intricate and thus, cooler

The national dance is the Attan. The time for attanment is usually at weddings. ..c:: I can't believe I just wrote that.

Maybe asking about learning these specific dance styles would be more effective than just asking for a general dance lesson?

You know there are traces of the Kathak dances in Flamenco? I find cross-culturalism so awesome!

Here are my faveorite Afghan (and Iranian) songs:

Janome by Leila Forouhar
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRzN1c5WD8I]YouTube - afghan song Janome[/ame]

and the remake of Zim Zim by Valy
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3OZH8ZtoV8]YouTube - AfghanChoice Presents Valy with his new song Zim Zim[/ame]

Tabitha! I've had those songs on my computer for ages, but I never knew country they came from! I thought they might be persian. You just made my day!