Thread: Lebanese cultural event: Debke and culture!

Hi everyone! This is my first time posting anything but I was recently asked to do a demonstration of Lebanese dance for a grade school cultural fair. Eek! I've only ever been a dance minion so this is the first time I'm 100% responsible for information and content. I don't have much information yet about the dance space but I was more curious about what information dancers have on this style. It is specifically about Lebanon, Lebanese culture and dance (costuming as well), and I recently had the privilege of studying with Francois Rahme of Caracalla who taught us traditional stage debke! I thought it would be fun to show some of the kids at the fair some of the basic steps and have them try it out. But I'd also like to be able to speak relevantly on the dance and where it comes from and what significance it has in the culture. Any information that dancers have or resources on where to get information would be most helpful! Books, movies, articles, any info would be much appreciated!
Thanks much!
Happy Shimmies!

Wow, sorry that your first post fell off the table. That doesn't usually happen. Perhaps some folks were concerned that since you don't have a posting history, you were coming out of nowhere and asking someone else to do your job for you--sometimes that's an issue.

Dabke (دبكة) is associated with the Levant, but it is not unique to Lebanon. If you look at the Wikipedia article, there's a lot of content about Jordan and Palestine Dabke - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Syria and the Sinai Peninsula have their own flavors, too. Actually the number of dabke flavors is nearly infinite. Each family/ethnic group/area may use their own foot patterns, accent moves, and musical preferences.

Roxxanne is one of the teachers who gives workshops on dabke Roxxanne.com. She likes to joke that the reason a dabke will often start with a long mawaal is to give people time to form the line when dancing at a party. (Apparently who stands where is a matter of great negotiation in some families.) Dabke is traditionally done in shoes, and she also says it's not a real Lebanese party if some woman doesn't break a heel off.

Dabke will be part of a traditional Levantine wedding when the event includes music and dancing. Usually this means social dabke, and the hosts may have a zeffa (wedding procession) in that style and additional performances for entertainment. Professional raqs sharqi dancers often use cane to dabke music. YouTube is full of clips of dancers at parties (both paid performers and guests) dancing, especially if you search in Arabic. You may notice that the clips of younger men dancing socially sometimes even incorporate the occasional hip-hop move. A certain amount of the masculine dabke style is about showing off how good you are, and since many young men are also fans of Western urban music, you can imagine how the culture of breakdancing found a kindred spirit there.

Lebanon dominates the dabke wing of the ME music industry, and their singers continue to record new music in this style and make videos. There are lots of those on YouTube, too, in addition to concert clips. Dabke music may have secular themes like love and loss, but some singers use this style to express political or nationalistic opinions, too. Probably the most important thing is that dabke is not some musty old folk dance that's only done for cultural presentations. It is very much a living art.