Thread: Workshop Show Selections

While desperately trying to find a way to stop actually cleaning my house, I had an idea (you know, necesity and all that)...

Workshop show organizers typically want the dancers to stick to a time limit of about 5 - 6 minutes. It's hard to get everything in there, including a nice little drum solo to really show off hip work.

Listening to the recent downloads from emusic on my ipod as i was cleaning, i heard a FANTASTIC saiidi AND it had a rocking drum solo smack dab in the middle of it, AND is about 6 minutes long. Also, heavy on the mizmar, authentic music that in this area only dancers would really get. Perfect for a workshop show.

Since I also suck at remembering the titles of songs, bands, etc I thought it'd be nice to have a comprehensive list that I (and others) could refer back to.

Tada!!!

The actual point to this post is that I think it would be great if people would list their favorite songs that had the elements needed to make a great workshop show.

Namely:

No longer than 6 minutes

Has good entrance and exit (or short enough that one could add a finale to it)

Features a drum portion (or is good enough that it doesn't need it)

You actually know the name of the song, where to get it from AND the musicians/group/bands name

My entry is

Song: Aminti Billah
Length: 6:08 minutes
Musicians: Upper Egypt Ensemble
CD: Egypt: A Musical Voyage
Available: emusic.com

Samir Srour's CAIRO PLUS has a nice Aminti Billah with taqsim and drums followed by Ya Hassan coming in at just under 6 minutes. Lots of nice mix and match on that CD. There is an 8 minute Aminti Billah on CAIRO CARAVAN. Haven't heard the Upper Egypt Ensemble version, but I love Aminti Billah! Good choice.

Souzan

Originally Posted by Souzan

Samir Srour's CAIRO PLUS has a nice Aminti Billah with taqsim and drums followed by Ya Hassan coming in at just under 6 minutes. Lots of nice mix and match on that CD. There is an 8 minute Aminti Billah on CAIRO CARAVAN. Haven't heard the Upper Egypt Ensemble version, but I love Aminti Billah! Good choice.

Souzan

Thanks Souzan, will now have to buy even more music 'cause that's a hardship (peaks at the huge itunes list)

Well, I guess that only I thought this was a good idea...

What, no one has run across gems that they enjoyed performing at workshop shows?

I think it's a great thread! I'm curious to see what people say. Everything I like is more in the 8 minute range! It's hard to find really good music shorter than 6 minutes.