Saffron Shimmy
Bellies flat and ample, rolling or vibrating, camel-like torso undulations, shoulder and hip shimmies, chest thrusts, articulated arms and hands, circles and spirals, canes and even burning flames appeared onstage. And women performed Middle Eastern dance with a live musical ensemble and singer, which is uncommon.
Planet Arlington World Music series presented Saffron Dance in an evening of classical Egyptian-inspired belly dance on May 16. The well-received, seven-member El Anmari Ensemble, comprised of Moroccan musicians who live in the U.S. and Morocco, accompanied the dancers in a debut of original musical compositions of classically-styled Arabic music. Musicians played the nay (flute-like reed), violin, tablah, tambourine, def (rigg, frame drum), plus two keyboards that captured the oud (lute), horn and qanum (zither) sounds. Hatim Idar, a famous young vocalist, sang love songs (www.hatimidar.com) to swooning audience members.
The celebratory Saffron dancers, bedecked in rich, sparkling, colorful costumes custom-made in Egypt, conveyed exuberant joy in varying spatial patterns. In spite of scant rehearsal time at the Rosslyn Spectrum Theatre in Arlington, VA, the dancers appeared well-prepared. The theater lost electricity for a whole day, 12 hours cut out of tech preparation. The dancers had only two rehearsals with the musicians. Live music is “magic,” says Saphira, artistic director of Saffron. “It fills the air in multiple layers. There is the excitement of the unexpected.”
Saphira (Rachel Galoob Ortega) has been a professional Middle East dance artist and choreographer since 1996. For years, she earned a six-figure salary as an attorney while dancing and teaching part-time. But she gave up law to follow her real passion: classical oriental Raqs Sharqi ("belly dance"). She opened a school in 2007 (www.saffrondance.com). However, her law background comes in handy. It enabled her to facilitate Hatim Idar’s immigration to the U.S.
“My work is inspired by my interpretation of classical Egyptian technique and choreography,” says Saphira. “Though within that classical framework, I am focusing on taking more risks with my choreography through the shapes and intricacies of blocking and movement patterns. I strive to bring the less obvious elements of the musical layers and rhythmic elements on the dancers’ bodies to present new and fresh ways to experience these very classical musical selections.”
At the Spectrum Theatre, Saphira’s radiant presence filled the stage in her solos and group pieces. American Tribal Style (ATS; see www.fcbd.com), a belly dance technique that draws on renditions of the mother goddesses of mythic history and spirituality and ideas about the ancient Middle East, was performed by Eugenia Hu and Jen Hodge. This playful improvisational piece used a call and response pattern. The dancers’ zills (finger cymbals) accented the folk rhythms.
The music for Raqs Amera, reflecting a traditional Egyptian style, was created by a group of musicians from Australia who compose and dance with an Oriental artist named Amera, thus the name Raqs Amera. With captivating sinuous hand and arm movements and undulating torso, a tall, slender, sensual African-American dancer dressed in a white gown, Joy Dawson, performed a Nay Taxim solo improvisation.
To “Batwanes Beek” (“You Are Always with Me,” http://www.shira.net/music/lyrics/batwannes-beek.htm), Kostana’s hair and head movements were accentuated by clapping to the drumming. Her bourree steps and shimmying, arms swooping up her torso, added to the usual belly dance vocabulary as she interacted with the musicians in her solo improvisation.
Six dancers performed Raqs Al Assaya, a cane dance that originated in southern Egypt where men carried long sticks they used as weapons. In their dance, the men danced feigned fighting with these sticks. Women then began dancing with canes, twirling them, swinging them from front to back, and striking the ground, as a way of playfully imitating this men's dance.
“Law Be der,” written originally for Hatim Idar, focuses on a man dreaming about his greatest love, and when he awakens, he realizes his love and reality are, in fact, his wife. This is the first time the song has been performed in the U.S. in collaboration with American dancers.
In the dramatic Shamadan candelabra dance, eight women danced gracefully wearing their head candelabra with nine lighted candles. Each dancer had a backstage spotter on the lookout for problems, and there were four fire extinguishers on each side of the stage!
Dances certainly change over time. Belly dance in traditional Arabic cultures is by and for women to express their beauty and sensuality. Then, theatricalization took root, and belly dance appeared in cabarets, restaurants and theaters in various incarnations – including in Western ballets such as “Scheherazade.” In the 1960s, women in the U.S. repudiated earlier Victorian restrictions and began to flock to belly classes to express their sensuality. As Saffron Dance illustrates, belly dancing has become a theater art. And, as Najwa’s Ancient Rhythms company, based at the DC Dance Collective, illustrated in an earlier performance in Washington, D.C., “The Oasis: An Arabian Fairytale,” the dance form has even evolved into narrative.