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Asmahan
first saw the sword dance performed by Bal Anat
at the Renaissance Pleasure Faire in San Francisco. Jamila
Salimpour had researched the history of Oriental Dance and
had an extensive library of books. She based the performances
of her dance troupe on the authentic culture of Arabia.
Napoleon
led
an Expedition to Egypt in 1798, he brought intellectuals
and scientists to record the facinating culture he discovered.
The result of this expedition was a four volume masterpiece of
research, Description de L'Egypte, compiled by
Devon. In it was the architecture, lifestyle, costumes,
customs, and content of the culture of Egypt.
Jamila wanted to create a look for Bal Anat that would be that
of the dancers before any influence from the West. She called
this Pre-Napoleonic style. This meant using the fabrics,
materials, jewelry, hair style, make up, instruments, and look
of Middle Eastern dancers as recorded in their true cultural
identity.
Many
other travelers, painters, poets, and historians went to the
Middle East at this time and wrote descriptions of the dancing
girls they encountered. Jamila's idea for Bal Anat was to make the costumes,
dancing, and music based on the writings and paintings of the
Orientalists.
One of the most famous paintings from this time was by Gerome.
It is called La Danse du sabre dans un cafe. It
depicts a dancer performing while balancing a sword on her head.
Gerome saw this dance in Cairo and did the painting in 1870.
(The mystery and impact of this painting is overpowering. To
see this painting will change any artists life. It is so realistic
you feel it is alive.) There is no written description of this
dance in historical accounts or travelers journals. So this painting
inspires one to imagine what this dance looked like.
Asmahan
saw Rhea perform this fabulous dance with Bal Anat, balancing
a sword on her head. This was this dance that really impressed
the audience and inspired her to become a dancer. Rhea's style
was more Turkish and Greek and was very fast. Although Asmahan
studied extensively with Jamila, the sword dance routine was
not taught in class.
Asmahan
now was a professional dancer and was performing at the Casbah
and the Greek Taverna. She was designing and making
costumes for a Persian import shop, the Lion and the Sun,where
she purchased silver Persian coins from the Shah of Iran. Drilling
all the coins and making body jewelry was gruelling work, but
she made two coin belts and two bras. She bought a balancing
sword for $100.00 and began to teach herself how to balance and
dance with it on her head. Asute fabric, lots of authentic Arabic
jewelry, and the coin belt and bra were used to make a costume
for this dance. It was based on the painting of the Ouled
Nile, Ghawazee, and Beduoin tribes. She based
her routine on what Rhea did and practiced at home for two years,
just learning to walk with the sword on the head took months.
One weekend she danced at the Renaissance Faire but she was not
a member of Bal Anat.
After
performing in San Francisco for three years, she sold all her
possessions and left to dance professionally in London. The most
prestigious places to dance in the world were: Cairo,
Beruit, London, Paris, Istanbul,
Damascus, and Dubai. The star dancer, or vidette,
did a costume change and most of them danced with a cane, called
the Assaya routine.
Asmahan
danced in all the most prestigious clubs in London. The
top musicians from all over the Middle East were playing in the
orchestras. It became an opportunity to research the history
of the sword dance. The musicians come from families that have
been musicians for generations. They are like castes, where a
skill is a family tradition. In Cairo they come from the
Mohammed Ali area. When asking a musician to speak to
his grandfather about his knowledge of the existance of the sword
dance, this meant that some of the information could go back
150 years. After two years of inquiring about any memory of a
dancer balancing a sword in a dance routine, Asmahan came to
the conclusion that this was a lost dance, in terms of being
performed in Cairo for at least the last hundred years. An Iraqi
singer knew of a double dagger dance that Iraqi dancers did,
but they did not use large swords or balance them on their heads.
When she showed them the painting by Gerome they were amazed
by it and said it looked fantastic and she should do it.
From all the information gathered, it seemed that the most likely
source of this dance had been that it was a tribal dance performed
by the gypsies. The Beduoin, Ghawazee, and Ouled Nail were the
most famous of the dancing tribes but this did not fit their
style. The Ottoman armies had tribes of gypsy armourers
who followed the soldiers and repaired their swords, shields,
spears, helmuts and armour after battles. It probably occured
that at night when the music and dance was performed around the
campfire, the gypsy girls danced with the swords and did acrobatic
dancing and balancing that must have been a delight and pleasure
to behold. The Iraqi and Saudi men still have sword
dancing in their folklore tradition. In the Middle East there
is a tradition of dancing while balancing something on the head.
This can include a tray, pot, glass, or candleabra. It is very
possibe that balancing a sword would be a likely dancing skill.
It would have been from a mix of cultures included in the Ottoman
Empire. This would be Turkey, Arabia, Egypt, Syria, and North
Africa.
While performing at Sultan's Palace, Asmahan worked
with Rais Metqal Qenawi Metqal. He was a virtuoso in his
field, the renowned rababa of Les Musicians du Nile.
(They are the most famous group of Saidi Musicians from Upper
Egypt, who have traveled all over the world as ambassadors of
Egyptian Folkloric Culture). His son Hagag was only nine years
old and was playing tabla for the group. She asked Metqal to
help her with information about what this dance must have been
like. He had never heard of anyone doing this dance in Egypt.
But by the very nature of the sword the dance must be a bit of
Martial Arts in structure. The Saidi Cane Dance the men
perform in Upper Egypt has elements of combat and striking
the stick. He thought it would look good to have these elements.
Asmahan brought in her sword and showed him her ideas for the
format. Her sword was very slightly curved, with a blunt but
pointed end, and with a staight handle. It worked perfectly substituting
it for the traditional assaya, and using the Saidi Music.
So the structure of the dance was taking shape. Asmahan did her
own choreography. She used some of the moves she had seen the
assaya dancers use, some of the martial arts of the saidi men,
and some improvised dance steps that just seemed natural. The
entrance would be to the Hamama Saidi, which had dynamic
movement, tabla accents to hit the floor, and a twirling part
which with a sword was very impressive. The next section was
a Taksim to do backbends and then go on to her knees, placing
the sword on her head very dramatically. Then followed acrobatic
floorwork, doing isolations, hip shimmies, lying on her side
with arabic undulations, and then turning completely over. While
sitting on her knees, she them put on a pair of finger cymbals
and stood up with the sword on her head. Now the fast Saidi Music
started and she began to play sagats, and started to dance with
hip taks and as much movement as possible with a perfectly still
and balanced head position. The finale was spinning whirling
dervish style with taking the sword in two hands and continuing
a centrifugal spin with a drama stop.
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