And the WINNER of the contest The Secrets of Egypt - Dance, Life and Beyond by Joana Saahirah is Shahrazad Roza (Congratulations, beautiful Roza!) What is the Magic of Oriental Dance? I think a combination of explainable and inexplicable things make Oriental Dance Magic;) The music is similar to the arabesque art: Gloriously intricate, symbolic, beautiful, and creative. The history of the dance includes so many references to the spiritual such as Sufism, Social, like the folkloric, and cultural that includes influences from Ballet to Saidi. My first class in Cairo illustrates the depth because it was a course on Sufism with the incredible Mohamed El Sayed. He pointed out that the spinning was to act as a lightening rod, and to stay grounded, in order to attract the energy of the cosmos, ground it out through the earth, and spin to turn it into horizontal energy and pass it to the people around. He pointed out that the colors of the costumes used to represent the freeing of different chakras and that there was a deep meaning to the dance. Dr. Mo Gedawwi points out that this dance was born to tie communities together and these two points go together. This dance is so much more than a performance, or an exercise. It is a deep voyage into self knowledge, the beauty and culture of a civilization and its people, the sharing of incredible energy, it feels to me to be like dancing in a sphere of light, it is paradise on earth. By Roza Shahrazad
Posted on: Fri, 09 May 2014 08:04:49 +0000