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Body Language

Theatre, Stand up Comedy, Belly Dancing

BODY LANGUAGE is a complex assemblage of gestures, attitudes, facial expressions. It is a system of communication beyond words. Culture is expressed through the body in everyday life and in the arts.

BODY IMAGE is how one perceives of his/her body, and how this perception creates a mental image of the body. Misconceptions of the body image are culturally bound. They are expressed in social environments as well as in artistic practices.

Body, Signs, Gestures...Identity

Arabic Sign Language

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXV75Yah47I

Body Language Shapes Who you are

http://www.ted.com/talks/amy_cuddy_your_body_language_shapes_who_you_are.html

Body Language and Masculinity

Wael Kfoury (Lebanon)
Kathem el Saher (Iraq)
Khaled Aboul Naga (Egypt)

Nancy Ajram (Lebanon)
Cheikha Rimiti (Algeria)
Souad Hosni (Egypt)

Bodies on Stage

Popular Theatre

Major Genres:

Comedy

Stand up Comedy (Diasporic genre)

Brief History of Theatre in the AW

  • Introduced in the late 19th c.
  • Took off after Independence (1950s).
  • In Egypt, was given a boost following the spread of TV in the 1960s and 70s. Popular commercial theatre spread in the 1970s (up to 50% of the audience is from the Gulf). State sponsored theatre is political and experimental.
  • In Syria and Palestine, forms of political theatre.
  • In Morocco, traditional form of theatre such as al-Halqa centers on mythical and religious stories.

Features of Commercial Theatre

  • Slapstick style
  • Content matters little
  • Shallow political references
  • Song and dance (cabaret style)
  • Audience targeted: Egyptians and tourists (especially Arabs from the Gulf)

الرقص الشرقي

Oriental Dance

Belly Dance

Baladi Dance (local Egyptian)

Belly Dancing

Trade or Art?

Choreography
How do they “make their bodies sing”?

1- Isolation (balance between motion and stillness).

2- Multilayered movements and steps layering.

3- Gravity center and coordination.

4- Posture and artistic composition.

Hammond’s Input

  • Dance is part of the people’s social expression.

  • 1940s: Golden age of dancing.

  • 1970s: The trade has shrunk (religious conservatism, economic impoverishment, foreign dancers).

  • Western infatuation with belly dancing (danse du ventre) from Napoleon to the present times. Now belly dancing is a global dance cult

The Stars (1920s)

Badia Masabni

(1878 – 1970)

Modernized the dance (costumes and veils, arm movements, movements on the stage, choreography of the classic belly dance)

Opened her own club for “raqs sharqi” (newly coined form and expression)

The Stars (1940s)

Taheya Carioka

(fusion of baladi and cabaret style)

And

Samia Gamal

(classical ballet, high heels, new improvisations, full use of stage)

The Stars (1980s – 1990s)

Dina (provocative) and Fifi Abdo (vulgar)

Karin Van Niewkerk, A Trade Like any Other, 1996

  • Entertainment according to Egyptian performers is a trade like any other.

  • From the Western point of view, female belly dancers are symbols of the “sensual East”.

  • The status of a group and the status of a profession: dishonorable groups are disreputable because they practice belly dance profession.

Entertainment, Gender and Islam

Certain Muslim scholars forbid or restrict female professional entertainment because :

It is sensuous and seductive (enticing);

It is associated with illicit activities (drugs, alcohol, lust, prostitution);

It diverts the attention from devotion to God;

springs from play and sport ( male dancers in religious settings);

“The three main contexts of Egyptian entertainment are, first, the circuit of weddings and saint’s days celebrations; second, the nightclub circuit; and finally, the performing arts circuit, the performances in concert halls and theatres, on radio and television, etc.” (Van Nieuwkerk, 13)

Let’s remember: pop culture makes no
distinction between high and low cultures

Um Kulthum

the Diva of Arab singing

inspires belly dancing music

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IM2zrychbKk

Another Take on the Subject…

“ Belly dancing experiences public denunciation as a shameful practice, but the shame does not affect those who are entertained by it, and it remains despite everything a national obsession.” (decent and shameless women)

“To Europeans, the belly dance typified the supposed fundamental differences between the rational West and the backward, emotional, and self-indulgent culture of the East.”

(Andrew Hammond, 190)