Modern Egyptian and Global Competitions

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Many American dancers hold Egyptian style up as a standard as a result of shifts that happened during the 80s. Cheaper travel and the hard work of the Egyptian tourism board, plus tapes of Egyptian dancers from the golden era, Lebanon's civil war, and changes in Turkey shifted the focus of dancers in the US from Anatolian areas to Egypt. But while dancers in the US were idolizing Egypt's golden era, many changes were taking place within Egypt's dance scene, especially during the 1990s.

There were social-political changes: a downturn in the Egyptian economy drove lots of workers to Arabian states, where they were able to send back wages, but also often brought back more conservative views.

Some of those Gulf state conservatives also targeted people, especially women, in Egyptian media to encourage them to dress and behave more conservatively. Economic troubles also mean fewer middle class people going to entertainment venues. There has also been the impacts of the Arab Spring and subsequent coup.

Additionally, have been technical changes: the introduction of drum machines and synthesizers have profoundly changed the music. Additionally, because of those social changes modern Egyptian dancers don't have as much money to hire big orchestras, so bands have been scaled back and the percussion become more dominant (drummers are cheaper so you can still get a big sound for less cash). The dominance of the percussion, in my opinion, has a lot to do with a sort of stubborn insistence to stick around despite push from conservatives. All of that musical change also pushes changes in the dancing, with heavier accents being needed to translate back the sounds.

Dina (also in the clip above) is considered one of the big innovators between the era of Fifi Abdou, Souheir Zeki, Mona Said, et. al, and the modern styling. She is outrageous on purpose, in some of her steps and in her costuming, but is a very savvy woman and an amazing dancer. It was about $125 US to see her show at the Mariot when I was in Cairo in 2018.

One thing to watch out for when looking at modern styling is: who does the dancer perform for? If they perform for other Egyptians, that will tell you something! If they perform for tourists and/or the competition/festival circuit, that tells you something else. For a while, it seemed Dina was the only name folks knew.

NOTE: FLASHING LIGHTS IN THIS CLIP:
Today, Sofinar is very popular with Egyptians, and her dancing has been pointed out as of a sort of resurgence of aspects associated with old Awalim style. She caused a bit of a scandal in the Western BD world a few years ago for her dancing and costuming, but I want to remind everyone, to paraphrase "a league of their own", there's no slut shaming in bellydance!

You'll probably recognize the sound in this clip as belonging to marhagan music. That translates as "festival" music, and is the progression of the shaabi music discussed in the "retro Egyptian" post. It can be bawdy, political, or have regular pop lyrics, but in addition to shaabi and beledi influences, there is autotune there hip hop influences.

Zara teaches about marhagan, she's an Egyptian (and British) dancer who has a degree in physics, but prefers the dancer's life. Weddings are still one the most important events to have a dancer at. While dancers might love their gigs at nightclubs, those often have prohibitions on filming the guests, so we don't get to see a big chunk of the dance scene in Egypt. 

For example, Aziza of Cairo (not to be confused with Aziza of Montreal) is able to post regularly on instagram because of her work in the 5 star hotels. This video shows her performing at a festival for dancers, but her usual market is dancing for Egyptians. 

You can see floorwork for Egyptians is making a come back, although to my knowledge it is not legal, there seems to be selective enforcement of most laws anyway, although I might just be behind the times in terms of whether the Egyptian ban on floorwork has been lifted. ​

It is common, in the sense that it goes in and out of fashion, for a dancer to have folklore dancers around her for part of her set. This is something that was often done by Nagwa Fouad, and has remained popular, on and off, since. 

Shaharazad is among the foreigners who dance FOR Egyptians. She has produced a few CDs and teaches in the US, usually while her regular gigs are closed for Ramadan.

Sahara Samara is a dancer who bridges the gap between dancing for Egyptians and for the international festival circuit. I imagine that, like any skilled entertainer, she tailors her performances based on her audience. ​

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Competition Style is a Global PhenomenonAlthough rooted in Modern Egyptian music and movement vocabulary, particularly favoring Egyptian dancers with a background in the folklore troupes as festival instructors, this style is very Russian influenced and sportified. Many SWANA folks look at these performances and see a caricature of their culture, so be careful who you emulate from this camp. Some of the teachers might provide authentic insight, and some will tell the students (customers) what they want to hear.

In addition to the sportification of a dance that, in the heart of its aesthetics, is not suited to rigid judging criteria, this style pulls in influences from ballet and ballroom dance. Additionally, the effort of competing foreign dancers to prove to the judges that they understand the lyrics of the songs they are dancing to over time lead to what many native audiences would consider OVERacting. Typically, even if it is a sad song, there would be a sense of "hey, we've all been there. Isn't it great that we got through it and are all here dancing together?" when performed inside of the cultural context. For example, this non-competittion, non-modern rendition of Ana Fi Intezarak on Lebanese TV contrasted with this theatrical piece to a much happier song.

Randa Kamal is very famous to tourists, but native Egyptians usually can't afford to see her shows in the 5 star hotels and Nile river cruises. She, like many modern stars, was folkloric trained first, which influences her footwork and styling. She is very popular on the international stage, particularly in the competition circuit. ​

The competition circuit creates a whole other world of hyper modern, ultra-technical dance dominated by Eastern European dancers, sometimes featuring technique that could keep a small nation of chiropractors in business. 

Sometimes this has the result of creating lovely theatrical pieces, like Mercedes Nieto's piece here. Sometimes it motivates dancers to go undercut Egyptian dancers so that they can add "danced in Cairo" to their resume, in hopes of making it big on the international festival/competition circuit, where they don't need to entertain and bring joy in the same way, their job instead becomes to make impressive choreographies. ​