Dance is a language and a culture
What language do you speak?
1. What feeling bring you that sentence?
" I want to cry so much. Because they kill but kill the culture, the music everything. I feel so disrespected. I don't know... I just feel crazy to have that feeling sometime. I don't know if it's normal."
Anonymous
2. Dance is a language
After watching a Ted video where Camille A. Brown explain in a documentary "A visual history of social dance in 25 moves" how dance is a language.
( https://www.ted.com/talks/camille_a_brown_a_visual_history_of_social_dance_in_25_moves).
Watching that video we were I asked question to the whole participant. This were my question: why dance is a language? What surprise you? What make the dance popular?
Several answer went out. But the most relevant point were the joy, the culture and the nature of the human being dancing. Dance is also a possibility to express and communicate. This lead to next reflexion what we want to communicate or express?
Thank you Dorothy Barker for the pictures
3. Dance is a culture
In that part of the discussion we focused on the bellydance world because this seminar it’s an exchange cultural with the Middle Eastern and North Africa culture. I had to introduction of my two speaker and guests. Rita was born in Lebanon and arrived at the age of 12 in USA. Her experience of bellydancing start when she was very young. She is a follower of bellydance show in the New-England area.
Mohammed Mejaour was born in Morocco and arrived a the age of adult in USA. He plays music for the dancer of New England area.
Some questions where asked to the guests by me and the audience.
The main question for Rita where: Why do you go watch dancer? When you watch a dancer what are you expecting to see? Do you have a question for you audience?
Mohamed get question about they what give him the joy when he plays for a dancer? And if he is missing his culture ?
The two speaker had also a question for the participant to the seminar:
The question for the audience from Mohammed was about the knowledge of the dancer about the art form: "If the dancer has knowledge about what he/she does? "
For Rita she was wandering « Why some people chose that form of dance » ?
The conclusion of this chapter is that dance represents people and culture. As a performer we must have knowledge and study a lot because we are ambassador of this culture. To avoid to offend the poeple of the culture it's seems important to think about the message that we want to share. This discussion
4. What's wrong with the culturelle appropriation?
The question asked to Rita this time was about what border her as a member of the culture?"What is dancing correctly for her and what is a god dancer?Mohammed had the same question about what border him as a musicien from the culture and what can help to elevate the art form?
The article "What’s Wrong with Cultural Appropriation? These 9 Answers Reveal Its Harm (June 14, 2015 by Maisha Z. Johnson) helps us to manage the reflexion. You can find the link for the article http://everydayfeminism.com/2015/06/cultural-appropriation-wrong/. We create groupe were each one has to illustrate one of the 9 answers.
5. What is the implication of the arabs in that process of cultural appropriation?
May be the arabic have also a part of responsibility in that process. That question was asked to Rita and Mohammed. We asked to the member of the audience if they have in their knowledge what is the part in the New England area teacher of the culture and if they had an idea of how many arabs perform in the New England area?
To asnwer to that question we watched a session of video from Karim Nagi ''Lauren of Arabia'' from 2009 conference at The Arab American National Museum in Deerborn Michigan, USA. The audience are fellow Arab artists from various fields. Karim Nagi discusses the Americanization of Arab dance in America, and how Arabs can reintegrate into the developement of their own art forms. Link to the video is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPvGkbRd6h0&app=desktop