Last week in class we talked a little bit about the Mahraganat style of music and knife dancing. I am not an expert on this subject, what I know about it comes from one of my own teachers, Amina, and the clips that I have seen. I love learning about it though so I thought I would pass some examples along for anyone who was in class.
One student asked if it was men who did the knife dancing, and based on the clips I have seen, it is (except of course when belly dancers are doing it as performance). This clip, which as an appeal for funding for a documentary project, gives a really good, quick explanation and shows examples of the dancing.
Mahragan: The Story of Egypt's Street Dance
This scene from the Egyptian film El Farha shows a man doing knife dance to a more shaabi-style song by Abdel Basset Hammouda. I love this song.
It's less fancy, but I also really like this clip of an Egyptian man dancing here:
Getting back to the music style of Mahraganat, this article gives a nice overview. Though I will just write here that I have seen many different and sometimes opposing things written about it in different places. I guess the lesson is as always to keep observing and to keep trying to understand the subtleties :)
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I hope that everyone's week is off to a great start!!
Happy Dancing
xo Alisa
