![\"Morocco](\"http:\/\/www.gildedserpent.com\/art51\/graphics51\/MarywMorocco.jpg\")
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\u201cNew York City in JANUARY \u2013 are you crazy!?\u201d my husband asked me when I told him of my brilliant plan to expand my knowledge of folk dance by attending Morocco<\/strong><\/a>\u2019s 2010 Winter Intensive, \u201cit\u2019s COLD!\u201d Nevertheless, January 7th he was on the plane right next to me on our way north.<\/p>\n Morocco\u2019s Winter Intensive is one of two semi-annual events she holds in her studio in New York City. The workshop covered both modern and traditional Moroccan Schikhatt, Tunisian dance and an overview of the Zar<\/a> and Guedra rituals. The workshops were from 9:30 a.m. – 3:30 p.m. every day with most of the time devoted to learning choreography and the rest being more lecture based.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/p>\n Once everyone found their way to Morocco\u2019s Manhattan studio on Friday morning, Karen<\/strong> \u2013 one of Morocco\u2019s students and instructors \u2013 began the warm up. Usually I\u2019m not a fan of workshops with long warm-ups, but I appreciated it in this situation because (a) it was cold outside and (b) the workshop was five hours long so an extended warm-up was hardly cutting into learning time. It was also designed in such a way that we reviewed technique we would need for the day\u2019s choreographies and in the subsequent days, reviewed what we had learned in the days before.<\/p>\n Friday we learned a modern Schikatt choreography \u2013 which was a lot of fun, my student troupe learned this choreography (see picture) \u2013 and watched videos of Schikatt footage Morocco had taken in her travels and saturday we learned a more traditional Schikatt choreography.<\/p>\n Schikhatt (a Moroccan word meaning "wise woman") is a dance performed before weddings at bridal parties as a way to "educate" the bride in the movements she would be expected to mimic on the wedding night.<\/p>\n The dance involves the pelvic region more than Oriental or Raqs Sharqui styles and is typically in a loose caftan with something tied around the hips. Household items like handkerchiefs and long scarves may be used as well when dancing schikhatt socially at parties or with friends.<\/p>\n Sunday we learned a Tunisian piece and we spent Monday going over the Guedra and Zar rituals as well as just chatting with Rocky (Morocco’s nickname) about the material we\u2019d covered, reviewing steps, and watching a few more videos.<\/p>\n \nTunisian style dancing is often performed on the balls of the feet and involves many twisting movements of the hips and more earthy than the oriental styles and also performed in a caftan and not a two piece costume.\u00a0 The Zar is not a dance style at all, it is a ritual! It is technically prohibited by Islam and so Zar practitioners are becoming less common and harder to find although they still exist. The ritual is designed to cleanse the soul of bad spirits. The ritual is led by a singer and one or two percussionists who play a steady rhythm. There is no wild hair tossing in the zar as there is no specific "movement" that corresponds to the Zar as it is a ritual and not a performance dance, although many dancers do present stage versions of the ritual.\n<\/p>\n The Guedra ritual comes from the Blue People of the Tuareg Berbers<\/a> from present-day Morocco. Both men and women can participate in the guedra ritual, but the main person (the Guedra) can only be female. A drum is played and everyone involved claps and chants along. <\/p>\n The purpose of the Guedra ritual, and what makes it unique, is that it is simply designed as a way to share love, light and good energy with all present.<\/p>\n Each participant was provided with a copy of the music, choreography notes and cultural articles about the dances, which I appreciated as I could spend the workshop time focusing on learning rather than madly scribbling notes I may or may not be able to decipher later. This is a practice that seems to be growing in popularity among workshop instructors and I hope it continues.<\/p>\n \u00a0While only a brief overview of the different topics covered, the Intensive covered what one would expect a workshop would do \u2013 provide education in a particular topic or set of topics, giving the attendees additional knowledge in said subjects they can either incorporate into their own dance or not. While these topics are not necessarily something I would expect to add into a restaurant set or what I would perform at a party, I went to the event with no prior knowledge of Schikhatt or Tunisian dance. Since this dance is more than just a set of movements and we need to, as performers, understand a bit of the culture from which our dance originates, I did finish the intensive feeling a bit more educated about the various styles and am more likely to seek further instruction when a dancer who teaches about these styles is in the area.<\/p>\n Have a comment? Use or comment section at the bottom of this page or Send us a letter!<\/a> Ready for more?<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n \t\t\t<\/p>\n Schikhatt (a Moroccan word meaning “wise woman”) is a dance performed before weddings at bridal parties as a way to “educate” the bride in the movements she would be expected to mimic on the wedding night.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gildedserpent.com\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1743"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gildedserpent.com\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gildedserpent.com\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gildedserpent.com\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gildedserpent.com\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1743"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.gildedserpent.com\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1743\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gildedserpent.com\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1743"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gildedserpent.com\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1743"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gildedserpent.com\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1743"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n\u00a0<\/p>\n![](\"http:\/\/www.gildedserpent.com\/art51\/graphics51\/MarySchihatt.jpg\")
\nMagnolias performing the modern Schikhatt at a local festival (it was WINDY!)
\n<\/h6>\n![\"use](\"http:\/\/www.gildedserpent.com\/graphics\/acommentbox.jpg\")
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\nCheck the "Letters to the Editor<\/a>" for other possible viewpoints!<\/p>\n\n\n
\nA community does not operate in a vacuum and there is no room for cattiness or drama if the community is to be effective and truly benefit the area as a whole<\/li>\n
\nInternational Bellydance Conference of Canada April 23, 2010 at the Hungarian Canadian Cultural Centre in Toronto,Ontario, Canada. Performers include:
\nRaks Sahara, Ashira, Maryfar, Laura Bellydance, Daluah, Tribe Maya Fire, Sa’Diyya, Monique Ryan, Sabaya, A La Nar, Sarah Skinner, Akimi, Earth Shakers, Roshana Nofret, Sofia & Chanty, Ebony Qualls, Danza Della Luna. <\/li>\n
\nHowever, I do believe that belly dance is able to attain such vitality and complexity in the modern world precisely because it\u2019s embroiled in serious cultural and personal contestations. It is precisely clashes of aesthetic values, conflicting paradigms of sexuality and gender, and economic as well as political inequities that strike the dance\u2019s most beautiful notes.<\/li>\n
\nShe was fortunate, she says, to grow up in a Roma (Gypsy) community rich in dance and music \u2013 the Fatih district, which houses the Sulukule, famous for its entertainment and considered the oldest Roma settlement in the world.<\/li>\n
\nI\u2019m breathing very hard, and can tell I\u2019m very, very shiny and red, even under the stage lights, but I think he likes me. And he is completely dumbfounded that an \u201cAmerican\u201d girl is auditioning for a job as a \u201cDanseuse Oriental!\u201d I know I\u2019m way too fat, but thank God I\u2019m a belly dancer, and apparently a novelty, because I couldn\u2019t get away with this in any other dance form! Fortunately, I\u2019m only 19 years old and my excess flesh is young, tan and firm!\u201d<\/li>\n
\nIn America, and evidently elsewhere, we dancers seem to have a voracious appetite for new steps and movements, so like hungry chipmunks, we have grabbed all we could stuff into our cheeks of Turkish and Arabic steps and gestures, resorting to incorporating and mixing of Saidi, Kaleedgi, Blue Guedra, Ghawazi, etc. We\u2019ve chewed all of them up together and spit them out and found that they have not sufficiently nourished us. <\/li>\n
\nMy advice which I tell all of my students is to study ballet at a beginner level for a few months. It will help your lines very much, so you have a nice bodyline without worrying about it and you can focus on learning the choreography and Oriental movements of the teacher in front of you. <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"