![\"Carl](\"http:\/\/www.gildedserpent.com\/art57\/graphics57\/carl-Titanya.jpg\")
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Introduction<\/p>\n
In an era before recorded Arabic music was readily available and choreography-based instruction became emenent, Oriental dance (often referred to as \u201cRaqs Sharqi\u201d) was an improvisational art–performed almost exclusively to live music. <\/p>\n
The Oriental dancer (as an improvisational artist) performed in collaboration with live musicians, and the shared goal of both dancer and musicians was to create authentic shared emotional experiences (known as \u201ctarab\u201d) both for themselves and the audience. <\/p>\n
Najia Marlyz<\/a><\/span>, a veteran Middle Eastern dancer and writer who performed to live music at the Casbah Cabaret<\/a><\/span> , O Aitos, El Morocco<\/span> and many other public and private venues in the Greater San Francisco Bay Area (1970s until the early 1990s) recalls in her article \u201cThe Taxim from a Dancer\u2019s Perspective: Tarab or Tyranny?<\/a>\u201d (2006, The Gilded Serpent): <\/p>\n \u201cThe true collaboration between the dancer and the musician playing the taqasim creates a superior performance. Similar to the dance that emerges along with the drum solo, the dancer expresses what she hears and the feeling (tarab) it produces.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n The important traditional concept of tarab as an authentic emotion-based response to Arabic music is being lost within western-based Belly dance communities because the focus of most instruction today is on choreography and technical dance drills. Therefore, our intention in this article is to reintroduce dancers to the nearly-lost art of musical collaboration and improvisational dancing with taqasim. (1)<\/p>\n What is a \u201cTaqasim\u201d?<\/p>\n\n