by Sadira In approximately 1974, a huge development in Oriental Dance in the Bay Area of San Francisco took place. It seemed to me that everyone was doing the same "Salimpour" style and ethnic/or cabaret dancing. Jamila was still performing with Bal Anat at the Renaissance Faire and everyone that I knew in Oriental dance believed the origins of the dance came from a priestess ritual from Pharonic times, and that the ritual was involved with the process of childbirth. This 'myth' still appears to be prevalent today for many California dancers, though there is not enough ethnological or Pharonic history to back this premise.
Around 1974,
Sula of Sula's Belly Dance World, decided to have the very
first "Belly Dance Convention" in the Bay Area. It was
then that everything changed. One of the dancers on the program
was a well-known Bay Area dancer named Trish St. John. Her performing
name was Hanan. She was announced as performing authentic dances
from North Africa, and Tunisia. The crowd was speechless when
she entered and danced to the mesmerizing sound of country/desert
music. Her first dance was a Tunisian dance
She also gave a little speech about each dance, the culture, their customs and style. Hanan showed pictures from the National Geographic Magazine from around the 1918s to the 1920s that first showed Ouled Nail women and North African women as they looked then. Trish St. John looked as if she had stepped right from the pages of the magazine! Personally, I got a strong chill up my spine watching these "new" reproductions of ancient tribal dances and subsequently, my life in dance changed forever. After her performance, she was engulfed by 100's of otherdancers asking her questions. Robaire Nakashian, a well-known Middle Eastern drummer in the Bay Area, called Rhea to tell her about this incredible new album that had come out. Rhea, being a dancer who not only had her own unique way of dancing and working around the dance politics at the time, was a true rebel who loved to discover new things to break up the logjams surrounding any current difficult situation. Rhea decided to produce a seminar with Aisha Ali, which was held at the Ramalah Hall in San Francisco.
Aisha Ali is a beautiful, petite woman, with jet-black hair and dark almond shaped eyes, who did everything with a dynamic, whirlwind presence. She began by talking about her travels, and studies and research in Egypt and North Africa. She said she was quite perplexed when she arrived in the Bay Area to hear stories that the origins of the dance were based on "birth rituals". She proclaimed that never in her research and travels had she ever heard such a thing, and she said that she believed it was some made up urban-myth here in the Bay Area. Aisha Ali demonstrated the dances from Tunisia, showed slides of the women, the people, their culture…also the Ouled Nail, and their incredible plumed regal visages. Here was the very first unveiling that there was credible study, historically authentic reproduction of ancient dance forms that still existed today.
Aisha Ali dressed in a modern day Ghawazee costume was dressed and dancing in a turtleneck sweater that was topped with a bright sparkling palette fringed vest, a skirt with rows and rows diagonally of fringe and beads and palettes, topped with panels that carried more palettes, on top of this she wore high-heeled shoes and nylons. Atop her head was a gaudy, jeweled bedecked fabric looking tiara (later we learned is called a Taj). The movements consisted of huge hip swings, with the skirt jumping up at the edges to expose more leg. Her finger cymbal pattern was a straight forward singles rhythm, and she would use foot stomping during part of the hip swings that carried the skirt almost over the front row. People were really whispering loudly now...(remember this was a time of wearing full pantaloons under skirts, dancing barefoot, and mostly costumed using coins).
Of course this was the talk of the area for months. Dancers were at odds debating whether this was a credible dance or something to be quietly pushed under the rug. However, it was too late, a revolution was starting. Dancers wanted more information, more challenges to what they were taught, more expression, and wanted the delight of actually knowing the origins of a dance's particular style. I was one of them and fell helplessly in love with trying to learn the authentic reproductions of dances of Egypt and North Africa from the best teachers throughout my career. It was and still is to me an exhillirating love. Aisha Ali
was instrumental in introducing our naive dance world to the larger
geography of the people whose dances we were trying to copy. Other
major contributors to this whole reproducing stylizing and ethnocultural
study were Leona Wood, from the Bay Area, Trish St.
John, Malea, Katerina Bourda and Alexandria
Parafina. They all made sacrifices to go to take classes diligently
from Aisha Ali, travel to Egypt and Tunisia/Morocco to learn from
the dancers themselves and unselflessly passed it along to others
who were entranced with "The Birth of the Ghawazee".
I take pride in the fact that I always studied riguoursly the
origins and traditions of this new type of dancing and for many
years carried forth with my dance troupe and my own dancing to
continue the reproduction as authentically as possible.
Instead we began to also see a form of bastardization and a "mish-mash", in which people would learn a few steps from any of these traditions, put on caftans, 19th century Ghawazee/Ottoman Turkish coats and dance a mixture of Beledi, Bay Area Stylizing and whatever else they could think of and mix it together. It was creative, not factual. It was like dancing with Armenian 6/8 rhythm, dressed in an Ottoman Turkmen coat, with movements befitting Egyptian Beledi. But there were the purists, and so today we are lucky to have the actual knowledge of these dance forms, costumes, tribal cultures and music, which is now disappearing from its source. California
is known for her earthquakes, but this was a "dance-quake"
that woke up a generation of dancers from being satisfied with
cookie-cutter performances to a new era for the dance world. Have a comment? Send us a letter! Ready
for more? 11-29-01
Nomads of the Spirit
by Sierra Suraci North Beach Memories! 1-3-04 Khairiyya
Mazin Struggles to Preserve Authentic Ghawazi Dance Tradition 2-11-04 Sirat
Al-Ghawazi, Part 1 5-16-04 Sirat Al-Ghawazi, Part 2 by Edwina Nearing 8-8-04 Sirat Al-Ghawazi, Part 3 by Edwina Nearing 9-12-04 Sirat Al-Ghawazi, Part 4 by Edwina Nearing 9-12-04 Sirat Al-Ghawazi, Part 5 of 9 by Edwina Nearing . 7-5-05 Sirat Al-Ghawazi, Part 6 by Edwina Nearing 9-5-05 Sirat Al-Ghawazi, Part 7 by Edwina Nearing 12-3-05 Sirat Al-Ghawazi, Part 8 by Edwina Nearing 1-9-06 Sirat Al-Ghawazi, Part 9 by Edwina Nearing 8-10-09 The Ghawazi: Back From the Brink of Extinction (For now)
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The
Gilded Serpent presents... 
To
demonstrate the climate of the times during the early '70's, I
will point out that the dance was divided into "ethnic"
or "beledi" styling, or nightclub dancing with a prevalent
showgirl and glamour presence. I remember 
