The gypsy in all of us
October 25th, 2009 § Leave a Comment
My performance troupe Zaar Bellydance has just been booked for a gig end November, so we are all reigniting our inner gypsies while we ponder set lists, rehearsals, music and costumes.
Dancer - Latcho Drom
I have spent hours trawling though the catalogue of music we have amassed over the years, searching for new songs to inspire us, a journey accompanied by zills and ud, misma and tabla.
We are a tribal gypsy style belly dance troupe and so the very nature of our dance and costumes is eclectically influenced by cultures far and wide, past and present. Rajasthani, Banjara, Flamenco, Egyptian Bellydance, even Goths have their place.
Like gypsies, we borrow and integrate this richness and variety into something that expresses who we are in this moment, in this place, today. We have been playing with the idea of dancing to a didgeridoo track, music and movement seem to oddly but naturally fall together, the drone of the dig and snake arms in perfect harmony. It’s a respectful cultural borrowing that provides a big picture metaphor for integration and acceptance without a word being spoken.
Whilst the ancient nature of this dance form, as reinvigorated by Fat Chance Bellydance in San Francisco, is sometimes an abstract concept, it is through the amazing film making of Tony Gatlif, a French/Algerian gypsy himself, that I so often realise the privilege afforded me to dance in the shadows of this history.
In particular his films, Latcho Drom and Gadjo Dilo, are glorious and timeless expressions of gypsy culture. Other films like Exils, Vengo and Swing are sensitive and detailed accounts of lives that are simultaneously diverse yet mythically familiar to us all.
Oh, to be able to barrel turn like the young woman in this clip!
