Hanguk Habibi

Nice, clear voice instruction which proceeds at a good pace. Definitely looking forward to more! http://online.azhaardance.com

A group of Saudi women have set up Women2Drive, a right-to-drive campaign, with a launch date of 17 June.

While all eyes are on Libya, Syria and Yemen, a different kind of rebellion is taking place in Saudi Arabia. A group of Saudi women have set up Women2Drive, a right-to-drive campaign, with a launch date of 17 June.

Last week one of its members, Manal al-Sharif, took to the streets and drove a car for a couple of hours, filming her trip (her father assisted) and posting it on YouTube. On Sunday, she was arrested along with her brother, who reportedly has now been released.

Read the entire article here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/may/23/saudi-women-driving-ban-rebellion

Details here.

So, there's hope for me yet! ;-D

http://www.danceanywhere.org/news/2011/dancing-makes-you-smarter/

Some resources I found on Facebook:

Page for belly dance classes in Seoul, South Korea
(with instructions to email bellydancekorea@hotmail.com):

Middle Eastern Culture, Dance & Art Club in Korea (MECDACK)

MECDACK holds monthly meetings/parties at Middle Eastern restaurants in Seoul. mmmm ....... Arab food! :D I really like the logo. According to the page:

MECDACK logo - the peoples of Korea and the Arab world united in harmony to celebrate Middle Eastern Arts.

Use of the sam-taegeuk (삼태극/三太極) is a specific reference to humanity. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taegeuk

Oops ...

One of my favorite scenes from Verdi's "La Traviata." I can't help but smile when watching this. :)

An interesting and informative paper by Joaquina Labajo. An excerpt is below:

Intensity and diversity of origins


Is flamenco a genre reminiscent of the Arab world that occupied the Peninsula, even of the Asian or Indian worlds? We say positively yes. But in no greater extent that other musical expressions in Spain, located in places where the historical presence for centuries on end of Arab communities was confirmed; positively yes, but in degrees hard to estimate when compared with other powerful and attractive influences to musical creation as those of the Jewish communities (Noel: 1964), oriental as well. In no lesser proportion we must account for the presence of Caribbean elements, contribution that in modern times can be easily identified since the 19th-century by its constant renovation above the more compact and complex fibre of the cultural corpus of flamenco.

The past is tightening around itself in the historical tradition of every culture with or without a musical written tradition. The socio-political and religious interests selectively re-paint, re-create or re-invent the most useful elements of the genre in the sense pointed out by Hobsbawn (1983). The situation in Spain at the end of the past century, at war with Morocco, induced many to carry out a cultural purification to rid it of any Arab contribution. This lead Pedrell to declare "their influence did not touch anything essential. They were the ones to be influenced" (Pedrell : 1987), while the Arabist Julián Ribera was silenced (Labajo : 1993). Against Borrow's passionate defence of the Gypsy people (Steingress : 1990) and his admiration of the "almost natural" pride (Borrow : 1970) shown by the lower classes of a nation that had defeated Napoleon, who also threatened Britain with commercial blockade, there is Schuchardt's harshness in Los cantes flamencos in 1881 :

"The Gypsy people have scarce poetic talent, and the primitive tracks of this art... emphasise the influence on them of the nations with which they live side by side".

In addition, his energetic disqualification of Borrow (Schuchardt : 1990) cannot be understood otherwise than in the light of the open hostility between Germany and Britain at Bismark's fall and the tensions in Germany itself regarding ethnic minorities in Central Europe. As regards Falla, his deep religious and independent mind explains his concern to suggest the proximity of Russian and Spanish popular music, justifying that "the popular, traditional, religious elements... are the same that inspired songs and dances to our people" (Stoianova : 1989) and his insistence in attributing Byzantine liturgical ingredients to cante jondo as a basic substance previous to Arab and Gypsy presence in the Iberian Peninsula (Falla : 1972), following the line of Menéndez Pelayo's religious-nationalist thought. As pointed out by Michael Christophoridis (1997) Falla's action was twofold : he defended and promoted cante jondo and emphasised the significance and weight of its contribution to universal art. This position was to be strengthened in Francoist Spain by Aziz Balouch's thesis (1955) that re-opened the defence of spirituality in cante jondo, linking it to the Indian-Pakistani "sufi" song diffused by the Arab-Muslim people, once more reduced to a mere channel of transmission of culture.

There are, unquestionably, objective reasons for us to accept the multiethnic and multicultural contributions to flamenco that have been defended up to now, but the crucial question remains to what extent and how deeply these diverse ethnic groups shared its construction. Against the difficulty of clarifying this issue, there stands, in a more practical approach, the myth well directed at the defence and support of many different causes, among which politics, in the past, and economy, in the present, were and are far from being the least important.

Besides the construction process of the musical creation of today on the basis of "elements of identity in the shape of stereotypes" (as evidenced by the phenomenon of "World Music"), perhaps, as it always happened in every process of musical creation, there is, at the same time, a disconstructive impulse in people to show a non-hermetic and mysterious identity, identity shaped with all its shades and complexities resulting from an intercultural meeting with poorer nations (which generally are readier to welcome the emigrant together with his musical heritage).

No doubt, there are in every musical expression, to a lesser or larger degree, the "untalkables" pointed out by Mantle Hood (Hood : 1993). However, the constant reference to the "mystery" made by most of the literature on flamenco is apparently due more to the evolution of its construction on the basis of fragmentary and unconnected studies by musicology and sister disciplines, than to the ill-understood "embrujo" of its "untalkable" origins.

I love YouTube. There is such a wealth of information there!

Here are some of my favourite Arab inspired make-up vids by MissChievous.

After 6 years, I've finally discovered that thrift stores are in fact alive and well in Korea. Back home we refer to them as Vinnies, after the charity group which run them (The St Vincent de Paul Society). Well, the chain here isn't run by Vinnies, but the Salvos instead.

http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2009/945/li1.htm

Classic Egyptian dance! The clip is from the film "al-sat nawa'am" (Madam Nawa'am).

Khaled Mahmoud gets Dandash on stage at AWS (Ahlan W Sahlan Oriental Dance Festival) in Cairo.

From Middle East Online:

Sixty years on, UNRWA still helping 4.6 million Palestinian refugees - victims of Israel.
First Published 2009-09-25

UNITED NATIONS - The international community Thursday paid tribute to the UN relief organization UNRWA marking 60 years since it was founded to help Palestinians caught up in the Middle East conflict.

"I wish there was no need for UNRWA. I wish there was no anniversary to mark and I wish that there were not 4.6 million Palestinian refugees in need of humanitarian aid," said Jordan's Queen Rania, who is also Palestinian.

"But, you and I know, the reality is very different. Theirs is a life interrupted... a life half lived," she told a ceremony marking the body's anniversary.

The creation of Israel in 1948 led to the expulsion of 760,000 Palestinians from the land, a third of whom now live in camps dotted around the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and Jordan.

"UNRWA's presence reminds the Palestinian people that they are not alone; that in their darkest hours, an international aid agency stands by their side, added the Jordanian queen.

"So, I want to record my deep gratitude to the tireless staff at UNRWA, people who have, and continue to endure indescribable hardship and danger, and risk their lives to help Palestinian refugees every day."

Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas also hailed UNRWA's six decades of work in the Palestinian territories and urged the international community to step up for support for the UN-funded organization.

"The humanitarian assistance provided by UNRWA to the Palestine refugees throughout the region has proven to be indispensable for the welfare of the refugees as well as for the stability of the region as a whole, including and especially during periods of conflict, crisis and upheaval," he said.

Queen Rania also warned that the agency was on the brink of collapse through lack of funds.

"If we let UNRWA collapse, it will be the youngest that bear the greatest weight," she warned.

"If we let UNRWA collapse, we risk fueling frustrations, losing focus for peace talks and destabilizing our region further. There is so much at stake. All of us depend on UNRWA."

Katherine Mansfield (1888 - 1923) is a famous New Zealand author.

I'm treating you as a friend asking you to share my present minuses in the hope that I can ask you to share my future pluses.

Risk! Risk anything! Care no more for the opinion of others, for those voices. Do the hardest thing on earth for you. Act for yourself. Face the truth.

Make it a rule of life never to regret and never to look back. Regret is an appalling waste of energy; you can't build on it; it's only good for wallowing in.

Scrubbing away the glitter, sweat, and make-up, one has time to replay and analyse the evening's events. Conclusion? *Shock, horror* I am satisfied, even happy.

Tonight I performed, and taught a short workshop (Oriental dance) at a salsa party. The audience was perfect: smiling, laughing, clapping, cheering, and loving every minute. It was a nice change from having to endure stoney faced analysers, glarers, and "OMG! I can't look at that..." hiders (who can be ignored, but it's nice to not have to do that). If only every audience were as receptive and appreciative as tonight's! (I guess the fact that they were dance enthusiasts helped. Plus they were probably a bit tanked by the time I performed. haha)

Let's hope for many more nights like tonight! :D