Hawiyya Dance Company & El-Funoun Palestinian Dance Troupe curated a series of online dabke classes, and held a series of conversations discussing dabke and their current collaboration, ‘Curfew’.
The performance was meant to be part of our 2020 Liverpool Arab Arts Festival programme, but was delayed. We will still bring it to Liverpool in partnership with MARSM UK in the near future.
We have written about ‘Curfew’ here.
Instead of the live performance, in 2020 members of Hawiyya Dance Company & El-Funoun Palestinian Dance Troupe wanted to reflect on dabke, its role in both contemporay dance and traditional Palestinian folkloric culture.
There are three conversations you can watch here…
1) What does Dabke mean to us?
2) Why is it important to fuse Dabke with contemporary dance?
3) What does ‘Curfew’ mean to us?
Participants
From Hawiyya: Shahd Abusalama, Sylvia Ferreira, Serena Spadoni, Nadia Sibany, Jamila Boughelaf, Miriam Ozanne
El-Funoun: Sharaf DarZeid, Mohammad Altayeh, Lure Sadeq, Khaled Abueram
Do you want to learn to dance dabke? Hawiyya Dance Company and El-Funoun Palestinian Dance Troupe have created a series of online dabke classes just for you!
Seven videos to take you through, step by step, the basics that any dabke dancer should master.
Lesson 1: Before you start – how to wear your keffyeh, make your own mesbaha, and dance with it!
Ever wondered how to keep the mesbaha spinning as you dance? Ever wondered how to tie a keffyeh on your head? In this video we will show you all you need to know to complete your ‘dabke look’ before you start dancing!
Lesson 2: Beginners class with Tayyara
These three videos are for beginners in dabke – those of you with no previous dabke or dance experience. We will take you through some very basic steps that you will be able to use to impress. We will then put them together in a sequence called Tayyara.
Lesson 3: Intermediate class with Shammalyya
These three videos are for intermediate dabke dancers – those of you who previously learnt Tayyara, or those who already have some dabke experience. We will take you through some more challenging but very fun steps! We will then put them together in a sequence called Shammalyya.
