Julia Went
Holland
Email: juliazafira@zonnet.nl

For many years I have wanted to go to the Lebanon to learn what I consider one of the most beautiful styles of oriental dance .For me the Lebanese style captures the fieryness of Turkey and the refinedness of the Egyptians,

This is not surprising as geographically Lebanon sits between Turkey and Egypt encompassed by Syria and Israel to the south,

Lebanon has a turbulent and multi-cultural history. In her speech Amani told us It was the historic home of the Phoenicians, traders whose culture flourished there for more than 2,000 years, there are also monuments to the Pharonics, Greeks, Roman, Arabic, Crusaders and the Ottomans, there are even references to the ancient Hellenistic culture that has all but disappeared except in Lebanon, it is no wonder then that it is such a cultured place.

Lebanon is modern and Beirut is a fast moving lively city with lots of places to go and a great night life the people are multi lingual and hospitable,

It was known as the Paris of the East, a pearl of the Orient until the civil war from 1975-91, but now once again it is taking its place as a busy metropolis.

Lebanon has some of the greatest singers and composers of the Middle East from the great singers Farid El Attrache and Firouze, George Wassouf and Nancy Ajram, to Rafic Hobika and the Rahbani brothers who composed some of the great oriental belly dance music.

Amani took us to a shop in Chtoura That was owned by Badia Masabni the great dancer of the 1920's who opened the first Cabaret in Cairo called the Casino Opera where the great stars danced such as Samia Gamal and Tahia Carioca. Badia came back to her country Lebanon in the sixties and pass out beginning 70's, she founded many establishments then and this shop is one of them, There we snacked and admired old pictures of her. When I first started Oriental dance I came across a video of the late Nadia Gamal. I struck by her vivacity and strength as a dancer, then I started to hunt for other Lebanese dancers and so I came across Amani I was immediately

taken by her elegance and sophistication. So I was happy when finally I got my chance to go to the Lebanon .

I arrived late at night on 13 June and was glad to be meet at the airport and taken directly to the 5 star Regency Palace Hotel at Adma (a short distance from Beirut )

The next day I registered and meet the other participants of the festival. Amani also came to welcome us .I found Amani had the same elegance that I admired so much in her videos she was also a very warm, friendly person and took time to introduce herself to all of us.

I had registered for all the workshops and was looking forward to starting the first was 09.00 the next morning. But before that we were treated to a show with a buffet of canapés that evening in the theatre of Caesar's Palace. Where we saw a performance from the various teachers (or their Students) who would be teaching us over the next week, Amani also gave a speech over the aims and the goals of the festival; she stated that Oriental dance has spread so far over the world and into so many different cultures, she feels that as a leading dancer in this field it is her duty to preserve identity of the dance whilst improving and devolping it and while technique is very important it alone is not sufficient to produce a valuable art form, because the roots of Oriental dance took birth and flourished in a romantic and spiritual era and when we explore our inner feelings from an Oriental perspective we will be able to understand more fully the emotional meaning and mood of the Oriental dance and it's music, Amani stated that her main theme of the workshops and the festival was to help dancers from all over the world from beginners to professionals to look deep into the soul of Oriental dance, and find out what they may have missed as different and new Oriental and folkloric styles emerge,

Amani then introduced us to the various Master teachers;

Gerard Avedissian, Georgette Gebara, Sami Khoury, Francois Rahmeh, Mounir Malaeb,

Samira Haddad, Natasha Devalia, and of course Amani. I enjoyed most of the performances especially the folkloric dances and the adaptation from ballet to Oriental from a student of Mme Gebara. (Which I thought she translated beautifully ballet to oriental)

The next morning after a large buffet style breakfast, we got work the first workshop was from Amani, we did a historical sword dance. Swords have been used as an accessory, for court dancers for centuries and Amani gave an interesting workshop on holding the sword (in dance) and turns with a small choreography, the other workshop that inspired me that day was from Sami Khoury who has tremendous charisma and gave the Lebanese Dabkeh (rhythms & steps) workshop it was fast, furious and fun a great way to end the first day.

The next day Amani took us on our excursion to the palace of Beiteddine (the Dar el-Harim (women's quarters) has a beautifully preserved hammam and in the stables is an amazing collection of Byzantine mosaic floors, to the vineyards of Kasara (and great wine tasting!) and then a wonderful lunch over looking the ruins of Baalbeck.

Baalbeck (named after the Phoenician god Baal) is really one of the most impressive sights that I have seen, the Romans made it a major worship site to the god Jupiter and it is one of the largest acropolises in the world. I am a great lover of temples and antiquities and feel always a great sense of spiritual wellbeing in these places. It was here that I discovered Amani has also a great love and sensitivity to culture and

heritage, and it was here that I learnt how much effort she had put into this festival to share with us this culture and heritage,

The next we had some great workshops, I found Amani's El Omer clip dance choreography to be fun and uplifting her we saw her wonderful style of dance and learnt some of the moves that are her trade mark. Georgette Gebara (a great grande dame) showed us an amazing video of her self in the 50's of how she brought oriental dance into ballet and inner expression this she shared with us in choreography that made us use the choreography as expression of identity. Sámi Khoury gave another inspirational workshop on expressing inner feelings, he also showed us some great moves in that vibrant Lebanese style using lots of space with turns, drops and arabesques that is needed if you want to adapt Oriental dance to a large stage, my favourite workshop of the day was from Gerard Avedissian, who gave me invaluable information on how to bring Oriental dance to the theatre, it was wonderful to have a one on one analysis on how to improve our stage presence and technique. That night it was time to go to down town Beirut to the gigantic Virgin record store, so with some of the girls we went shopping there was an amazing collection of CD's and DVD 's (reasonably priced). It was easy to spend a few hours there (I was happy that it stayed open to really late).

On the last day Natasha Devalia gave a workshop on the Bollywood style (and some fun moves that you could mix in an Arabic pop choreography) and an introduction to Bharata Natyam. François Rahmeh gave an inspiring workshop on the Baalbeck Bedouin style and on the Andalusian style with its beautiful and haunting rhythm .

At the end of the last workshop it felt like I had been here for weeks and could not believe that in the morning I would be flying back to Amsterdam . The workshops had been intense starting at 09.00 until 19.00 with short breaks for lunch etc, but I was happy to have done them all and had learnt a lot about the Lebanese dance, theatre and about their culture! Now I had to get ready for the finals of the competition, normally I am not such a fan of competitions but I do see their merit in bringing Oriental dance to a higher level, The competition was held in the theatre of Caesar's Palace and their was media coverage and a panel of judges (some of them the teachers) and a full house (a large three course dinner was also served).

The participants had been narrowed down to nine finalists. I thought that every one preformed to the best of their ability and that the standard was good, and I was happy to have entered and been in the finals and who knows next time? The winner was from Japan and it seemed to me that they have a lot of great dancers there who are very serious and dedicated. The high light of the show was from Amani who gave a spectacular performance bringing Oriental dance to a high art form, dressed in an amazing gold costume .Amani has a great presence and the love for dance shone through. We ended the evening on a high note with a giant cake that was wheeled on stage (complete with fire works) to celebrate the end of a successful week. We all received certificates and became members of the Folkloric Popular & Oriental Dance Association. It had been an inspiring week and I had meet lots of great dancers from around the world expanding our dance and linking it around the world.

I thought the first festival from Amani had been a success, of course as in first times there were a few mishaps and something didn't go so smoothly, but these things will become better with time and as Amani is always open to ideas the festival will grow.

I look forward to returning to the Lebanon and the festival next year with my students and dance collages.