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Who, What and When? “Misirlou” is one of the most recognizable Arabic melodies there is, thanks to modern covers by Dick Dale and more recently, sampling by the Black Eyed Peas.  The earliest recorded version is from Egypt in 1919, with credit for the composition given to Sayyed Darwish, a prominent composer in Cairo at the turn of the century.  Darwish worked with many Greek and Turkish session musicians there and it is likely that

Who, What and When? “Lamma Bada Yatathanna” is a song with a hauntingly beautiful melody. Maybe that is why it is still around! This song is from the era of Moorish Spain, also called the Andalusian era (c. 711-1492). Yes, this song is somewhere between 500-1000 years old and rather than being a piece of obscure history, it is still part of our dance repertoire.  It is from the “muwashshat”, or secular music of Al-Andalus. The original

I love getting questions from DBQ subscribers – especially great ones like this! Recently I was in a bellydance show and performed 2 numbers close together and was a lot slower than some of the other dancers changing. I was wondering if you could offer some tips in a Friday DBQ on quick costume changes. Been there – done that. It’s stressful – and stress is the last thing you need when you want to

Let’s begin at the end this time. Have you ever set to working on a bellydance choreography and found that you competely lost track of time? Ideas are coming, you’re jumping forward and backward in the music as you find the movement that is the perfect fit of musicality and style. Ahhh… flow is a wondrous thing. The “flow” state, as described by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in his TED talk,  is that lost-in-the-work feeling you get

At a bellydance event, I recently overheard one dancer remark to another that she thought that the performer they were watching had “bad musicality”. Putting aside questionable politeness, was does that mean  anyway? We have discussed musicality in the Daily Bellydance Quickies many times and in many ways. Loosely defined, it is the ability to illustrate the music with movement. It can include larger elements such as instrument sound textures down to the tiny details of accents and