From the Vault: Heavy Hips - North African and Egyptian Influence in FCBD® Style (ATS®) Dance

This article first appeared as a post to the Al-hambra Dance Company Facebook page as a Note; approximate date would be between 2019 and 2020. Since the demise of Facebook Notes, it has since been archived and published here for posterity.

Heavy Hips: North African and Egyptian Influence in FCBD® Style (ATS®) Dance

If I had to pick one step that I love the most from FCBD® Style, hands-down, it’s the Ghawazee*. Amiright?

(*Important cultural update:  At the time of this original writing, Ghawazee was used in common parlance by Western dancers to describe this dance. Khyriyya Mazin, originator of the dance and member of a racialized ethnic group, has described the term as an ethnic slur against her people. Therefore, the dance and its corresponding FCBD® Style step are now referred to as Mazin dance.  The article is preserved here in its original written form for posterity; please make adjustments to all references to Ghawazee as Mazin-style dance. - author)

FCBD® Style (ATS®) belly dance has only a couple of steps that break the traditional posture of elevated arms, chest centered over hips, foot in demi-releve, and vertical hip movement. Ghawazee lets it all hang out, and with all the wonderful tassles, coins, scarves, gul belts, fringe and cords that we hang on our lovely hips, it is the most satisfying shimmy to both execute and watch. The movement stems from a family of dancers from Egypt, but interestingly enough, that’s not all that FCBD® Style borrows from the world-famous Mazin clan. Regardless of the costume elements and specific steps that characterize the fusion that is FCBD® Style, one can clearly see the influences of Mazin-style Ghawazee dance, even beyond the step known as the Ghawazee.

Much has been written about the Ghawazee dancers, so I’ll not rewrite anything that cannot be found by highly researched sources; thus, I’ll summarize. The Mazin clan, headed by Josef Mazin, were part of the Nawar tribe that made its way to Egypt by way of Kurdistan. A low caste family of entertainers, the men were encouraged to become musicians while the women were encouraged to dance, and this is how the Mazin sisters (or BanatMazin) came to change belly dance as we know it today.

 

The Banat Mazin (source)

Ghawazee dancers differed from other female performers such as the Awalim of Egypt. The Awalim were dancers and singers, but the Awalim enjoyed a status a few rungs above the Ghawazee since they were trained and seen to be representing Egyptian cultural art. The Ghawazee were outsiders, and like most low-caste performers (this is where the g-word G*psy comes in, and now we say Roma or Romany), they were frequently requested to perform at parties but shunned in social settings and scorned as prostitutes, thieves, or worse. Even the name, Ghawazee, has been translated as Invaders of the Heart, invoking a sense of danger, “other”-ness, and mystery. (Source: Marre). Yet, the Mazin family of entertainers proudly continued their cultural heritage of music and dance, and at this writing, Khyriyya, the last Mazin daughter of Josef, still teaches and performs the dance that she once danced with her sisters, the earthy gyration of joy that has come to embody the foundation of “tribal” dance, and eventually what shaped modern FCBD® Style.

Khyriyya Mazin teaches a workshop in Egypt.

Mazin-style Ghawazee dance is iconic in its postures and movement. The upper body is lifted and the knees are hinged to give the torso a sense of hips-forward angularity. The arms are relaxed and sway to the flat-footed, heavy steps. The shimmy is not up-and-down, but side-to-side in order to give maximum flutter to the long skirts or the long ribbons, cords, and stringed paillettes attached to the dancer’s costumes. (see this clip from CaroVan of a moulid)

https://www.youtube.com/embed/2w7r5smEGb8 

Source: CaroVan

One can see the wide-stepped, side-to-side shimmy in the clip below from an Arabic documentary (find it at 5:40 and 7:12).

Arabic documentary

Giovanni Canova’s 1982 film Folk Life in Upper Egypt has some juicy footage at 4:50 of Ghawazee dancers:

Folk Life in Upper Egypt by Giovanni Canova

But perhaps the most well-known clip of the three Mazin sisters comes from Marre’s 1981 documentary, the Romany Trail: Gypsy Music into Africa and Europe (seek it at 4:30):

The Romany Trail: Gypsy Music into Africa and Europe

I teach a workshop called “Heavy Hips: North African and Egyptian Influence on FCBD® Style." Based on the footage and photos of Ghawazee style and reading the lore of Ghawazee dance, we can see such parallels to FCBD® Style that go far beyond the step we know as the Ghawazee. Those parallels include:

The step: While not identical to the Ghawazee steps illustrated in the above clips, the FCBD® Style certainly adopts the flat-footed, wide stance in the legs, the soft knees hinging the torso slightly off the back of center, relaxed arms, and a loose reverb in the hips. The hips in FCBD® Style are still somewhat up-and-down, but the wide legged stance creates a softness that is unique from the standard 3/4 shimmy found throughout FCBD® Style. When I teach this step, I begin by illustrating original Ghawazee posture and then guide dancers to slowly shift their bodies slightly vertically so that the hips retain some sway in an otherwise up-and-down shimmy step.

The zills: The Ghawazee dancers were known for playing sagat, or zills, which was generally not common in women’s dance in Egypt at the time (even today it remains part of caberet and raqs sharqi, but not characteristic of folkloric Egyptian dance). The importance of zills in FCBD® Style is a critical tie to Ghawazee dance style. The two styles also share a swaying quality with the zills, and when standing (in chorus, for example), dancers in both styles can playfully riff on their zills in percussive gestures and patterns that match the music.

The formation changes in improvisation: Footage of the Mazin sisters, and indeed nearly all Ghawazee style dancers, usually shows three women dancing improvisationally in a trio. There is a lead dancer visibly set in front of the others, and the other two are following her lead. They are not hyper-focused on accuracy of step; each dancer is clearly executing the same step as her sisters, but each also dances quite as an individual, with a unique flair all her own. The dancers have a wordless method among them of cuing each other for the changing of the lead. This uniqueness-yet-sameness and the wordless formation changes are foundational aspects of FCBD® Style.

Connection to the musicians and audience: The footage of the Ghawazee dancers clearly shows them dancing to classic songs played by musicians, and they dance the entire time that the music is playing. There are no solo moments where a dancer interacts only with one percussionist or even with the audience. Dancers and musicians perform so seamlessly as a unit that it is hard to see whether the dancers accompany the musicians, or vice versa. The dancers present face-forward to the audience, and occasionally face inward towards each other, and as such they are clearly there to capture the audience’s attention and certainly not to merely blend into the chaotic background of a busy moulid or a wedding. This is FCBD® Style at its core: neither dancers nor musicians are subordinate to each other, and both create an interlocking element of entertainment for the audience. Had the Ghawazee been a larger troupe, it would be easy to see how they might have formed a chorus of dancers not dissimilar to FCBD® Style where featured performers swap in and out throughout a long performance.

The use of various types of elaborate costume: The Ghawazee dancers in the footage we see clearly want motion happening on their bodies. There are photos and videos of these dancers in a variety of costumes, from stringed paillettes to long, wide ribbons , to coined vests and long fringe belts over skirts, but all costumes have one thing in common: Showiness! The costume is designed to catch the audience’s attention and hold it completely, and there is no such thing as “too much” when getting ready to perform. FCBD® Style, as one of the most elaborately costumed styles of middle-eastern-inspired dance, shows its roots in the Ghawazee tradition here.

The elegant headdress: The headdress has become an iconic part of Ghawazee dance. While not the turban of the original FCBD® Style, the elaborate decoration utilizing scarves, coins, and draped chains or beads is a strong influence on the dance that we know today. Here is where a fusion occurs, and perhaps the iconic FCBD® Style “hair garden” was influenced equally by the Ghawazee bedecking as well as Spanish accent flowers. True, FCBD® Style borrows an even more elaborate headdress aesthetic from the Ouled Nail of Algeria, whose are also considered nomadic outsiders and entertainers like the Ghawazee (although no ethnic tie exists). There are some similarities in decoration between the two, with the Ghawazee showing their hair more than we do in FCBD® Style. The taj (crown) that the Ghawazee wears inspires the original FCBD® Style tradition of creating height with the turban and decorating it with a dominant artifact (although for FCBD® Style, the type would more likely be kuchi than North African). Regardless of what the modern FCBD® Style headdress consists of today, its elaborate nature is definitely owing at least in part to the Ghawazee.

And there you have it: Ghawazee influence on FCBD® Style is so much more than just an earthy shimmy with turn combinations that we all know and love. It is the heartbeat of this joyful group improvisational dance that reaches back decades in time. Now, go pull out Aisha Ali’s album Music of the Ghawazee, put on a bouncy, joyful track, and rock that Ghawazee all the way back to Egypt!