Schiff's "Cleopatra" on WNYC FM

Leonard Lopate's Book Club features a discussion with biographer Stacy Schiff on her book, Cleopatra: A Life. She'll discuss her bestselling work on Oct. 31, 2011 at 8 a.m.  (Yes, 8 a.m.  Plan ahead.)

The Rosetta Stone on "Entitled Opinions"

I love the podcasts on Stanford University's  "Entitled Opinions" and get hours of mileage on the elliptical fitness machine thanks to ever smart and intriguing host Robert Harrison and his astounding cadre of guests (look up Blair Huxby on Aristotle's "Poetics," Rush Rehm on Greek tragedy, a two-part session on Beethoven, Epicureanism, or "Romanticism and Organic Form").  The October 12, 2011 episode featured Patrick Hunt on the Rosetta Stone. Politics, ownership, power, Empire, lust, classic Orientalish.   Listen to all podcasts for free at: http://www.stanford.edu/dept/fren-ital/opinions/

The novel gets closer to done.......

Thank you, Glimmer Train. 

Novelists Hisham Matar and Ali Al-Muqri Speak on Writing During a Revolution



Hisham Matar

Ali Al-Muqri

Libyan novelist Hisham Matar (Anatomy of a Disappearance) and Yemeni novelist Ali Al-Muqri (The Handsome Jew) consider the writer's role during revolutionary times in this recent post written for Arabic Literature (in English):  http://arablit.wordpress.com/2011/09/19/hisham-matar-and-ali-al-muqri-on-writing-during-a-revolution/  The IPI will bring writers from other parts of the Arab world in the same series.  See M. Lynx Qualey's great blog for more information: Arabic Literature (in English).

"The Best of Habibi" Goes Online



Covers from the earlier years.

When I was dancing in Boston in the early 90s, I remember crowding around my friends to read Shareen El-Safy's invaluable magazine, Habibi: A Journal for Lovers of Middle Eastern Dance and Arts Journal Dancrs at my teacher's, Lorraine Lafata's, house.  This was in the days when the magazine was carefully curated and had classy black and white covers.  El Safy edited the magazine from 1992-2002.  We miss that Habibi and the even older Arabesque!  I just got the announcement that Ms. El-Safy is putting the magazine online.  A great resource for dancers and students.  Sign up on her website, The Best of Habibi, for email updates!Thank you, Shareen!

Belly Dance Classes at NYU: 2011 A/B Quarters



Previous NYU dance students after a group performance at the Medieval Festival at Fort Tryon (NYC) with me and musican Scott Wilson.

We're starting classes again this fall at NYU Coles Gym! There will be a beginning/Level 1 class studying basic movements and isolations ending with a short combination and an Intermediate and Advanced Class/Level studying more complex layering and a drum solo combination. Please join us and consider joining the newly forming NYU Belly Dance club!

Registration for classes: In-person at Coles Gym: Tuesday, Sept. 13: 8 a.m.-1 p.m. and 4-8 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 14: noon-8 p.m. Online starting Tuesday, September 13:

http://www.gonyuathletics.com/recreation

Course codes:
Level 1: CLS 230.1

Level 2: CLS 232

(Picture shows a previous NYU class group performance at the Medieval Festival at Fort Tryon (NYC) with musician Scott Wilson.)

Writers on Dance: Said Makdisi on Gypsies

In this excerpt from Jean Said Makdisi's memoir, Teta, Mother and Me: Three Generations of Arab Women, the author tells of her childhood memories of the mysterious gypsy women who came to their summer village in Lebanon. In this section, the natural lifestyle of these women, the freedom they exhibit with their gestures, makes the author conscious of her own:

"A band of gypsies came to Dhour al-Schweir every summer, as surely as we did, and camped just beyond the summit of the hill behind our house. Although we were strictly forbidden to go in their direction, there was no way to stop them from coming in ours. And sothere was a steady stream of young women--at least, now they appear young; at the time, they seemd ancient. We would hear a call in the distance: "Bassarra, barraje; bassara, barraje', a fortune-teller claiming to see what others could not, and to interpret the zodiac.

"If mother was out--for we would never dare do this if where were at home--my sisters and I....would rush out and call for a gypsy to come and tell our fortune. A young gypsy woman wearing long black robes and usually bare-footed, her head covered with a black scarf wound tightly over her forehead and around her chin, would suddenly appear out of the woods, startling us although we were looking for her. Her costume gave her cheekbones height and her face character, all of which was accentuated by the tattoos on her face and hands, and by her eyes heavily lined with kohl. These women always bore themselves with extraordinary grace, as if they should have been carrying a water jug on their head, which they were doubtless used to doing. They swung their hips as they walked, while their upper bodies remained fixed and straight, their necks and heads held high." (p. 96)

I'm breaking this passage in two because it is lengthy. What I like in this passage is the mystery imagined in the women's dancelike walk and lifestyle. While Makdisi is describing a culture on the fringes of her own culture, I am reminded of both Emerson's journals when he went down the Nile of his perception of the Egyptian manner of walking so gracefully and of Flaubert's controversial descriptions of Kuchuk Hanem. While Makdisi is intrigued as a child, there is some element of "otherness" that is similar in all of these writings--certainly financial class (the Saids were financially privileged) and displacement or lack of place of those being observed. But more powerfully, she experiences an enchantment when viewing these women. The perceived lifestyle of the women being observed make Makdisi, it seems, more aware of her own. Orientalist? Of course.

The book, Teta, Mother, and Me, presents a case study of three generations of women living through turmoil in Palestine, Lebanon, and Egypt. Jean Said Makdisi is Edward Said's younger sister. Someone gave the book to me recently at an Arabic music conference. Before then, I wasn't aware of her work. (Photo: Gerome's Almeh. I used this iconic painting because it represents a woman with the tatoos Makdisi mentions and represents those of us on the outside, looking in.)