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My sincere thanks to Hala for permission to reprouduce the article below. For more information about Hala, see her website at www.HalaDance.com
What are the rights or wrongs of spicing up folk dance from the villages to present in the theatre? Mr Mahmoud Reda (of the famous Reda Folkore Troupe) discussed this with Hala during his visit to CA in early 2002. He elaborates on this issue more in his autobiography "Dance & Life" (which has not been translated to English yet). Here is some of Hala's discussion.
Here's briefly some small excerpts from his book:
"We present works inspired by the folk arts, and not the authentic folk
art itself. Authentic folk art has certain specifications and no
contemporary artist can claim to create it now. By definition, a folk art
is an old tradition passed from parents to children, in most cases the
creator is unknown, in addition to similar other characteristics that cannot
exist in a modern piece of work that we create today. It could be that
something created today may become folk art in hundreds of years if people
continue to use it and pass it on. But what we create in this age is modern
art inspired by the folk traditions."
"If we present the folk dances exactly as they are done in real life, we
are simply re-presenting them and we are not being creative. Even though
preserving the folk dances exactly as they are is something very desirable,
exactly like preserving our ancient Egyptian antiquities, that does not
prevent us from continuing to be creative in all areas of arts. As long as
life continues, art and creativity continues and it does not stop at a
certain generation. So we chose to be creative in the area of dance
inspired by the Egyptian folk dances"
In my extensive discussions with Mr Reda, we talked about how people go to
the theatre to be entertained. So we pay money and walk into the theatre,
knowing that we are going to a fantasy world, not a replica of the real
world (there are other venues for that). Therefore theatrical productions
have certain qualities they have to fulfill. If we simply replicate real
life, it will be very boring for a theater production. Imagine a bunch of
people doing square dancing on a stage.
Unfortunately, there will always be people who go to Disney Land expecting
to be educated in geography and world history, and there will be those who
read a newspaper article and expect to get the education they should get
from a research paper, and there will be people expecting to learn history
from Hollywood,..etc. Those people will always be disappointed and there is
very little we can do about it.
Hala says: "As an Egyptian who grew up watching the Reda troupe, I have to say I
really enjoy their art and totally admire what they do. I understand the
hurdles they had to overcome and the challenges they faced in order to
change this dance from something that many Egyptians were ashamed of, to
something that has now come to represent their national character. THAT,
ladies and gentlemen, is a miracle IMHO."
Hala also makes the following points:
"I would like to point out that defining what is Egyptian and what is not, should be left to the Egyptians themselves. Judging that for them and telling the Egyptians what their true identity should be is not any better than the British occupation enforcing its ideals on them. Mahmoud Reda, in my opinion, is a very proud Egyptian who, through his profound love for his native culture and dance, created a beautiful art that all Egyptians love and admire. It does not get any more Egyptian than that folks. When Elvis Presley started moving his hips, no one accused him of being inauthentic or presenting an un-American art or borrowing from the Middle Eastern dance to popularize his shows. Arts and cultures do blend and mix to produce new ideas. That's the nature of creativity and that's the nature of the arts.
Dance (and arts in general), like any language, is a living entity that continues to evolve and grow and adopt from the cultures that mix into it. The day it stops evolving it becomes dead. As long as people dance, the dance will evolve. Where do we draw the line and say that this move or that spoils the authenticity of a dance? moreover, who are we (if we are not from the native culture) to judge that for the locals? I'm sure the most authentic of folkloric dances that we know today have blended many "foreign" elements into them that happened before our recorded history, where do we draw the line? Is anything post Pharonic times considered un-Egyptian? what about the cultures that went into the mix during Pharonic times?
I am not against preservation and pride in indigenous ways, I'm simply saying that there is room for both preserving the indigenous arts as well as creativity and evolution.
