In 2009, I spent two weeks in Beit Sahour, Palestine conducting fieldwork with dabbikah. Among others, I met Al Ghad Al Jedid dabkeh troupe. In addition to interviewing troupe leader, Hazem Bannoura, observing dabkeh practices, and learning about the personal and familial consequences of living under occupation, I practiced some of the troupe's dabkeh combinations.
Hazem taught me "thabit", made up of other troupe steps, beginning with "wahed wa nos".
Co-performance, learning the dance alongside others, embodying the steps and feeling, is a fundamental part of fieldwork and accessing embodied knowledge. Performance Studies scholar Dwight Conquergood writes:
The ethnographer must be a co-performer in order to understand those embodied meanings...."
The power dynamic of the research situation changes when the ethnographer moves from the gaze of the distanced and detached observer to the intimate involvement and engagement of “coactivity” or co-performance with historically situated, named, “unique individuals.”
Conquergood, Dwight. 2006. “Rethinking Ethnography: Towards a Critical Cultural Politics”. In The Sage Handbook of Performance Studies. Edited by Hamera, Judith and D. Soyini Madison, 347-350. Washington D.C,: Sage Publications. Originally published in Conquergood, Dwight. 1991. “Rethinking Ethnography.” Communications Monographs 58.2: 179-194.