Tradition in Motion: DABKEH!

A project by Nicole Macotsis to share the voices and traditions of performers of the Levantine folk dance, dabkeh, from Brooklyn to the West Bank, Palestine.

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Thank you to all @traditioninmotion participants and my advisors Rob Forloney, Sue Eleuterio and @shaynamei . We won the Rory Turner prize for our work! I couldn't have done it without you, thank you - @freedomdabkagroup , @ramzigrams , @salmahabib , @hazembannoura , @danyah_jaber , Khlood Zanta and other artists.

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I came across this list of steps from a #dabkeh class which I probably took in 2007. I believe it was taught by Eman Hammad through #naap (network of #ArabAmerican professionals #ny) at #alwanforthearts . You can see the terms in #arabic and transliterated which are common to many #palestinian #dabke #performance groups. #tayyara #del3ouna #dal3ona #thabit (at Alwan for the Arts)

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Dabkeh represents a continuous reinvention of tradition. It is displayed and perceived as a symbol of ancient tradition connected to the lost villages and lost land of Palestine. At the same time, it is a sign of an intimate present identity since it is linked to marriage parties, relations of solidarity, feasts and ritual

Mauro Van Aken. 2006. “Dancing Belonging: Contesting Dabkeh in the Jordan Valley, Jordan”. In Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, Volume 32, Number 2, March, Routledge: 203-222

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Dabbik Bio: Amer Abdelrasoul was born in Brooklyn and raised between Brooklyn and his parent's homeland of Palestine.  While living in his mother’s West Bank village of Shafaat, Amer participated in dabkeh as part of everyday social celebrations.  Upon his return to US, he joined a local dabkeh team. 

Soon after, in 2012, Amer, along with Mohammad Shalodi and extended family in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, founded Freedom Dabka Group (FDG).  Amer is lawih (leader) of the troupe; the team's traditional, yet flashy and unique performances reflect Amer's vast knowledge of dabkeh traditions in Palestine.  Although the group respects and maintains the older traditions of Palestinian dabkeh such as dela'ouna and shamaliyya, they integrate new dynamic combinations that reflect popular energetic musical styles known as mijwiz, zamer and saidi.

FDG can be found performing non-stop at weddings, charity events, festivals and other social celebrations in Palestinian American and Arab American communities throughout the US.

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Identity

The category of identity speaks to dabbikah’s sense of belonging in both the context of diaspora and the “homeland”.  Interviewees refer to feelings of pride and belonging through dabkeh, of being Arab, Palestinian, Arab American, and fellahi (villager).

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Gender

The theme of gender highlights dabbikah’s narrations which show how gendered categories and values are sustain and shifted through dabkeh.

Some describe how traditional concepts of female/male are reinforced or contested though traditional social dabkeh, or how presentational stage dabkeh might expand gender roles and create a more equitable space for female dabbikah.

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Resistance

This theme highlights narrative excerpts which convey resistance through dabkeh.  Often dabbikah express a more subtle form of counter-hegemonic resistance against oppressive narratives and contexts in the US and Palestine/Israel.  

Simply affirming one’s existence through dabkeh as Palestinian, Palestinian-American or Arab/Arab-American is a form of resistance in today’s political climate.

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The most publicly promoted form of dance in the contemporary West Bank is dabkeh (alternatively transliterated as dabke, debkeh, debke and deppka). Recognized in language as more than just an appendage word to dance, one does not dance dabkeh, one yadbeks… This linguistic distinction crucially allows it to not be considered a style of rasqa, but a separate activity subject to a different set or moral values.

Nicholas Rowe. 2010. Raising Dust : A Cultural History of Dance in Palestine. New York. I.B. Tauris; Distributed in the United States by Palgrave Macmillan.

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From the moment an individual begins dancing, changes happen as he or she embodies experiences and ideas.  Embodiment is a way of providing material form to abstract or intangible concepts.   Through dance, the physical space of a human body gives shape or structure to concepts, like world view and cultural knowledge.  … Dance makes the invisible, visible.

Pegge Vissicaro. 2004. Studying Dance Cultures around the World: An Introduction to Multicultural Dance Education.  Dubuque: Kendall Hunt Publishing

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As social scientist Gillian Bottomley observed about folk dance and representation: “Representation itself implies a kind of power, the power to define, to describe, to act on behalf of someone else.  Describing particular forms of dance as ‘folk dance’ for example carries certain historical and political connotations” (1987, I). These dances ensembles thus have the power to represent an entire nation.

Anthony Shay, editor. 2005. Choreographic Politics : State Folk Dance Companies, Representation, and Power. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press

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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.

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We may find ourselves using the word “dance” to describe or discuss an activity that is not considered dance by those sharing the cultural knowledge system from which the movement phenomenon originates…  People sharing cultural knowledge agree whereto the movement form is dance or not and how labels are used.  Individuals who do not share cultural knowledge and use the term “dance” to describe an activity impose their understanding and world view…

Pegge Vissicaro. 2004. Studying Dance Cultures around the World: An Introduction to Multicultural Dance Education.  Dubuque: Kendall Hunt Publishing

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Resources

On the resources page you can find supplemental materials such as interview logs, the project bibliography and select quotes from readings.  

Scroll through a transcript or browse an article to better situate Tradition In Motion: DABKEH! and better contextualize what dabbikah are referring to, experiencing and demonstrating in video excerpts. 

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The bodily image of learning something “on the pulses” captures the distinctive method of performance-sensitive ethnography. 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.”

Dwight Conquergood, 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.

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Technique & Aesthetics

Technique and aesthetics make dabkeh - dabkeh.  This theme highlights posts that point to steps and form in presentational dabkeh, participatory dabkeh, and the layered relationships and cultural rules performed in the traditional dabkeh performance of groups like Freedom Dabkeh Group.

Technique and aesthetics inform practitioners’ view of dabkeh as authentic, innovative, traditional, hype, or stage-worthy.  Form, steps, music and embodied feeling also represent cultural values such as community, pride, uniformity as well as innovation, communication, spontaneity and eye-catching dexterity.  

This theme also points to technique, styles, repertoire and aesthetic values learned in teaching in formal class contexts by trained instructors, or in social dabkeh in community gatherings and how these styles relate to different purposes and contexts (stage presentation, protest, social celebration).

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Cultural Sustainability

The theme of cultural sustainability emerges in many of the dabbikah’s interviews.  This theme looks at what cultural values are sustained through the practice of dabkeh; it also highlights modes of transmission and learning of dabkeh.  

Dabkeh is a dance of cultural sustainability. It is highly dynamic yet traditional; its form and structure connect dabbikah in the line, while calling for innovation and virtuosity, embodying cultural sustainability across generations and migrations.

Narrators touch on questions such as: How is dabkeh taught and learned?  In the context of formal troupes, classes or more informal social gatherings?  What are the stakes of cultural sustainability of dabkeh -for second generation Arab Americans living in NYC or for young Palestinians growing up in the occupied West Bank?  

Although the theme of cultural sustainability specifically highlights the transmission of dabkeh, it is also a larger framework for thematic articulations of gender, aesthetics, identity and resistance.  

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Arab immigrants began coming to the U.S. in sizable numbers during the 1880’s. Today, it is estimated that nearly 3.6 million Americans trace their roots to an Arab country. Arab Americans are found in every state, but more than two thirds of them live in just ten states: California, Michigan, New York, … Arab Americans are as diverse as their countries of origin, with unique immigration experiences that have shaped their ethnic identity in the U.S. While the majority of Arab Americans descend from the first wave of mostly Christian immigrants, Arab American Muslims represent the fastest growing segment of the Arab American community. Contrary to popular assumptions or stereotypes, the majority of Arab Americans are native-born, and nearly 82% of Arabs in the U.S. are citizens. While the community traces its roots to every Arab country, the majority of Arab Americans have ancestral ties to Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, Egypt and Iraq.   AAI derives our demographic information from Census Bureau surveys, including the American Community Survey, and projections based on other surveys by reputable scholars and organizations such as Zogby International, among other sources.

Arab American Institute, 2012. “Demographics”. Accessed Jan. 14, 2016. http://www.aaiusa.org/demographics