Language of Song and Dance

they informed her that he had called her a whore in Arabic. Imagine how foolish she felt when she realized she had thanked someone for a grave insult.

It's not always possible to find a class in Turkish or Arabic in your community. But we can purchase language instructional tapes for tourists that teach introductory language lessons. Before going to Turkey on a vacation, I ordered the Berlitz Turkish-language instructional tape from Amazon.com and worked with it in my car every day as I drove to and from work. I've also picked up a little Arabic.

These language instructional tapes are particularly great because they train your ear to recognize words in the foreign language. I find this more valuable than being able to read the foreign language, because it helps me begin to make sense of words in song lyrics.

Arabic is probably the best language to learn first. The 20th-century rise of Oriental dance in the Middle East occurred primarily in Egypt and Lebanon, and even in Turkey most dance performances I saw when I was there in July 2000 used Arabic music. For more information about why this is the case, see my article Why the Fuss Over Egyptian-Style Music & Dance? elsewhere on this web site.

Finding Song Translations

Even if you are willing to commit the effort to learning another language, you have to start somewhere and you're not going to master it well enough overnight to understand song lyrics. Fortunately, there's help out there to assist dancers in understanding more about the songs we use.

There are several resources that can help you understand what the songs are about that you're using in your dance performances.

CD Liner Notes

Some of the companies such as EMI who import Middle Eastern music to the U.S. will produce U.S. editions with liner notes that provide information on what the songs are about. The liner notes for the edition of Amr Diab's "Nour el Ain" CD that EMI sells in the United States contains an English-language translation of the lyrics for every song.

Books

Mimi Spencer, a musician based in San Francisco who plays Middle Eastern music on the kanoun, has produced three excellent books that contain translations for Middle Eastern songs. To order her books, contact Mary Ellen Books, P.O. Box 411562, San Francisco, CA 94141-1562, U.S.A. or phone (+1) (415) 826-DRUM, or (+1) (415) 826-3786. Her books include:

• The Gems Songbook. Contains sheet music and lyrics
  The copyright of the article Language of Song and Dance in Middle Eastern Dance is owned by Shira. Permission to republish Language of Song and Dance in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

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