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What is Pharaonic Dance? - Page 4© Shira
Reflect on What You're Trying to Do
When I asked Delilah Flynn about the process she has used to create her Pharaonic dances, here is what she said: To create a meaningful Phanoanic dance I need to think like an ancient Egyptian. I do this by reading about ancient Egyptian philology and religion, studying the hieroglyphics, reading works on the daily lives of the Egyptians as scholars have presumed, by visiting the temples of Egypt, and meditating for inspirations. I research the dress, I make it, and I wear it, to have a sense of movement. I craft, I paint, I bead. I listen to the musical instrumentation known to exist at that time. For the Egyptians all their gods and goddesses are alive. I resurrect them from out of the pages of history and I make them live for me today. Everything has meaning. As an artist I must have total immersion. One must study the origins and impetus of all dance. It will lead them to a deeply spiritual place; a communion with body, life force and space. Go to the temples and you will find they were all about space. Isadora Duncan said, "No movement is owned by any culture, only rediscovered." Imagine you are there and ask your deepest self how you feel like moving and you will arrive at an authentic dance. Ask your ba, your ka, your akh, your khaibit, your sahu, your khat. As you learn more about the culture of ancient Egypt, plan what you want your dance to say. Familiarize yourself with some of the stories of ancient times - perhaps you'll find one that you'd like to re-enact through dance. Maybe you'll want to use dance to portray an actual historical character such as Hatshepsut, or maybe you'll want to dance an archetype such as a temple priestess to Hathor or an Assyrian slave girl dreaming of freedom. The book Ancient Egyptian Dances talks about the use of dance for different occasions, such as funeral, religious, war, and others. Maybe one of these concepts will inspire you. Reflect on your own ideas about ancient Egypt. What did they have to dance about? Why do you want to do a dance inspired by this culture - what does the culture say to you? The more you can bring your thoughts together into an understanding of what you want to accomplish with your own dance, the more powerful your dance will be. If you don't know what you're trying to say with your dance, then your audience certainly won't know, either.
The copyright of the article What is Pharaonic Dance? - Page 4 in Middle Eastern Dance is owned by Julie Elliot. Permission to republish What is Pharaonic Dance? - Page 4 in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
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