Oum (Mother)
Arabesque Dance Company and Orchestra
At the Fleck Dance Theatre
in Toronto on Thursday
In her theatrical productions, ambitious Yasmina Ramzy, artistic director of Arabesque Dance Company, tries to elevate the art of belly dance beyond nightclub cabaret entertainment. To that end, she finds thematic or narrative contexts into which she places her dances. By choosing Oum Kalthoum (1900-1975) as the inspiration for her new show Oum (Mother), Ramzy has linked her choreography to one of the greatest singers Egypt has ever produced.
Act 1 is a potpourri of miscellaneous dances and instrumental music. Act 2, simply called Oum, is structured around what Ramzy calls a montage of the singer's most beloved musical moments. The two segue neatly together, bonded to each other by the distinctive sound of the Arabic oude (lute) and the dumbek (drum).
Unfortunately, in Oum we never get to hear the voice of the singer herself. In the middle of the piece there is a spoken passage of recorded text, presumably by Oum, while a portrait of her appears on the back wall, but that is as close as we come.
What we do get is the excellent 6-member Arabic ensemble under music director Bassam Bishara and percussion director Suleiman Warwar who perform excerpts of Oum's most famous songs. Bishara's lead vocals are the homage to Oum's singing. The program provides translations of the lyrics which are drenched in the dense poetry of love, loss and desire.
In the second act, dancers sporadically enter and exit in various configurations and patterns to accent the music. Lighting designer Arun Srinivasan has given this act a moody design that reflects the melancholy of the lyrics. The subtle shifts of colours and light match the choreographic changes.
At the heart of belly dance is the famous muscle isolations of the middle torso, and they are very much in evidence in Oum. Ramzy's choreography, however, tries to layer this tried and true physicality with a greater range of movement images. In one Oum song with a waltz-like rhythm, the dancers hold their skirts out wide and turn gracefully to the ¾ time as if they were at a Viennese ball. In another song, Ramzy has added balletic leaps and port de bras. At the end of one of the sadder numbers, three dancers form a circle, raise their arms up in the air, then gracefully bring them down around each other's shoulders and bend their heads together like nestling doves.
The first act shows off the skills of both the dancers and the individual musicians, beginning with a dynamic percussion session led by the talented Warwar. The choreography includes a dance of swirling veils, a trio of women balancing hookahs of their heads and canes between their bellies, an exorcism ritual, and Ramzy's own accomplished belly dance solo. Alas, of the three men performing a macho dance with fighting sticks, two are inept. Only Rommel Delos Reyes managed to both keep time and not drop anything.
Oum (Mother) continues until tomorrow.