The Toledo chronicle. [volume] (Toledo, Tama County, Iowa) 1873-1924, 1875-07-29
Arab Dancing.

A WRITER says: You must understand
that Arab dancing is more curious thar
pretty, but it is strange to you, and wild
You would be sorry to miss seeing it
They have brought five, all dressed in va
rious-colored gauzes and spangles and
goldcoin ornaments, trousers frilled and
gathered round the ankle with ring and
hair plated in two long tresses to the
knees. You see, in point of dress they
are far more decent than our own ballet
girls, and that even the Lord Chamberlain
could not object TO them. Their instru-
ments are the TOM tom, the tambourine
and sort of zittern. They crack their
fingers by putting their hands together,
| by pulling back the second and third fingers
| of the left hand with the index finger of
the right, and by letting them rebound,
with noise louder than any castanets
Their voices are melancholy. nasal and
boyish, and all their songs are in a minor
key. They used to set my teeth on edge
at first, but have grown to love them
now. / am very fond of music, but |
have never been able to pick up an Arab
air. 1t takes year before one can per-
ceive the difference between one air and
joyous or sorrowful; but after this initia-
ton the music becomes most expressive.
Even their military bands, like all their
music, sound half note below concert
mitch Won eli
They put on miserable look, hang their
heads sideways, turning up their eyes like
dying ducks, and then out comes q wall
reminding one of an Holian harp hung
in tree, All sit cross-legged in row
upon the divan, and they will sing and
sway from side to side. That a1n,ah, who
was once the best dancer, and is now the
size OF six ordinary mortals, can
no longer dance. We are going to
have pas scuE. This girl will
move about the room, with little,
wriggiing steps in time TO the music,
nearly double herself backward and throw
herself in all sorts of contortions and atti-
tudes till | am convinced that all her
bones arc made of gristle. One thing
which perhaps you will not understand is
that her dancing means something,
whereas ours is only intended for exercise
or to give people chance of talking. She
has told you by pantomime whole histo-
ries-of how she was at home with her
mother, and how she went to market and
to the bazaar how she did the washing and
cooking; how her father Uhe shcik)
wanted her to marry, and how she didn't
want to marry, for that Ali was fighting
far away in the desert. She wonders if
he thinks Of her, and she looks at the
moon and knows that he can see it too.
and asks when he will come back. Now
the music and the steps change. He is
coming back and they are dressing her to
be his bride; she is walking in the bridal
procession, yelling her face for shame,
etc. The performers are clamoring for
rdki. think they deserve a little, but
we must not let them have too much.
Now | will ask for my favorite sword
dance. That thin and graceful girl will
take her turn and describe to you fight
by pantomime. You will be surprised at
the way she can handle cimeter, as il
she had learned broadswOrd all her life.
She whirls it round Ger head and throat,
under her arms, over her back like light
ming, and within an inch of our faces, as
if she were slashing at sixty unseen en-
emies, dancing all the time"