Ethnic Trance Dance Empowerment

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"Let's get into what makes the Moroccan Guedra and the Egyptian Zar so compelling for today's modern Bellydancer!"
Photo of author, Ansuya Rathor

"Guedra Dancers, Morocco"
Art found on Pinterest
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'Tis the Gothic Season!

Clip of author, Ansuya Rathor, randomly responding to street art in Lake Worth, FL. 

At the time I write this Halloween is coming. This means many of the things I’m up to year round now become common practice for the season. Gothic dress, paranormal intrigue, rituals, and wild dance parties are year-round weekly things for me. Therefore, in October, I’m inspired to venture into the wilder regions of the already rarified and fantastical genre of dance that is my work: bellydance. So let's embark on a magic carpet ride to Morocco and Egypt to explore the empowering aspects of the esoteric Guedra and Zar trance dances. Their exalting power and supernatural elements offer the perfect intrigue for this season, making this a most unique way to celebrate Halloween and Day of the Dead for the modern-minded xenophile! Not to mention a great way to contemplate a hot bed of scandalous topics, all rolled into one party!

Image found on Google
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Did You Say Party?

Yes… but are these dances to be considered “party tricks” or how everyone “gets down” on the weekend in the cultures that they hail from? Yes and no. They do sometimes appear as a form of theatricalized entertainment at shows, festivals or gatherings that involve food, drink, socializing and relaxation. However, these dances are also called upon in times of serious health crisis or as part of a religious ceremony. Some native practitioners are eager to share their knowledge and skills freely to promote and educate in order to support their culture. And some prefer these traditions to remain hidden, unseen and unchanged by foreign eyes or practitioners. So, let’s get into what makes them so compelling for today’s modern Bellydancer!
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"They do do sometimes appear as a form of theatricalized entertainment at shows, festivals or gatherings."
This video beckons us to visit the Taralgate Festival in Morocco. This festival has featured the Guedra.  
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A small taste of some of the movements of the Guedra as seen at the Taralgate festival in Morocco.

​The Trance! 

I was raised with trance-dance all around me. I grew up in a small town where time seemed to stand still. Its culture paused in the 60’s and 70’s, even though I was a child there in the 80’s. There were African dance classes, reggae music bands, hippy parties full of altered states of consciousness, our mayor was even a yoga teacher. As a child, I was encouraged to "trance out" through Bellydance, Indian dance, African dance, yoga, playing in nature, and through all kinds of unleashed body movement at parties. This behavior was considered less akin to spacing out and more comparable to tuning in! I’m a second generation bellydancer who learned the art form as an expression of divine connection. I was trained to tune into expanded energy through intuitive improvisational dance to the sound healing aspects of Middle Eastern rhythms and melodies so that I could experience “Tarab”  - a feeling of unity with the heightened frequency generated between music and movement, musician and dancer, performer and onlooker. The intention was not to become out of control, but to attain a heightened state of awareness and thus, broader control. As an adult who has studied in the areas of yoga, chakras, quantum physics, and meditation, I now understand even more deeply how this process can work, and as my understanding gets deeper, my explanations get simpler! 

A few of my realizations: 

• With increased breathing we send more oxygen to the brain making it easier to activate the pineal and pituitary glands for increased awareness. 

• With increased circulation we nourish the intelligent cells in our organs which allow us to feel or receive messages from different parts of our bodies.

• With increased focus we change our brain waves and adjust our nervous systems and can come out of habituated mental patterns and allow for new thoughts.

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• With sinuous movement we can relieve our muscles of tension which has been stored from past emotional trauma.

  
These realizations have helped me to deduce that performing a good trance-dance is like taking a great yoga class, enjoying a really good run, finding peace and exaltation in nature, or feeling the shift from depression to ecstasy that can come from something as simple as a great chat with a friend!

The most mystical seeming things often feel unreachable when hidden in the shadow of taboo for too long but simple things can often link us back to back to our power.

Photo found on Pinterest
Africa | "Picturesque Morocco; Guedra Dance, Goulimine" Post stamped 1966. | Scanned postcard; publisher Bertrand, Marrakech. No. 38
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Taking it Further!

Photo of author, Ansuya Rathor, by Keith Drosin
Ansuya is pictured here in a fusion costume ensemble that mixes Tribal style Bellydance costuming with Indian bindi's, Amazigh Berber tattoos, and Egyptian assuit fabric (inspired by the black veil of the Guedra called the Haik). Ansuya, being of East Indian descent, is fascinated by the possibility that the Guedra may have roots that reach as far back geographically as Asia. 

By the time I was a pre-teen I had already presented aspects of the Guedra and full length Zar dances in well reviewed theatre shows for fellow industry professionals, a wide range of ethnic audience members, and Americans alike. The process felt natural as I added signature regional movements and costuming aspects to my foundation in Bellydance and was encouraged by my teachers to tap my own intuition and physical dance capacity for further individualized creativity. For this I was significantly rewarded as my reputation as a respected innovative fusion artist grew in my field. 
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What's it Like?

Image found on Google​ 

The practice feels earthy, dramatic, physically percussive, sinuous, and can lead to trance like states of ecstasy. Understanding what it means to invoke positive “otherworldly” energy in the context of female empowerment and learning to transmute any negative feeling energy into positive form is a passion of mine! The effects can be transformative for their power to activate self-healing, tune into intuition, and expand spiritual awareness. Both the Zar and Guedra involve head movements that induce trance, an altered state of consciousness caused by shift in brain waves. You might consider it a moving meditation. In Guedra it is in order to invoke joy and positivity! In Zar, it is in order to transmute negative energy into positive form!

Now to the Guedra...
Blessing Dance!

Guedra, A Film by Andrea Beeman (1991) from Andrea Beeman on Vimeo.

Warning: this film shows the hardship of life for animals in this region, living and being used for work and food.
Also note that the dancer and choreographer may have used creative license in this presentation of the Guedra.
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Information on the exact origins of the Guedra has been lost, but it’s most commonly recorded as belonging to the Berber Taureg “Blue People” of the Sahara of Southern Morocco and Mauritania (The reason for the blue skin of these tribes has to do with the hand dyed indigo colored clothes that they wear which stain their skin.) The word Guedra refers to a cauldron or cooking pot that is used as the percussive instrument played during the dance ritual which is also referred to as Guedra, as is the dancer performing it. The dance acknowledges the 4 directions, the 5 elements, and intelligence centers of the body such as the liver, heart, stomach, and brain. Hand gestures and finger movements flick in and out from the body of the dancer who is shrouded in a black veil called a “Haik” which represents being “in the darkness”. The gestures look to me as though they are meant to push away unwanted blocks and pull in desired energy. Percussive clapping and repetitive chanting that calls on the divine for knowledge, supports the dancer as she moves into a state of trance and is balanced in masculine and feminine energy. Once this trance is achieved the veil is removed to signify an awakening and a readiness to offer blessings. The movement vocabulary is limited, but rich with theatricalization potential. The dance is typically done on one or both knees. When done standing it is called T’bal. 

Now to the Zar...
​Exorcism or Transmutation?

Click the "Watch on YouTube" link in black rectangle above to see video playback.
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"On a physical level, the movement and breath can allow the activation of the pineal gland, gaining one access to different dimensional planes where you may be able to see, or make contact with, otherworldly beings. (I personally also correlate this to being some of the science behind one part of a witch's magic.")
Antique photograph print of "Circle of Witches" available on Etsy
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I personally believe that ghostly phenomena do exist and have seen such. Though my sightings were friendly, many people worry/ report scary ones. I am careful not to jump to the conclusion that someone experiencing strong negative emotions may be possessed by an evil spirit requiring exorcism. That said, I concede that it is possible, because I certainly can’t prove that it isn’t. As a feminist who believes in self-empowerment, however, instinct tells me that if you are coming into a Zar practice with good intentions, you are unlikely to engage with or attract negative forces but rather, clear a path for negativity to drain away, leaving you refreshed, renewed – and relieved – of your own inner "demons". For me, dance has always been one very powerful way to work with my emotions. I feel exalted after any good performance and trance-dance movements feel like another way to tune into wellness on deep levels. 

During the season of Halloween and Day of the Dead celebrations, we may be extra intrigued by the idea of paranormal experiences such as contact with other worldly entities.  When we glorify, rather than degrade or persecute the women and men who have the ability to make contact, we have an opportunity to expand our awareness of what uncommon things might be viewable in our universe, or perhaps an alternate dimension, humming along at a frequency we have not yet learned to tune into.  Let’s consider what it is about the Zar that could be facilitating this opportunity…

The movements of Zar can oxygenate the spinal cord and brain, helping facilitate third eye chakra opening, enhancing one’s capacity for psychic vision. On a physical level the movement and breath can allow the activation of the pineal gland, perhaps gaining one access to different dimensional planes where you may be able to see, or make contact with, other worldly beings. The ability to navigate, control and transmute one’s own energies also speaks to the law of attraction and the quantum field. If like-attracts-like, with enough focus, perhaps one might attain a magnetic point of attraction and draw entities and experiences into view. 

Rather than fearing this process, if we understand that this is the natural order of personal manifestation and how we are building our lives by default every day, dance and witchcraft can become modalities for intentionally taking, rather than losing, control. 

In my Zar and Guedra workshops we modify the head and torso movements for safety while being sure to ground our balance, our energy, and our emotions as we work through them. I also offer standing modifications to protect the knees. 

All of the above regarding Zar is my personal interpretation of the dance. Traditionally though, Zar was practiced as a dance of exorcism in Egypt, the Sudan, Tunisia and surrounding areas. In my deeper research, I encountered some truly scary shit that I’m glad to say was redacted from my childhood awareness. We’re talking animal sacrifice, what I felt might be opportunities for wrongly charged victims of possession, and supernatural tricks (though reported as having caused no injury in the article I read about them in) that had to do with a man putting a knife through his own neck, another man eating cactus as the needles poked through his cheeks, and what most might consider child endangerment when (albeit in trance) needles were put through the ears of young boys in Zar trance. Happy Halloween – yikes!!

While I’m personally ok with adults experimenting with mind over matter control – I’m made nervous when children are involved and I’m 100% against harming any animals for anything ever. That said, I would venture to guess that there is good science behind the self-healing benefits of the dance versus ridding a devilish spirit or Djinn (naughty genie) from the body. Feeling your feelings without repression and seeking modalities for exaltation are not the same as being possessed and needing an exorcist! Here is where I am intervening and influencing the context of and definition of Zar for myself.  Therefore, the words "theatrical" or "fusion" or "interpretive" could apply. 

How Can One Be Respectful?

Example of theatricalized Ethnic Trance Dance
Choreography by Ansuya
Gypsy Sugar Show 2002
West Valley Playhouse Los Angeles
Dancers: Tahiya, Mikaela, Ansuya, Akasha, Olu.
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To avoid the pitfalls of the understandable and valid aspects of the movement against cultural appropriation, if you study with me, I recommend stating that you are studying a subjective artist’s theatricalized interpretation of the regional dance styles of Moroccan Guedra and Egyptian Zar and share the resources included in this article’s bibliography in order to promote cultural awareness, education, and support. I also recommend that you consider a balance between honoring the past, with creating for the future, in order to preserve valuable aspects of history while allowing for improvement, growth, and evolution as a human culture. You can respect your teachers, but also seek the guidance available to you from within in order to balance supporting those that have built foundations and bridges for you with your own empowerment, lest you fall into conditioning, dogmas, cults, peer pressures, or bullying.

​"Use your freedom, and all the tools you can, to express the art in your heart on behalf of female empowerment and in the spirit of turning darkness into light!"
- Ansuya Rathor
Photo of author, Ansuya Rathor, adorned in a theatricalized version of the Amazigh style facial tattoos - another artistic expression of the Moroccan Berber people.
​Read more about this tattoo art at this blog:
​ Morocco World News
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Bibliography

Arabesque Magazines
Vol I No. V
Vol III No. V
​Vol IX No. V
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