Why Join the AFSDᵀᴹ Class and not another Dance Class?

When one thinks about it, what’s one thing that everyone can do collectively or even alone that boosts mood, productivity and physical health? The answer: Dancing! Putting in bullet points:

·       Fun (Mental Health)

·       Exercise (Physical Health)

·       Do Something Different as you meet people (Social Health)

Even if one wants to ask, what is to me? Dance can provide a refresh that improves almost everything such as mood, problem-solving, cognition, brain function, health, fall prevention, productivity and social behaviour/ teamwork. And how it can affect business? Because anxiety, and depression, can lead to a decrease in performance, motivation, cognition/ concentration and even interpersonal skills of the employers/members of the business and in the long term besides affecting the quality of life it drags cost in medications, absence in work that can lead to losing money.

Now, how exactly dance can improve your health?

Well, first, dance is physical activity, so it improves blood circulation and lung capacity reducing the risk of suffering a heart attack. Dancing is recommended by the American Heart Association as an aerobic exercise that reduces the risk of heart disease. Secondly, dance helps to burn body fat - directly related to the first benefit mentioned before - it also burns calories which means loss of body fat. Third, and maybe the most important of all, dance helps in mental health, due to aspects such as the release of endorphins it supports fighting problems like anxiety and stress. It makes you feel happier. On the other hand, dancing can also be a relaxing and distracting activity. Disconnecting your mind from negative thoughts and worries. Furthermore, dancing enables the channelling of adrenaline, which boosts your motivation, and enthusiasm for life and it helps to improve self-esteem.

Now, AFSDᵀᴹ specifically will help you because includes a high emotional component. AFSDᵀᴹ helps to stay in touch with inner feelings and express emotions. It allows one to communicate through movement, something that you otherwise might not dare to express. It connects the physical, mental, emotional and social.

For the majority of African cultures if not for all of them Dance is a language, a way to communicate but still so many times we find people that have been in dance classes for years and still don’t know how to dance/ communicate for themselves. They can follow teachers and other class peers but unfortunately, when it comes to dance for themselves using the vocabulary they have learned so far, they just are not able to do it. With AFSDᵀᴹ, participants will find a structure, a class organigram, a 12-week session program and even a student syllabus during the AFSD Adult Dance Program so that they can track what they will learn in each session and their program. That will always facilitate the learning process for the student.

At the end of a program, they will also have an evaluation because that would also help the students to see why they can move forward to the next phase or why they should repeat a session or even a year program. Another main aspect that I find unique about this dance style is the cultural education behind each movement and rhythm, the teaching of the principles behind the vocabulary and course, and the aesthetic of the movement. That is why students receive handouts.

All those things make the student more aware of what it's been teaching in class, and consequently, how to drill/ practice for themselves, how to create more body awareness and a sense of musicality. That builds confidence, trust and independence.

Is Dance Right for Me?

People often ridicule dancing as something meant for only one part of society. But that’s all wrong. Here are the common problems but also the solutions so that you can dance.

1. I don’t want to make a fool of myself (the confidence situation) – well actually dancing is for everyone and remember I am here to help you and being realistic, most people feel the same. If you don’t have the confidence to join a group, start with a private session or ask a friend/ family member to join the class with you.

2. Oh, I don’t have anyone to go to a class with (the social situation) – maybe that is a good thing because it will push you to go behind your limits and guess what make new friends there! Tcharam, problem-solve it.

3. But I’m too old to start dancing now (the age situation) – As I already said before anyone can dance. Although many of us hold back because of the confidence and social situation or realistic because with age the body starts to show some physical limitations, still you can dance. In place sitting on a chair or moving around at your own pace. Dance has no age limit!

4. I’m not sure I’ll be able to keep up (the peer pressure situation) - Although it will help you keep fit, because dance is a physical activity this is not a high-intensity workout. In all my classes the students can choose a slower pace. Always respecting the body.

5. I have 2 left feet (the disbelieving situation) – Nobody who starts for the first time any class of anything immediately becomes a pro. Of course that in the beginning, you won’t feel like the most elegant dancer, perfect it means that you are a human. But still, you can have joy and fun, feel silly, meet new people and of course gain all the benefits from the physical activity aspect.  All bodies have a natural sense of rhythm and with practice and time spent moving your body, you can only get better. Believe in you.

6. Dance is more for women and girls (the gender situation) – In the majority of African cultures both women and men join the circle to dance, both move the pelvis, shake the hips, sing, clap the hands and do everything in between. Unless is a specific ritualistic dance that only a certain gender can join, everyone joins in. Africans are all humans just like the rest of the world. You got this.

I hope you enjoyed it and see you in the next blog. Until then, lots of love and khanimambo for your time.

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The meaning behind Afro Fusion Sharqi Danceᵀᴹ

Nowadays, everyone can be a teacher of any dance from Africa, even if they don't know what they're teaching. Who regulates the content of those dance classes? What book can serve as a guide to teachers and students? Who says what level? Going further, how can we say that one is teaching "African Dance" in a continent of 55 countries?

One can say that they teach Marrabenta, or Raqs Sharqi, or Sabar, or Kizomba, or even in the sense of a broader spectrum, maybe one can say that they teach Mozambican traditional dances or Egyptian dances, but "African Dance," for me, it feels like too much broad spectrum. It feels as if one could say that it teaches Asian dances or European dances. How can that be possible? It has become a generic term that includes so much that anyone can use it for their purpose, and maybe not with the best intentions for the dance itself. We don't see that behaviour with ballet, contemporary dance, tap dance, jazz, etc. I believe that I can say that there is a problem there.

That problem leads to another even bigger one: if people who need help understanding the different African cultures attempt those classes, see those videos, those performances. They believe what they see is the reality when it's not; what would happen to the authenticity? What are the long-term consequences? That was when I decided to write down the information I was reading about Dances from Africa and their culture and make a collective for myself that I am now sharing. This is to see if more people may be interested, and maybe in the future, we will have so many schools around the world related to dances from Africa that only people trained in those schools (e.g., École Des Samblés) would be allowed to teach those dances. The same kind of rules that we notice in certain other dance forms.

Because of that, the concept of Afro Fusion Sharqi Danceᵀᴹ was born. Starting with the expression "Afro", which in this dance concept is used to give context to what is pretended, to create a frame of a dance style, which in this case is centred on the African continent. All the dances, rhythms, cultures and diversity that exist on the Continent. Molefi Kete Asante in his book “Afrocentricity – The Theory of Social Change” states: "We have one African Cultural System manifested in diversities". It does not pretend to lead to a specific timeline of a movement of liberation or a specific hairstyle. But even if one would like to use it as a context or frame, I don't believe it to be a problem since this was and still is a hairstyle, yes, used by black and brown people mostly in the USA, but also elsewhere, and many black and brown people are African Descendants in the diaspora (for the ones out of the continent).

About the word - fusion - it is really because this dance style is a complete fusion style and not the traditional Raqs Sharqi or Baladi or any other traditional dance from Africa. This is a fusion of the different elements of the dance cultures of Africa (from folklore to traditional and urban). A fusion of dance movements from Africa performed professionally. This dance brings together the dance elements of Africa (from North to South, East to West and Central). This is about creating bridges that connect Africa’s diversity. This is about African connections; it’s about unification.

Now let’s talk about translations. The Arabic word Raqs, if one wants to translate, would mean something like "dance", but there is also the word Racks (derived from Assyrian Rakkadu) which means "celebrate". Now, one may ask: to dance or celebrate what? This means that the word Raqs should come combined with other words, for example, Raqs Baladi (again if one wants to translate to English it would be something as Traditional or Folk Dance[1]) or Raqs Sa'idi. On the other hand, there is the Arabic word Sharqi, which again if one wishes to find an English meaning would mean something as “Oriental”. Putting together Raqs and Sharqi in English would mean something such as "Oriental Dance" or "Dance from the East" or "Eastern Dances". Now here starts a problem that emerges with the translations. What is the meaning of Oriental? Oriental Dance in the Western world is vague because it could mean Chinese Dance, or Japanese or even Indian Dance.

[1] Here we will have a whole category of folkloric dances which Raqs Sharqi is part of.

For some people, due to the lack of proper information, unfortunately, Oriental is associated with Asia culture. The second question is, why does one need to translate people’s dance names? Shouldn’t we use the name of the dances as they are, as the people of the culture recognize them? To avoid misunderstanding translations or misinterpretations and in the name of people's culture, I have decided to use the Arabic word as used by the people of the country, and in this case, it is Sharqi.

I hope you enjoyed it and see you in the next blog. Until then, lots of love and khanimambo for your time.

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About My Journey & Afro Fusion Sharqi Danceᵀᴹ

Since this is my first Blog ever, I would like to start with a phrase I genuinely love from Molefi Kete Asante's book Afrocentricity – The Theory of Social Change. Molefi said, "…culture is at the base of all values." I agree. In this blog, I would like to write about this journey of Afro Fusion Sharqi Danceᵀᴹ, simply known as AFSDᵀᴹ, but I also would like to start this “conversation” with you about dances from Africa. I hope that you enjoy my story and understand that all of this is my personal opinion based on my research and my experiences as a Mozambican and African.

Dance has always been my passion throughout my journey, but it took me a long way to arrive—so many attempts to become a professional dancer. So, to be able to be here, writing this blog about Afro Fusion Sharqi Danceᵀᴹ is a great accomplishment. I am thrilled to share it with others, especially to explain how I have created the concept of Afro Fusion Sharqi Danceᵀᴹ and how one can connect with this dance.

I was born and raised in Mozambique (South East Africa), but I have already had the privilege of traveling a little bit of the world to see how different dances are approached. What I noticed the most is that when it comes to dance, there is always a tendency for most people to consider ballet as the ultimate, most crucial dance form. Traditional dances from Asia or Africa are considered most of the time "exotic" and very peculiar but rarely professional or rigorous. And I always ask myself why? Why is there a tendency from scholars and the public, in general, to see or consider the ballet format as the most significant one in the dance concept? Why, when someone says they want to become a dance teacher, do people always assume that to be a professional or successful dance teacher, you must start with or be a ballet teacher? Dances from Africa are full of rigor, technique, and power and can be very hard to execute. But it may be related to the history of cultures, people, countries, etc.

Anyway, I started my dance journey when very young at the National Singing & Dance School in Maputo. I was six years old, but I had to quit for many reasons and only got back on track aged 18 with Raqs Sharqi classes. My teacher at that time had all these CDs from Egypt from a great Egyptian composer Hossam Ramzy. I loved those classes, but for some reason, those movements didn't satisfy me completely. Some years later, I moved to Portugal, where I kept dancing in different formats. I studied Ballet, Contemporary, Jazz, Bharata Natyam, Hip-Hop, and other styles but always felt that something was not there. I understand why my problem with ballet (today) was because of the format. I already had this body moulded for traditional dances, which I grew up listening to and dancing to. So, everything related to NOT bending my knees and defying gravity was very complicated. I was entirely in favour of gravity, and Ballet is the opposite.

The problem I had with the movements in Ballet Class I also had with the music in Raqs Sharqi classes. I always felt that a specific dance did little for me, even when I was practicing. I always liked to practice with music and rhythms from other African regions.

Time passed by, I moved back to Mozambique in 2013; and I can't remember precisely the day when this fusion of the regions happened, but I know for a fact that when I started to put together the Northern African world with my Southern African world, immediately, I felt more normal within my body. I was dancing on two sides of the same continent, with music from my reality which was a sensation of relief for me, and dance movements that were also very similar. I was like oh, I can do this. If Africa is a continent with 55 countries, why not use music from the continent? Why does it only have to be a specific type of music from a particular place? So, I decided from that day on that I would no longer just use Egyptian music but only African music, especially in performances. That decision cost me so much because I then realized that I was so ignorant about the music from my continent, which then obliged me to read, study and investigate. Today I don't regret it at all. Sometimes it is still tough but very challenging as well. Because the more I read about dances from Africa and their people, culture, and history, the more passionate I become about them.

In my journey toward this concept, I also had another problem. I have already said that I was in Mozambique. My reality of traditional textiles and costumes is entirely different from North Africa. There is no such thing as Assiut, and the accessories and the jewelry are also very different. Another thing is that I needed more money to buy all these costumes and jewelry from Egypt. So, I had to adapt to my reality, which was good because it forced me to look for ways of representing both worlds in my circumstances. Instead of using the traditional Assiut fabric from Egypt, why not use a different fabric used in so many other African countries? This fabric can easily be found in Mozambique, Congo, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Côte d'Ivoire, and many other countries. In Mozambique, it is called the Kapulana or Nguvu. Men and women use it in many different ways daily, but this is also a textile that, depending on the ornaments, can be used at weddings or other important ceremonies and occasions.

The final decision was about the jewelry and accessories for the dance. I started to become more straightforward in terms of what to wear so people could better notice the beauty and message in the textiles, the nuances of the movements, and so as not to have so much weight on my body so it would be easy for me to move around, jump and move on the floor. I also started to buy only locally. I have created, produced, and hand-made in Africa. So, I was more authentic to the culture and helped local producers. During that process, I crossed paths with Alphonse Tiérou and Germaine Acogny. Reading their books and so many others simultaneously, looking for more material related to African dances, I realized that it is challenging to find books about Dances from Africa as reading material. Also, it is tough to find good Teachers that teach folk or traditional dance from an African country, who know and understand the philosophy of those dances with all respect for the format, rhythms, instruments, gestures, and meaning behind each movement.

As I started to study the different dance forms and history of Africa, and the language between the fabric, the beads, the colors, the symbols, the power of healing, the power of the people, the villages, the ethnic groups, the communities, the more passionate I became about the continent and of course my country. At that point, I decided that it was my duty to inspire more people to know about the cultures and history of Africa. I decided to create a portfolio of movements that could be used together and presented professionally. My goal is that people use Afro Fusion Sharqi Danceᵀᴹ as a valuable new dance form that allows them to express, communicate and dance with a complete understanding of technique, codes, and structures, but also that people completely understand and respect African cultures, starting with the dances, to the textile's, costumes, accessories and jewelry.

I want to finish this part about my journey by saying that I am still researching that, and it will never end. Watch for part 2, where I discuss the meaning behind Afro Fusion Sharqi Danceᵀᴹ.

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