Folklore/Ethnomusicology Articles
“Between rightdoing and wronging,
there is a place.
I’ll meet you there”
~Rumi, 13th century Sufi poet
I have been involved with Middle Eastern cultures since I was 11 years old when my older sister, Caroline, moved to Iran. She introduced me to Iranian, Turkish and Arabic music and dance, and from then on I became fascinated with their dances, and the feelings they have for them. I was then lucky enough to be able to study with a real Egyptian dancer, Faten Ali Munger, since I was 19. Being raised by these women showed me that dance is much more than just learning the moves; you must immerse yourself in the culture to understand the feeling. Without that the dance is empty, even if the technique is flawless. The word “tarab” is Arabic for “musical ecstasy”, and is the goal of all Arabic music, whether secular or sacred. As the dance is an exact reflection of the music, it is our goal as dancers to transcend the mundane world and bring our audience on a mystical journey to the Center, the heart.
As an undergraduate most of my International Studies degree was in Socio-Cultural Anthropology. My first professor, Dr. Lesley Sharp, studied spirit possession in Madagascar; this opened the doors wide to a love of trance and ecstasy, and studying its place within cultures. I then combined my love of Middle Eastern cultures with my dance background, and I discovered that they have their own variety of trance, or “tarab”, and that music and dance is the foundation to create ecstasy. The two trance dances I studied in depth are the Zar of Egypt, and the Sema of Turkey.
Dancing on tour with Turkish Sufi musician, Latif Bolat, in 1998 really showed me the poetry in motion; my love of Sufi poetry deepened, and helped me to put the dance in context, as they are often performed together traditionally. I then went on to discover the study of Folklore/Ethnomusicology, and Dance Ethnology. I am currently a graduate student pursuing a Master’s in Ethnomusicology at Indiana University, Bloomington. You can read the published articles I had in Habibi about these subjects below:
Peptides and the Mind/Body Orchestra: Shamanic Healing in the Zar and Sema Rituals, by Katya Faris
From Volume 19, No. 2, September 2002 (BAIS19-2).
Here is a review of a dance concert of Jasmin Jahal’s in Chicago:
Kismet: One Man’s Destiny, by Katya Faris (Bloomington, Indiana)
A review of Jasmin Jahals’s “Kismet” production in Chicago, Illinois.
From Issue 19.3, June 2003
Here is a review I wrote for Faten’s restaurant in Indianapolis where I danced, Café Trevi:
“Faten Ali Munger Opens Cafe Trevi in Indianapolis”, by Katya Faris.
Here is an opinion piece I wrote about the current state of bellydance:
“The Post-Modern Bellydancer”, by Katya Faris.
This is a review I wrote for Amani’s show, www.amanionline.com:
Amani DVD Report by Katya Faris in the Gilded Serpent.