We gathered at the Salisbury Livestock Market on the afternoon of Sunday 13th March for 2 workshops and a studio performance by acclaimed German dancer Nabila. Having had the pleasure of both seeing Nabila perform and also taking a workshop with her in the past, I was really looking forward to seeing her again.
The afternoon started off with a fun Melaya Lef choreography which Nabila taught in bite-sized chunks that were easily assimilated and built on. She talked about posture, dancing in shoes and getting that laid back look of a proud Cairene or Alexandrian woman who feels comfortable in her own skin, aware of her charms and not afraid to flirt just a little (provided it was only flirting of course!). We spent some time working on how to wear the melaya, and this point I was already on a winning streak, as Sabine and I ended up swapping melayas. Mine was really too big and she felt hers was too small. I know I didn’t actually buy it, but I still felt like I’d gone home with a new dance toy!
Back to the workshop! In the choreography Nabila put great emphasis on the dichotomy of flirty coquette, and the girl who knows that she can only go so far before her reputation is at stake. I have always enjoyed dancing Melaya Lef so it is always nice to see how someone else interprets it. We only took a short break halfway through and pressed on until we had completed the 5 minutes + choreography - not bad for less than 2.5 hours learning time! What I also liked about this workshop was the fact that the class was filled with dancers who were there for one reason alone - to learn something. There was no distracting chit chat, no need for Nabila to teach basic moves and everyone remained focused on the task at hand. That’s not to say that we didn’t enjoy ourselves - we did! Nabila is an excellent teacher, who communicates well with her students, demonstrating from different angles and providing extra information on how a certain movement should look or would put you in ‘character’ for the dance.
We then took a longer break and partook of refreshments provided by our host, the lovely Sabine Dawson. This gave time for those who were arriving for the second workshop time to meet and greet and get changed. The second workshop was an advanced level drum solo choreography and it certainly lived up to the description! Sadly, early on I slipped and fell over managing to pull a hamstring in the process. It was very frustrating to sit on the sideline and watch everyone learning when I wanted to be up there with them. However, I did take copious notes and came away with some excellent new combinations to try out, as well as some fun ways to put a bit of variety into how you actually dance a drum solo. Once again Nabila showed us what a good teacher she is, squeezing just that little bit extra out of the class when the going got tough, encouraging everyone to push just a bit harder to get the right result.
After this workshop was over there was a longer break whilst Nabila had time to recuperate and then to go off and get changed for the studio performance. What a star, you would never have guessed that the night before she had done a long performance (5 or more numbers) at Vivienne Radfar’s party, taught two workshops during the day and got up fairly early for a long drive from Milton Keynes to Salisbury. Okay, so she said she didn't bother too much with make-up but that really didn’t matter at all! She came out dressed in a beautiful yellow and diamante bedlah and began her set with Fatme Serhan’s rendition of Tahtil Shibak and all of a sudden it was like the lights had been switched on. Nabila’s dancing has a sweet charm to it, it’s rather like the girl-next-door who suddenly turned into this glamorous professional dancer! She knows her stuff though, we were treated to polished and sharp technique combined with the joy of someone totally at home with the music.
Nabila then moved on to a piece of traditional accordion baladi which had us clapping along and tapping our feet in time to the music. To finish Nabila put on her finger cymbals and danced to a lovely up-tempo modern Persian number, during which she got many of us up to form a circle in which first she danced and then persuaded others to join her. It was a really lovely was to finish up the evening and as I said it was very generous of her to dance more than one number considering how tired she was. We were certainly very grateful and I cannot wait for her to come back next year. I understand that both Sabine and Vivienne have plans with that in mind, they can certainly count on me to buy a ticket!
I really want to thank both Nabila for a great afternoon and evening, also Sabine Dawson who organised the event. As ever Sabine had everything running smoothly and notwithstanding the name - it was a great venue too!
Visit Nabila's website at: http://www.nabila-sabha.de/ it’s currently in German, but Nabila told me that she has plans for an English version too, that should be ready shortly. Nabila and a friend also stage one of Germany’s largest dance festivals (Bazar Oriental), and produces a wonderful German language magazine of the same name. You can visit the website for both at http://www.bazar-oriental.de/
Afra al Kahira