Fall In Love with Your Music

Note that this event occurs on THREE days - July 9, August 6, and September 3. 1:30 - 3:30 CST each day. Zoom is available. Classes will be recorded and provided to participants. The workshop must be purchased and attended as a series.

From Debbie:

Hey dancers! I’d like to invite you to join me for a series of three workshops I will be doing with Karavan Studio this summer, focusing on Arabic music and how we relate to it as dancers.

Why should you do these workshops?

• To develop a deeper relationship with Arabic music, which will add more dimension and joy to your experience of dancing and moving to it.
• To gain a more detailed understanding of the musical structure, phrasing and dynamics from a dancer’s point of view, which will give you more confidence when working with it in rehearsal and on stage.

How will we do this? Using an Egyptian composition/song as a point of departure, we will

• Look at a song within its cultural context, considering the composer, the singer, the lyrics, and the time and place of its origin
• Learn how to listen more deeply to the music, using right-brain and left-brain approaches and movement
• Discuss concepts like being present in the moment, tarab, improvisation, and authenticity in the context of our dance form

This workshop will be cumulative and interactive, and different from any workshops you have attended before. I promise it will change your experience of dance.

About Debbie:

Debbie Smith is a dancer specializing in Egyptian style raqs sharqi with over 30 years of experience in this field as a performer, a writer and a teacher. Her approach is to look at and consider this dance within its cultural context, which includes not just dance knowledge and steps, but also music, language, and culture, as well as an awareness of history, politics and religion and how they affect society and culture. What enables her to do this is a combination of experience, study, and living and working in Egypt for extended periods over the last 15 years, as well as an abiding love and respect for all that is wonderful about Egyptian and Arab culture. As a performer, she is inspired stylistically by the great Egyptian dancers and guided by a very close relationship to the music and is a believer in “less is more” and in the power of subtlety. In addition to performance, she does workshops, classes and talks that allow her to share her dance and cultural knowledge from a nuanced and informed perspective. She has a BA in Middle Eastern Studies from the University of Texas at Austin.

Debbie also has over two decades of professional experience in the United States and Egypt as an arts administrator, encompassing everything from program management and development to proposal writing and fundraising, to production and event management, and anything else that might be part of running an arts and culture organization. She now does this work on a freelance basis as an independent consultant and works with clients in the United States, Egypt, and Lebanon. The values that guide her work are providing access to arts and culture for all, bringing artists/organizations and resources together, and creating a space in the cultural landscape for a diversity of artistic “voices” and practices. She and her husband Yasser currently divide their time between Cairo, Egypt (population 20,000,000) and Bald Knob, Arkansas (pop. 2500), and so have the best of both worlds.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Karavan Studio, 1811 S. Laredo #107, San Antonio, United States