An Eznak Ya Maalem

Good afternoon!

I won't be long today: just want to put some words before passing my daily exam. God knows how I hate this period, and the awful year I have spent doesn't help to hold on until the end. But projects do! Mainly of mine are about belly dance, does it sound surprising?
Workshops, festivals, galas, great artists and discoveries: that is exactly what I like! Plus I have something else in mind: two lessons left and the year is over for belly dance as well, so I have to keep projects in mind to train again, again and again. This year, we learned a lot of techniques, and three different choregraphies. I am not used to improvisation, and I have never try to let my creativity speak. So I feel that time has come to do so.

Rola Saad

I have found a lovely song to help me: "An Eznak Ya Maalem" by the Lebanese pop star Rola Saad. I know that it isn't judicious to talk about ideas before it is done, but you know, it really doesn't matter: it isn't original, as many dancers gave their own interpretation so far, plus all I wish is to be able to prepare about 3 minutes of dancing, nothing else :) And only if I am satisfied with the result I will post it, but not sure yet.
Whatever. I love this song for the kinky mood. According to the lyrics, the girl singing is someone proud and confident, who knows how attractive she is and likes to use her charm, but doesn't want to lose her independence and freedom. Everything that I am not, actually! That is why I need to dance on this one!

I won't tell you more about my love life, but trust me: I am not as self-assured as a lot of people believe, and I often regret my kindness. Well, I try to take good care on myself anyway ;-) Reaching my new goal will be a way to laugh at myself and my naïvety, and then I will eventually be able to make fun of the few who tried to bring me down. Oh, I am not into vengeance: derision is far better, and at least I won't use my energy for something which isn't worth it.

I have plenty of different ideas in mind! I can't wait to have more time to gather them! Sure I will have a lot of fun!! :))

Have an aaaaawesoooome day!!! xoxos!

Fiza

Good evening :)

Wow, this blog had never had so much visits previously: thank you so much!! Dears, I hope you enjoyed the reading! A priori I do not have time to write a new article today -student life and examinations- but as I need a break, I take advantage of these few minutes to talk about the latest movie I saw: Fiza.

Starring the famous Karisma Kapoor and the handsome Hritik Roshan, Fiza is a heartbreaking family drama. Here is the synopsis:

The film is about Fiza (Karisma Kapoor), whose brother, Aman (Hrithik Roshan), disappears during the 1993 Bombay Riots. Fiza and her mother Nishatbi (Jaya Bachchan) desperately hold on to the hope that one day he will return. However, six years after his disappearance, Fiza, fed up with living with uncertainty, resolves to go in search of her brother. Driven by her mother Nishatbi's fervent hope and her own determination, Fiza decides to use whatever means she can—the law, media, even politicians—to find her brother, which brings her into contact with various characters and situations.

I cut the story short not to reveal the whole intrigue.
I love Bollywood movies, even if I must confess that I mainly watched colourful, joyful films, which made me dream, even without happy endings. If you do not understand what I mean, don't you suddenly desire to become a courtesan if you are sure to be as classy as Madhuri Dixit in Devdas, with her brilliant interpretation of Chandramukhi? Well, Fiza could not be more different.
We follow the story of a muslim family suddenly destroyed after sanguinolent confrontations between Muslims and Hindus. When you believe that it couldn't be more difficult to live without a son and brother, without even knowing if he is alive, you reach the part of the movie where everything turns even worse. It is difficult to me not to divulgue more, but I really don't want to ruin the surprise.

Fiza is a very emotional realization, part thanks to the incredible actors: touching, strong, heartbreaking, determinated,... the characters are moving and particularly credible. Remember that it isn't always the case when you live in cloud-cuckoo land, in other words when you decide to relax with Bollywood.
Honestly, I watched Fiza with eyes filled with tears... at best! At worst, I just couldn't stop crying: when people are not able to recognize their own family, when a mother's hope is ruined, when you realize that the fiction is certainly very close to the reality,...

To summarize: if you like Bollywood cute and naive, get off on your way ; if you are searching for a movie with a real substance, check this out as soon as possible! Personally, I am delighted by the powerful discovery.

Talk to you soon! :)

Bellyladies Night

Good morniiiiiiinnnggg!!!

Remember, several weeks ago, I wrote an enthusiastic article about an event, Le Week-End de la Danse Orientale: http://gloomy-san.blogspot.com/2012/03/le-week-end-de-la-danse-orientale.html (in French only, I know: my apologies! I will try to avoid French as much as possible but as it is my mother tongue, you won't escape it).

This event took place this weekend. At first I really wanted to attend some workshops (saidi, Bellywood, chaabi,... God, I no longer knew where to look), but unfortunately, I finally had no time enough to lose a whole day, because of my student's life and the future examinations. That's why I decided to attend the show: Bellyladies Night. I will not talk about every single performances; I hope you will content yourselves with those which made a deep impression on me.

The dancing evening began with Maëlle, who immediatly seduced everybody with her smile -and with her magnificent white outfit too, yes. Her dynamic performance was ideal to get into the swim of things. Nevertheless a weakness, only in my opinion: I appreciate raks el asaya with saidi, but the cane isn't a prop that I appreciate that much when it is included to a raks al sharki performance.

Annamma @ Spectacle Magic Orient

Who talks about Bellywood workshop insinuates the presence of a show in the colours of India. God knows how I love this country, its various dances, music and so on. So I of course waited for this moment with a growing impatience. And it didn't disappointed me! Raised in a masterly fashion by Annamma, the duet Uma & Annamma flung us in this Asian country with their interpretation of the famous song "Kannodu Kanbathellam", taken from the movie "Jeans" and originally played by Aishwarya Rai. These ladies were the first to fill my eyes with tears, but I couldn't tell you if it was out of melancholy or happiness. Both, I guess.

And suddenly happened the disappointment: I couldn't wait to see the gorgeous Belgian dancer Artemisia, but her passage was purely and simply cancelled. If I understood well, I think that she suffers from a knee pain. Shame on me, but health above all! It is only a question of time.

The next huge surprise was Jamila and her wild saidi on "El Baston". Saidi is one of my favourite styles, and I keep telling that I absolutely need to try! You know what? I've just found my teacher! No kidding, Jamila was absolutely impressive, and she spread as much cheerfulness as saidi asks. Wow, I wanted this moment to last longer!

The first part ended with Fatima and her students. With the girls, we dived in the depths of the Moroccan folklore. While watching them, I remembered some people who told me how chaabi was boring, in their opinion. Personally, I just wanted to slip a kaftan on to rejoin the circle. Amazing Fatima!

Fatima and her students @ Prague

The star of our evening, Farah, introduced the second part, catching every single heart in the audience. What could I say? This heightened feminity, this precision, this touching interpretation, not counting this formidable stage presence and the particular contact with the public, every good elements were gathered together to make the best of these -short- seven minutes. Farah is what we call a GREAT dancer!

Farah Bakkali

To watch her performance, just click on the following symbol: *

The show needed another belly dancer to continue, and we all knew how the challenge was major.
But Asrar brilliantly accomplished the mission! Firstly, she decided not to present another classic act, but favoured a gypsy atmosphere, very different from everything else in the Night. No need to say that it was to her advantage! I was glad to see her for another obvious reason: a student is always delighted to support her teacher, right? According to our lessons, I was sure that this moment would be filled with joie de vivre, and you know what? I was right!
Here is the link to her performance: *

After that, the lovely Johanna seduces her and the Wicked Mystic offered us our tribal fusion time, but my next true favourite was the Cie Zellidjah and their saidi -yes, another one- which gave us the will of jumping at the opportunity to stand up and dance! Once again, I realized how Jamila is excellent! I'll try to attend her workshop in July, if I find the favour of time :)

Asrar @ Bellydancer of the World 2011
© Ayman Shoala

To conclude, this event was absolutely worth coming, even without the wonderful Artemisia: great dancers, various performances enough, nice place (fortunately easy to find) and friendly atmosphere.
Congratulations to Zahra & the artists, teachers, everyone who made it possible!

As Zahra said: "See you next year, inchallah!"

Please notice that the pictures are neither mine, nor taken from the Bellyladies Night. If you are the author and you want me to remove your work, let me know: it will please me to follow your requierements.

Thinking about...

Today, I was skimming through the internet when my eyes met one of my favourite quotations:

"You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean ; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty."
~ Mahatma Gandhi

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, 1869 - 1948

I grew up in a Christan family, where I was baptized, where I celebrated two communions and a faith confirmation: everything was purely traditional for my family, and as I was young, I did not have the opportunity to choose if I wanted to live these events or not. Living in such an environment, I never really thought about my own faith: everything appeared obvious to me. Until the age of thirteen, when time had come to celebrate the latest event: the confirmation.

There you are suppose to "confirm" the blessing you received during your baptism - the symbol of the Christian's new life - as it happens at an early age in various cases (for more details: *). I remember how I wasn't convinced by the idea: I thought it was too important to be just a "matter of principles", and since I began to have doubts about Catholicism and religion in general, I disagreed. But I was young and I eventually didn't have the choice.

©Anke Merzbach, http://www.bsw-art.com

After that, I quickly stopped believing. It wasn't a case of thoughtful rejection: it was only because everything I learned had lost its meaning. The child I was was sure; the teenager I was becoming distrusted. So I just gave up thinking about religion for a few years: I didn't feel concerned at all. From time to time I tried to remember how I felt previously, but I finally considered that it didn't come from me: as I told you, my family follows most of the Catholic traditions and when I was a little girl, it only seemed normal to me to do so. 

This refusal lasted several years.
But there I slowly left adolescence to enter adulthood. It made me become more conscious about our world and, thank heavens, less and less focused on myself. Opening the eyes wasn't as great as expected: no need to give more explanation, just read the newspaper, watch television news, stay open to the world you live in and sure you will understand! And for the first time, I felt like wanting to believe. Not by principles anymore, but by true faith: I wanted to find the strength to believe in something else / someone else, because more I was discovering (I especially had a real shock in 2009 which drives me on the way I am currently talking about), more I refused to see human being as the greatest strength existing. How could it be, considering how evil it can be?

And someday I read this quote, the one written at the beginning of the article. It lightened my day, and I am still able to see myself distinctly smiling, suddenly full of real happiness, smiling and saying aloud: "That is the answer I needed!". After all, "Every cloud has a silver lining", and I realized that there was no need to have the blues for once: nobody said that life was easy, and we all know that it is far from perfect.  But beside this fact, while beautiful things like friendship, laughter, hope and great minds exist, I deeply believe that it is worth living here. Great people exist, and they will ever exist, with their courage, their battles and very often their discretion.

I still do not know if I am a believer or not, but nevermind: I realized that there were tons of reasons on earth to smile and to fight for. It seems maybe obvious, but it has been an important step of my reconstruction. Coming across this quote today reminded me a lot of memories, that's why I decided to devote a space on this blog.

Good evening, Guten Abend, Bonne soirée, ערב טוב! :)

Battle Royale

Hi everybody!

I don't know if it is the same everywhere, but in my town, people are totally excited about "Hunger Games", currently in our cinemas. So excited that I needed to know more, curious as I am. This is what I read: in this dystopia which takes place in an destroyed America, the Capitol, an inquisitorial government, organizes every year a game, "Hunger Games", where teenagers between 12 and 18 years old are in confrontation until only one of them is left.

I won't go further: it doesn't interest me, and the reason is simple. If I pronounce the name "Battle Royale", does it evoke something?

Battle Royale is a 2000 Japanese action-drama-thriller film based on the 1999 novel of the same name by Koushun Takami. [...] The film tells the story of Shuya Nanahara, a high-school student struggling with the death of his father who is forced by the government to compete in a deadly game, where the students must kill each other in order to win. The film aroused both domestic and international controversy, and was either banned or excluded from distribution in several countries. *

I won't lie to you: you are talking to a huge fan of both the book and the movie.

I discovered this movie when I was 14, and I was immediatly amazed by the foolishness of this "game", organized by a government which fears its teens. How could you imagine your friends and acquaintances fighting to death during three days?

Every student receives a bag with some food and water plus a weapon (from the knife to the submachine gun). And then begins the violence: cruelty, trick, fear, suicides, but also kindness, friendship, love and some kind of innocence, because of the few people who hope to God to find a better solution, for better or for worse. This movie could actually be worth watching only for the fantastic performance of Takeshi Kitano as the cynical and desperate teacher. But there is more to discover beside him, so do not hesitate if you do not know it yet!
Oh, I just want to add something, ladies and gentlemen: as a French-speaking person, I beg my French-speaking readers to watch the movie in Japanese with the French (or whatever) subtitles. Trust me, the French dubbing is a pain in the neck, too far -even sometimes opposite to- the original dialogs.

Souma Mitsuko, interpreted by Shibasaki Kou

And if I already loved the movie, what could I say about the book? A pleasure! We sink into the darkness of the game itself, with the inhuman bets of its investigators about the potential winner, the circumstances which motivated them to set up the "battle royale", the image of a devastated country, and a criticism about the way of thinking: "every man for himself". We also discover deeper characters (in
the movie, I regretted that the main character was seen as a "saint" while almost all the others were becoming madder and madder) -even if they still are big clichés, as Kiriyama Kasuo, the brilliant young man but whose indifference makes him particularly cruel and awfully dangerous-, their thoughts and reactions which are suddenly easier to understand, but nevertheless disconcerting. And of course, if the violence of the images were already alarming, there is nothing compared to the violence of the words!

Masanobu Ando as Kiriyama Kasuo

But what I loved the most in the book was the black humour. Even in the worst situation, when for instance a student is in danger of death, Koushun Takami uses the right words, the special phrases which makes you bursting out laughing at the moment you didn't expected at all!

Let me remind you once again that "Battle Royale", the book, was released in 1999, the movie in 2000, and both of them had an international success, a decade before "Hunger Games".

By the way if you want a detailed advice about the differences between "Battle Royale" and "Hunger Games", please follow this link: http://www.shocktillyoudrop.com/news/165895-the-hunger-games-vs-battle-royale-similarities-and-differences As I told you, I didn't see the movie, and I don't know the books, so I wouldn't be able to give my opinion.

Have a nice Sunday!

The land of milk and honey

Coming back to Belgium is always difficult, especially after living in such a powerful country. I went to Israel only for a week, but this was far enough to catch a part of me, this part which didn't accept to leave, lucky it! Now, I feel like it has been ages since I was there; but the stings on my arms remind me the marvellous day I had under the big sun of the magnificent Jaffa's old city, two days ago.

Jaffa (יפו), Wednesday 10th April 2012

This place, oh, this place! Israel is as warm as Belgium is cold, and I am not (only) talking about the weather.

Actually, I don't want to talk about my travel in details, with the towns I visited and so on. Going there was first of all important to me to know if, yes or no, I liked the country enough to be able to live there more than three months, for my next year internship abroad. See how my student life follows me everywhere!

Finally, I found out that I do not like the Holy Land: I simply love it!

Right now, I could name so many things I miss:

•  this sun, which warms or even inflames the heart as much the skin ;
•  the heterogeneous mix of the three main monotheist religions ;
•  the kipot (כיפות), pe'ot (פאות), shtreimlech (שטריימלעך), veils, etc. ;
•  the flags in the colours of Israel floating to the wind ;
•  hummus and falafels ;
•  Jaffa's orange juice ;
•  the practice of Hebrew with taxi drivers ("הו! את מדברת עברית!") ;
•  my precious gift ;
•  the predominant mutual assistance ;
•  the exciting, rich, endless discussions with Israeli people ;
•  the attempts of reading in front of every poster ;
•  discoveries and novelties which mark the face with childish enjoyment ;
•  "Well, where am I?" / "Ok, how am I supposed to do, now?": the changes of plan, the uncertainties, the time spent with huge question marks in the eyes ;
•  all the rest.

Jerusalem of Gold, ירושלים של זהב

 Only a week and a soul deeply touched.

Fortunately, I know perfectly that it is just a goodbye: I will be back soon.There I'll have new challenges to overcome. I feel glad and proud of having this luck: trust me, I won't miss it.

Until then, my friends, work is waiting for me. But it is worth it, it will be as well, and next time I'll leave this awesome land, I'll be stronger than I am right now.

ארץ ישראל, להתראות

ארץ ישראל

Leaving tomorrow for the Land of Israel ( ארץ ישראל ).

This week will be my very first time in this country, and I could hardly explain you how happy I am! Discovering new places is always such an enthralling experience, you know. And landing in this country, so small but so rich and complex, fills me with joy!

The next seven days are going to be short, but first of all full of experiences and happiness.

Back to you soon with tons of pictures!

שלום :)

© Nachman Hellman for israel365.co.il