ZAR DANCE IN EGYPT

ZAR DANCE
BY CLAUDIA HEINLE

ZAR DANCE is a short film clip created by Claudia Heinle, dancer and choreographer at CIE TANZ RAUM, to share material, which we gathered during research trips in Egypt. These trips are essential and stimulating for the dance company`s creations. To share these extraordinary moments with you means a lot to us.

In this clip, you can get a glimpse of Egypt’s healing rituals. To this day, parts of the rural female population practices ZAR DANCE to appease spirits. The zar communities are exclusively female, though a few men appear occasionally. There are always musicians, male or female, who accompany these rituals, and dance is an essential part of the healing process. Out of respect, the film does not show the women dancing - but we can see enough. The movements are organic, simple and repetitive. The musicians might be men, but the healers are women, and the patients are women. Women heal women. Zar music is highly rhythmic and repetitive. The melodies of the zar songs are based on the pentatonic scale and are often very similar, differing only in their words. Trance-inducing beats accelerate together with trance-inducing, repetitive movements until the patient breaks down. The music then stops abruptly. The zar ritual provides women with music, dance, food and an incredible atmosphere of togetherness.

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