Customer Reviews (2)

Best Narrative into many artforms of Egyptian, Middle Eastern, and Gulf Dance: Must have for any serious dancer
The writer took a carefull approach into describing the history and culture of the dance origin, then continued into describing the dance - the meaning of the dance, the musical meaning of the dance, the costume of the dance, and the performance of the dance. This led into much enlightened knowlegde being sought by serious studenst. She started out with bellydance being brought to the US, and many myth busters. She covered Egyptian Cabaret and Saiidi, with a comparision of male vs female Saiidi dance. Then trance dance or religious dance, Guedra and Zar. There is a chapter on Lebanese Debke. I wish there was one on Turkish and Lebanese Bellydance. She does cover the Gulf States with Khaleegy and another battle dance in Dubai thought to have been brought to Dubai from Egyptian Traders. There is a controverial chapter on mail belly dance. Then a comparision of an American show vs an Egyptian Show. This book is so packed with knowlegde that I have found to be more than likely accurate with my research. IT IS A MUST HAVE. I COULD NOT POSSIBLY DESCRIBE IT ALL HER. IT IS FULL OF WELL RESEARCHED KNOWLEDGE. Not alot of pics though. Even goes over a full Tunora Routine.

Kira

Concise layman's guide to Middle Eastern Dance
If you are interested in exploring literature on Middle Eastern Dance and have been stumped by the wide range currently on offer, this is an excellent introduction featuring major Middle Eastern dances.Easy to read with relevant information including historical development, it was a pity that it had so few photos.

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Book Description
Style File is a compact dictionary of the specialty terms associated with Middle Eastern dance costuming. This concise visual guide is an invaluable reference tool for dance students, teachers, and belly dance costume designers. Over fifty beautifully illustrated original drawings are supported by easy to understand text that identifies the garments and accessories unique to our dance form. Covering high-glamour bedlah to earthy folkloric, tribal fusion to historical reproductions, each style is broken into its component parts. From assuit to zardozi, this handy book is a must for the reference library of Middle Eastern belly dancers who want to push past the basic cabaret costume. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Low production values, detailed, informative, short
This odd little book is not quite what I expected for the money, but it's adequate nonetheless. While $13 is a little high for a Very simple black and white guide consisting of a mere 40 glossy, monochromatic pages put together with only two staples, the content is well-researched and concise. The drawings convey the styles well and with enough detail, though they are irrefutably amateurish. The proportion is only so-so, and all the faces are left blank, and while an "independently produced" book will have a low budget, the illustrator could have tried to make it a little more professional-looking, but I have seen worse illustrations in mass-produced books, so kudos for the independent writer team, the Browns. The fact that there are so many illustrations (at least one per page) with such diverse styles and pieces shown, I would still buy this book knowing all I know now. As a costume designer and dancer, there is plenty of inspiration in these humble pages, and while much of it can be found in bits and pieces on the internet, this is well-compiled and useful.

Great Overview of Costume Styles
This small book graphically demonstrates the differences among the various styles of Middle Eastern dance costumes.It would be of assistance to any dancer, costume designer, or dance historian.

Great little resource; mix and match inspiration!
At only about 40 pages long, this book isn't going to take up too much space on your shelves!It is, however, a nifty little compendium of different belly dance 'looks', grouped according to basic classifications (bedlah, beladi dress, tribal and so on) and illustrated with clear, simple line drawings.There is also a good quantity of background information in these pages (though little that an experienced dancer is likely to find new!) This is a great little book to thumb through for inspiration, and I'll be coming back to it again and again.There's nothing particularly 'new' or innovative in it, but there doesn't need to be.

It is important to note that this is not a book on how to make costumes, though it does give a few ideas on what can be used or adapted for some components.AS the title suggests, this provides you with a 'visual vocabulary' - a selection of style fundamentals from which you will be able to build design ideas of your own.Even if you're not into the 'mix and match' design, even just photocopying the line drawings and experimenting with different colour combinations will lead to a wealth of design ideas... ... Read more

Book Description

Throughout centuries of European colonial domination, the bodies of Middle Eastern dancers, male and female, move sumptuously and seductively across the pages of Western travel journals, evoking desire and derision, admiration and disdain, allure and revulsion. This profound ambivalence forms the axis of an investigation into Middle Eastern dance—an investigation that extends to contemporary belly dance.

Book Description

Customer Reviews (17)

Good book, lousy printing
This book is full of great information on the origins of belly dance, dance styles, moves and costuming however....it's virtually impossible to read the wealth of material contained on it's pages thanks to the use of dark and pastel colored photographs and patterns as a background for the print!!(Print which also wildly varies in color and sometimes all but disappears in the background altogether.)It's a real shame that the editors didn't take that problem in consideration at the time of publication because they have made an otherwise wonderful little book very difficult to enjoy.

good overview of bellydancing
This was a beautiful-looking book, though smaller in size than I had anticipated (not coffee-table sized but a smallish square paperback).It's pretty cursory in its review of culture and costume.Lots of details on things like instruments and drum patterns (in fact, a bit too much detail).I was expecting more clear delineations between the different styles of dress per culture, so I was a bit disappointed in that area.And I have to echo what another reviewer said, that the print is a little hard to read because of the choices in font and background colors in places.

Great book for Belly Dancerd
Has photography as well as the history. A great book.

A decent overview
This was a decent overview.I wish it detailed more about costumes, but as is life.I am not sad I purchased this item.

basic info, but difficult to see printed words
I'm a begining bellydancer & wanted something to give me some basic info in the history & culture of bellydance. This book does that.There is a lot of info in the book. My complaint: Some pages are very difficult to read due to the fact that the words are printed with a variety of colors onto background photos. I had read that comment in another review before I bought my copy, but didn't realize how much of the book was printed that way (more than half) & how difficult it would be to read (very difficult), make sure you have good lighting. Also the font size used is a little on the small side. Might have been easier to read with a larger font. Should be able to find same info in an easier to read format. ... Read more

Book Description
This book contains inspirational insights gleaned from Hozuhni's varied world experiences (she is an international Flight Attendant for American Airlines) about applying the powers of awareness and positive intention to the stress and challenges of modern life, along withpractical instructions for using the ancient art of exotic "belly dance" for creative transformation of body, mind and spirit. It includes step-by-step instructions, enlightening interpretations, and many delightful illustrations. Particularly unique are the author's correlations of esoteric systems such as the energy charkas and the Chinese placement art of Feng Shui with expressive dance. Hozuhni succeeds in rendering such transcendent experiences as enlightenment, ecstasy, and bliss accessible through her deep understanding of the spiritual power of solo dance. Readers will undoubtedly appreciate the book's progressive synthesis of the personal and universal, old and new, and East and West in this ancient but evolving and increasingly popular moving art-form. ... Read more

Book Description
48-page stapled booklet of ads, b/w photos and informative listings all about Middle Eastern Dance (belly dance) videos: performance, instructional, workout, costuming and more. Many obscure and hard-to-find titles listed, including those not widely advertised. A fantastic resource for students, teachers and aficionados of the dance form. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Excellent Source Guide for Ethnic Dancers
I have been a subscriber to the Middle Eastern Sourcebook for several years. I enjoy the commentary on the videos, the dancers and range of dance styles covered.Within these pages you can find videos of traditional "Raks Sharki" to new innovative techniques of "Moving Meditaion" or "Spiritual Bellydance". As a student myself of ME dance and a teacher, I continually go to this guide and explore various videos and their techniques.I also share this source book with my dance students and encourage them to begin their own Bellydance Video Library.THANK YOU DONNA CARLTON! ... Read more

Book Description
48-page stapled booklet of ads, b/w photos and informative listings all about Middle Eastern Dance (belly dance) videos: performance, instructional, workout, costuming and more. Many obscure and hard-to-find titles listed, including those not widely advertised. A fantastic resource for students, teachers and aficionados of the dance form. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

A unique resource
This book is a unique resource for finding the right title among the wealth of danse orientale videos. There is simply no other single source for this many videos, listed objectively. -jj-

Dance All Night
Wow! I would never have believed that a book like this existed! I love to belly dance and find that dancing to videos is the best exercise. I have always been on the search for good videos and now I don't know where to begin! I am thrilled to know that there are so many videos out there to choose from. Plus the booklet itself is so pretty. I get inspired to keep dancing from just looking at the pictures. Plus some of the tapes are not just instructional or for workouts but also performance.

Thank you Donna! I now know where to go for great dance videos.

The most complete guide to Middle Eastern Dance Videos
This is the most complete guide to Middle Eastern Dance Videos that I've ever seen. I've been referring to it and ordering videos from it for about ten years.
Donna Carlton, its editor, updates it annually, so I've never had a problem getting the videos I order from it.
The front and back covers, inside front cover, and first 18 pages consist of ads. Many other ads are sprinkled throughout the booklet, although it is divided into five main sections:
Instructional Videos
Performance Videos
Costuming/Catalog/Miscellaneous Videos
Addresses (approximately 90, including most of the biggest names in "the belly dance community" Index (inside back cover)
There are many illustrations, but only in black and white, and mostly of photocopy quality. Many belly dance products - especially those in print, are plain and uncolorful, which is a shame, considering how colorful the fine art of belly dancing is! I believe this is due to "the belly dance community's" aversion or reluctance to market, and occasional denial of, the belly dance's intense sexuality. Failing to capitalize on this most marketable of aspects, entire troupes of belly dancers spend weeks raising funds approximately equivalent to those one sexy dancer can make in one night or sometimes even in an hour! As a result, I have yet to see a belly dance magazine in more than a half dozen colors, whereas even the raunchiest pornography is rarely published in other than life-like color. I wouldn't recommend "The Middle Eastern Dance Video Sourcebook" as coffee table books or collector's items, but if you seriously want to buy belly dance videos for instruction and/or entertainment, this booklet serves as the best, most comprehensive guide I've ever seen in the twenty years that I've avided collected belly dance videos! ... Read more

Book Description
The EDA Handbook for Middle Eastern Dance provides an introduction to the most significant aspects of Egyptian Raqs Sharki as taught at the EDA under academy dean DaVid of Scandinavia. ... Read more

Book Description
48-page stapled directory of more than 250 videos, all types belly dance titles on VHS/DVD. b/w pictures, advertisements, index. ... Read more

Book Description
Volume I, Book 20.Illustrated overview and mini-sewing & crafting class on authentic folk costumes worn in & around the Middle East.Fabric types, care/packing/storing how-tos. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

This was very informative
I was very impressed with all the information packed in a small easy to read no nonsense style. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in Middle Eastern Folk Dancing!

not worth the price
What a dissapointing book!Not even a "real" book; a few pieces of paper stapled at the spine.It was so very general in scope, it was of no practical use whatsoever.No specific sewing instructions.No dates (or even time frames)on any costumes.The line drawings were small and the only costume that had directions was for a "T-tunic".Fabric/costume care information in the back wasn't anything you can't find on-line anyway.A book not even beginners will find useful.Waste of time and $$$. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

A true gem, a must read, an illuminating memoir
Nesta Ramazani has written a true gem of memoir and history. With her extremely capable pen, she takes us on both a personal journey into her own diverse, eclectic, and inspiring life and also into revealing vignettes of Iranian life of the 1940's and 1950's -- a period lamentably ignored by too many historians.

The book does what the best memoirs should do: it tells a great tale, weaves the background history nicely, and illuminatesslices of life and Iranian society in all its color and diversity.

It is touching, funny, enlightening, and exquisitely told. The book should be on the reading list of anyone interested in good memoirs, in Iran, in women's studies, in the Middle East, or simply in good writing. I rank the book at the top of any list of Iranian memoirs in the English language.

Charming book, a delightful read!
I picked up this book because I was interested in reading about Iran in the 1940s and 50s. I was pleasantly surprised what an outstanding writer Ramazani is, she has an adept pen and is a wonderful storyteller. I was amazed how candid she was, how much personal and family history she divulges.

I recommend this book highly to the Iranian diaspora throughout the world, Nesta Ramazani gives a truly intimate account of her own journey and the mid-20th century history of Iran.

A personal viewpoint of the meeting of different faiths
Nesta Ramazani's The Dance Of The Rose And The Nightingale is the personal testimony of a young woman who grew up in Iran during the 1940s, the daughter of an English Christian mother and an Iranian Zoroastrian father. Reflecting a personal viewpoint of the meeting of different faiths, as well as the daily difficulties Iran experienced as its government tried to compel its traditional society and culture to modernize, The Dance Of The Rose And The Nightingale is a captivating, autobiographical life story and especially recommended reading for students of 20th Century Iranian history. ... Read more

Book Description
Those tales of old—King Arthur, Robin Hood, The Crusades, Marco Polo, Joan of Arc—have been told and retold, and the tradition of their telling has been gloriously upheld by filmmaking from its very inception. From the earliest of Georges Méliès's films in 1897, to a 1996 animated Hunchback of Notre Dame, film has offered not just fantasy but exploration of these roles so vital to the modern psyche. St. Joan has undergone the transition from peasant girl to self-assured saint, and Camelot has transcended the soundstage to evoke the Kennedys in the White House.

Here is the first comprehensive survey of over 900 cinematic depictions of the European Middle Ages—date of production, country of origin, director, production company, cast, and a synopsis and commentary. A bibliography, index, and over 100 stills complete this remarkable work. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Excellent book
This is by far the best book available on films about the middle ages, nothing else like it exists. It's an encyclopedia of 564 films in all languages. The author doesn't rate or rank the films, but provides enough clues to give the careful reader guidance on which are the better and more important films (length of entry, accompanying picture, etc.). Some of these films are extremely obscure and I have no idea how one would go about viewing them. Each film entry has a bibliography for further information and reviews. There is also an Introduction and bibliography. It's good to see a paperback version is now available although it is still costly. For lovers of the middle ages and film this will open new worlds. ... Read more

Book Description
In this companion volume to the successful Images of Enchantment: Visual and Performing Arts of the Middle East (AUC Press, 1998), historian and ethnomusicologist Sherifa Zuhur has once again commissioned and edited authoritative essays from noteworthy scholars from around the globe that explore the visual and performing arts in the Middle East.

What differentiates this volume from its predecessor is its investigation of theater, from the early modern period to the contemporary. Topics include race and national identity in Egyptian theater, early writing in the Arab theater in North America, Persian-language theater from its origins through the twentieth century, Palestinian nationalist theater, and a survey of the work of noted Egyptian playwright Yusuf Idris. Other aspects of the arts are not neglected, of course, as further avenues of dance, music, and the visual arts are explored.

Marked by interesting and fresh perspectives, Colors of Enchantment is another vital contribution to scholarship on the arts of the Middle East.

Contributors: Najwa Adra, Wijdan Ali, Sami Asmar, Clarissa Burt, Michael Frishkopf, M. R. Ghanoonparvar, Tori Haring-Smith, Kathleen Hood, Deborah Kapchan, Neil van der Linden, Samia Mehrez, Mona Mikhail, Sami A. Ofeish, 'Ali Jihad Racy, Rashad Rida, Tonia Rifaey, Edward Said, Lori Anne Salem, Philip D. Schuyler, Selim Sednaoui, Reuven Snir, James Stone, Eve Troutt Powell, and Sherifa Zuhur. ... Read more

Book Description
In this thought-provoking interdisciplinary work, Shaun Marmon describes how eunuchs, as a category of people who embodied ambiguity, both defined and mediated critical thresholds of moral and physical space in the household, in the palace and in the tomb of pre-modern Islamic society. The author's central focus is on the sacred society of eunuchs who guarded the tomb of the Prophet Muhammad in Medina for over six centuries and whose last representatives still perform many of their time honored rituals to this day. Through Marmon's account, the "sacred" eunuchs of Medina become historical guides into uncharted dimensions of Islamic ritual, political symbolism, social order, gender and time. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

An excelent option
This is a really good choice to read. It have good ideas, interestin facts, and the most important is that this is a critical analisys about sexuality and thse sacred world in Islam society. ... Read more

Book Description
This digital document is an article from Westchester County Business Journal, published by Westfair Communications, Inc. on March 1, 2004. The length of the article is 1140 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Concert celebrates Middle Eastern musical traditions: Arab-American community celebrated during March 6th concert and dance performance at the White Plains Performing Arts Center.(arts news)
Author: Tom van Buren
Publication: Westchester County Business Journal (Magazine/Journal)
Date: March 1, 2004
Publisher: Westfair Communications, Inc.
Volume: 43Issue: 9Page: a5(1)

Distributed by Thomson Gale ... Read more