The Zar Dance

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Product Description

The main feature of this DVD won a Bronze Medal at the New York International Film and TV Festival of 1981. Experience the exciting making of a dance from the warm-ups to the final theatrical event. Thirty-Eight minutes of never-before seen Bonus Features have been added to the original footage, including excerpts from an authentic Egyptian Zar ceremony. The highlight of the DVD is a performance of Bait el Zar (House of Zar). Before Western missionaries condemned these zar houses in the late 19th century as being pagan, the houses were an old tradition in Islamic Egypt. A sick person was brought by a friend to the Zar house for the illness-causing evil to be exorcised. Though the Zar ceremony is stil practiced in the Middle East today, few of these houses remain. Ibrahim Farrah has choreographed a theatrical version of this exotic dance, and it is presented in a fully staged and costumed performance featuring The Near East Dance Group.

The Zar Dance Review

There are a number of trance dances in North Africa and the Near East, but the Zar, in its various forms, is exceptionally powerful.
Traditionally it is a dance of healing, of mind, body or spirit, for an afflicted individual. It is not entertainment or a social dance but
a communal experience related to healing. Ibrahim Farrah, whose contributions as a Near Eastern dancer, teacher and scholar are widely
recognized, put together a dramatization of the zar dance experience and filmed it. The resulting video is as close you can get to
the zar experience without being in the now very rare times and places in North Africa or Near East where it is performed. The challenge
of the production was to have dancers who could perform the ritual dance movements authentically and expertly but also would have the
acting ability to play their roles in believable ways. The resulting production succeeds magnificently with an evocative setting,
beautiful costuming and choreography which conveys the essence of zar in what is necessarily a theatrical mode. Obviously it isn't an
authentic zar ceremony and makes no claim to be one. But it does convey the mood, atmosphere and spirit of the zar, giving the viewer
a window into a very special, exotic experience. Included also are interviews with the participants.

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