Zaghareets and hisses, which resemble the sound of cold water dripping on a red-hot griddle, permeated the air of the club with their sizzle. The sounds punctuated the sultry windings of internationally known belly dance master Tamalyn Dallal, whose controlled writhing unfolded through the translucent veils that clung to her waistband. Her movements caused the shimmering fabric to float above and wind around her in a sensuous hypnotic style that grasped the audience with the rapt approval.
Dallal is an international dance instructor who has been dancing for 33 years and has displayed her talent in 38 countries. She has authored several books, produced films about her travels and taught belly dance around the world.
Her Eugene tour, a preview of her 40 Days and 1001 Nights Project, included two workshops, a lecture, film viewing, book signing and performance at Middle Eastern Dance Guild of Eugene’s monthly belly dance show at Cozmic Pizza. Dallal’s two workshops, “Technique Intensive for Graceful Arms and Hands” and “Gorgeous Veil Technique and Choreography,” were held at Celebration Belly Dance and Yoga Studio in
Eugene. The tour was sponsored by MEDGE with help from the University’s Arab Student Union and the International Law Society at the School of Law.
“Tamalyn is really an inspirational and talented dancer,” said Kathryn Darnall, a University student who attended the workshops. She said it was a rare treat to learn movements from such a “graceful, composed dancer with so many years of experience.”
Advanced belly dancer Melissa Gustafson, program coordinator at the Oregon Humanities Center, said she was “extremely impressed by Tamalyn’s veil performance Friday night” and thought the workshop Dallal taught was fabulous.
“To understand a people, you must live among them for 40 days” is the ancient Arabic proverb that initiated Dallal’s 40 Days and 1001 Nights Project. Beginning in September 2005, Dallal spent 40 days in five Muslim countries documenting the people and their traditions from the perspective of a dancer. Her adventure took her to Indonesia, the Egyptian Siwa Oasis, Zanzibar, Jordan and the Muslim Xingiang Autonomous Region of China.
Dallal’s latest book, “40 Days and 1001 Nights: One Woman’s Dance through Life in the Islamic World” is the cumulation of her travels. She is traveling across the country in her Back Roads America Tour. The tour promotes her belly dance CD by the Ikhwani Safaa Musical Club of Zanzibar, her film, “40 Days and 1001 Nights:
Seeing the Islamic World Through the Eyes of a Dancer” and her dance concert DVD, 40 Days & 1001 Nights: Dancing Across the Lines.
The goal of the 40 Days and 1001 Nights Project is to show the ordinary lives of the “silent majority” of everyday citizens in the countries she visited. “It helps as a dancer to understand the culture where the dances come from,” Dallal said. Her goal is to promote understanding among the American people that “most casualties of war are people like us.” She said it is “not fair to the silent majority to just focus on a few extremists” and hopes that her book, lectures and film showings will dispel these negative stereotypes.
Ten percent of Dallal’s book and DVD sale proceeds go to the 1001 Nights Fund, which supports various art groups and grassroots organizations in each of the countries she has visited. Besides assisting the Ikhwani Safaa Musical Club of Zanzibar with the purchase of new instruments and clubhouse renovations, she has offered several educational scholarships to deserving individuals and used funds to purchase needed equipment for a drug rehabilitation center in Kenya, where she said “heroin addiction is epidemic” among young people.
Dallal’s “Back Roads America Tour” is slated to begin on the West Coast in May and continue through August, ending at the Burning Man festival in Nevada.
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