AMEL TAFSOUT & ISHMAEL
CENTERFOLD DANCER/MUSICIAN
As Printed in the Quarter 1/2005 Issue of The Belly Dancer Magazine
AMEL TAFSOUT
Centerfold Dancer Questions as asked by Oberon
Where you were born? I was born North-East of Algeria, in the Aures Mountains. When I was 10 my family moved to a bigger town called Constantine where I also started my high school, when I was 15 we moved to the capital city Algiers where I went to the university and finished my degrees. In my twenties I moved to Germany where I studied and worked in the same time and it is where I started my first dance company called Banat As Sahra (Daughters of the Sahara Desert). I lived 11 years in Germany and in the same time I went to France on a regular basis to visit my sister. 1987 I moved to London, UK where I lived 18 years.
On Moving to Azalea, Oregon: I moved to Azalea to live with Ishmael but also because I love the countryside in Oregon. Here people are very friendly and I love where we live; it is very private and breathtaking. After living in a big city like London, I am enjoying the trees, the open space and being able to see the sky with the sunshine and the clouds and just being part of nature. It does ground me to be so close to nature. I love our home and will be in charge of the flower garden. My hopes are that I will be able to share my dancing art with the people where I live in helping them to understand Arabic culture and being able to build a bridge between the Western and Eastern cultures as we are living in a time where many people have prejudices about the Arabs in general in the west and about Americans in the East and I feel that with my experience in living in other countries and cultures I might be able to enable people to open up to each other.
What I like: People in general, tolerance, respect and communication
Dislike: Rascism, lack of education, Arrogance and vanity
Favorite cities: Sooo many..but at the moment I love Azalea
Favorite cities to play in: Anywhere
Favorite getaway: The ocean and the country side
Favorite food: Mediterranean and Indonesian
Favorite restaurant: Ishmael's salads
Favorite color: Rainbow
Languages I speak: Fluently: Arabic, French, German and English. I can get by in Greek, Italian and Spanish
Pets: 4 cats, 3 dogs and 3 donkeys
Children: none
What countries have you live in: Algeria, France, Germany, England and now the US (CAlifornia and now Oregon)
Favorite music: Arabic,Latin , African and Jazz ,blues.Any music that touches my heart
Hobbies: Dancing, music, reading,storytelling , laughing and playing
What style of dance are you known for: North African and Middle Eastern style
Who is your mentor: my grandmother and myself.
If I wouldn't be a dancer, I would like to be a healing singer, a painter or a writer
Turn Ons: Being with my loved ones enjoying nice food in a beautiful sunny day at home in Azalea.
'Amel appeared to me to be the authentic great granddaughter of those proud desert women, nevertheless performing as a modern woman who seems to have spanned the generations and combining these different worlds together'
.................Suriya Ilse in Halima Magazine, Germany
" Amel will seem to you as like a voyager between countries, cultures and languages.(…) Her technique of teaching focuses on sharing the spiritual energies (…) Each of Amel's movement comes from inside her (…) While Amel the Berber woman, moves closer to the souls of the women, they in turn become more aware of their own strength and are able to recover their spiritual balance through dance. The word "healing " is not mentioned but what happens here is nothing than that." ............Gizella Hatmann, in Orient Magazine, Germany nr.1, 2002.
DANCE ROOTS AND MEANINGS
The Maghreb (North Africa) has always been a crossroad of different cultures, a door between the West and the East, the North and the South, where Africa meets the Orient.
North African people are ARABO-BERBER people with various backgrounds including Berber, Arabic, African and Mediterranean elements.
The dance is both a public and personal expression, rich in symbolic dimensions that deal with universal constants in nature: planetary movements and their influence; fertility of Mother Earth; and the Communication between the Earthly and the Divine. Maghreb Dance is about contact with Life and Nature, where the woman represents Nature and the man the Human being.
In Berber regions women's singing accompanies any kind of work, such as the Harvest. Festivals provide the opportunity to see dance and singing as a Unity. Traditional Berber dances are mostly ritual dances. Originally they were a magical act, in order to obtain the fertility of the Mother Earth or the rain .The worshiping of a Divinity or a Spirit of Nature was used in order to gain its protection.
City dances have existed since the Moslem Moors were expelled from Andalucia. The dance and singing focuses on Improvisation. They are associated with Andalusian elements of medieval Spain.
The musical content was transmitted from the Baghdad of the 'Abbasid Caliph Haroun Ar Rashid and its 'Golden Age' to the surviving ''Umayyad Amirate ' in Cordoba with which the musical scholar Ziriyab identified. Amel Tafsout is currently using her expertise to lead highly successful master classes for students from different backgrounds such as Arab, European and Latin American and American women and children, disabled children, elderly people, dance and music students, actors, singers and performers.
Ishmael
Centerfold Musician Questions as asked by Oberon
Where you were born, grew up, and have lived?
Ishmael was born in New Britain, Connecticut, USA, of Assyrian descent. He grew up in the Bay Area San Jose,California. He has lived in California, NYC, Puerto Rico and Oregon. Fluent in Assyrian he travelled through Europe and the Middle East.
Light view of career:
Ishmael: From the age of eight to fifteen he studied Classical piano. As a teenager he also took symphonic tympani lessons with San Francisco Symphony tympanist Walter Larew. He studied Middle Eastern music theory (modes/ maqams) and his Turkish musical training was with master Kanuni Shenshalar in Istanbul and later with internationally acclaimed 'oudist Harant Effendi in Los Angeles, California.
Ishmael played with the Santa Barbara Philarmonic orchestra as a tympanist. Ishmael also played in the Santa Clara Philharmonic Orchestra as head tympanist, accompanying such classical musicians as Yehudi Menuhin and Isaac Stern.
Prior 44 years of experience includes full-time employment (six nights a week) as a kanunist at various night clubs in New York, Chicago, Puerto Rico, Reno and Las Vegas, Los Angeles and San Francisco. He has performed at numerous Middle Eastern functions, conventions, weddings , private parties, in concerts and radio programs. He has given lecture demonstrations in colleges and high schools. Ishmael was a soloist with the University of California Santa Barbara Middle Eastern ensemble for several concerts.
Special engagements include Arabic concerts with Amir Khadash, Lebanese singers Kharaman and Mouniba Wakim, and Turkish singers Princess Jihan and Lutvi Guneri, Egyptian Night for the Consul General of Egypt, Turkish master udist Necati Celik, udist John Belezikjian, Clarinetist Barbandaros Erkose and Souren Baronian, Arabic violonist Nabil Azzam and Georges Lammam, multi-instrumentalist Omar Faruk Tekbilek and percussionists Vince Delgado and Souhail Kaspar,Michael Beach.
Ishmael is known for his talent in being able to play numerous styles of music, Arabic (Egyptian, Gulf, Lebanese), Turkish, Armenian, Persian, Assyrian, Hebrew, Greek, American and recently North African. Most recently Ishmael is playing with The Arabic Choir "Aswatt" in San Francisco and with his friend Michael Beach in "Arabesque".
Ishmael's talent is reflected in his improvisations as well as in his wide knowledge of the maqams.
Reason of moving to Azalea, Oregon, How you like your new home and why:
Ishmael moved to Azalea to get out of California and have a greener countryside as well as to be close to his best friend Michael Beach. He loves the new home because of the privacy and the farm life.
Dislikes: Big cities, traffic and crowds.
Favorite city to livein: Azalea
Favorite city to play in: Anywhere
Favorite getaway: country side
Favorite food: Mediterranean
Favorite restaurant: Amel's cuisine
Favorite color: Rainbow
Languages you speak: English, Assyrian, Spanish
Have you pets? - 4 kitties, 3 dogs and 3 donkeys
Children: one son
What countries have you lived in: Puerto Rico
Favorite music: Arabic
Hobbies: Vegetable gardening
What styles of Music or dance are you best know for? Middle Eastern
Who is your mentor? - myself
What would you be doing? Wasting away
Turn On's: Spring time.
CONTACT INFORMATION FOR AMEL AND ISHMAEL
e-mail: ameltafsout@yahoo.com *www.ameltafsout.com