ARE WE CONFUSED YET?

A Lesson in folkloric Dance and Costume Terminology.

By A’isha Azar

© A'isha Azar, 1996,

Originally published in Jareeda, March 1996, revised, January 2000.

One of my clients recently returned from a visit to his home in Qatar with a lovely gift for me. He brought me a beautiful raspberry colored dress of the kind we generally refer to as THOBE here in the states. You know, the big dresses with the embroidery that are used when performing the dance that we often hear referred to as “Saudi women’s’ dance” or “Gulf Dance”. His gift reminded me that I have been meaning to write about how interesting it can get when I am trying to talk about dance and costuming in proper ethnic terminology, so that I and my students will know whereof we speak… so to speak.

What do you call that dance that goes with that dress? In talking with Americans, I had only heard it referred to as “Saudi” or “Gulf: dance, so I got curious about what the Arabs call it. As usual I got bunches of answers; (Colloquialisms can be fun!). Saudis seem in general agreement that the dance originated in the Arab Gulf countries and they refer to it as RAQS KHALIJI (pronounced raks khaLEEgee), which translates simply as “Dance of the Gulf”. Fine, but where in the Gulf , we might ask, and we would be wise to do so since it is not performed there ubiquitously. Omanis, for example do not perform this dance. It is not a part of their cultural heritage in any way. In Abu Dhabi you might hear it referred to as RAQS NESHAT (raks neSHAT). In Kuwait it is called SAMRI (SAUMri). There it is called after the original rhythm with which the dance was performed. Samri is a sedate rhythm and the traditional form of the dance is not very rockin”. (By the way, Gulf natives inform me that they are very amused at the Egyptian dancers’ attempts to perform Samri. Their movements are too big and the feet too far apart, and they have an uncharacteristic gusto in their interpretations of the dance.) Qataris seem to be in agreement with their fellow Wahabis, the Saudis, and usually they seem to call the dance Raqs Khaliji. Samri is nowadays performed to other, more lively rhythms and has taken on many new movements and feelings as it moves from country to country.

And just what is that big dress really called anyway? We here in the States have habitually called it THOBE. Saudis often seem to refer to the dress as thobe also. Kuwaitis and some Qataris call the dress DARRAH ZERRI

(darRAH ZEDdi). Darrah seems to be a general term for dress. I have received several types of dresses from Kuwait and they are all called darrah. Khaled Al-Mufarraj from Kuwait informed me that the word “just means dress”. He explained that zerri is an Arabic word for sequin. So those big dresses are sometimes called “sequin dress”.

The Qataris seem to have lots of different names for the garment. I asked Abdullah Al- Kahlifah, who brought me the thobe, what he calls the garment. He said the dress is called THOBE EL-NESHEL (thobe el-NESHel). I have asked high and low for the meaning of the word “Neshel”, but no one seems to have an answer.* Abdullah’s cousin Meshaal who is also from Qatar calls the dress darrah zerri. It is sometimes called THOBE TAWOOSE (thobe taWOOS), which means “peacock dress”. In a little brochure about Qatari handicrafts, it says this:

Popular Garment Embroidery- This is a old craft which Qatar was famous for. It depends usually on embroidering garments wit golden and silvery threads. The woman’s dress is always embroidered by covering the front and lower parts of the dress with these threads in a vertical way, in additions to the wide sleeves, the back and some other parts of the dress. The front part of the Aba (Bisht), the man’s dress is also embroidered with the same threads. Some of the most famous women’s’ dresses in Qatar are: El Neshel, El Tawoose and El Darrah dresses, that have bright colors and are decorated with artistic ornaments.

Fortunately for me there is a picture in the brochure of a man embroidering, labeled “El Nasheldresses embroidering”, and yup, it is a…uh… one of those dresses all right! Terminology aside, happy dancing. And many thanks to Katy Azar, Hanan Nimri, Salem Al-Ameri, Khaled, Abdullah and Meshaal, all of whom contributed to this article.

* Postscript

I have since heard from just one source that “Neshel” means embroidery, but I have not been able to verify this from any other source, so this information may or may not be correct. It is always best to verify any information as much as possible before putting total faith in it!