OBSERVATIONS ON SAMRI

By A’isha Azar

© 1990

I was fortunate enough some years ago to make the acquaintance of Abdulaziz Al-

Thani, member of the Qatar royal family. He just happened to have on tape some older footage of the dance that is known in the States usually as “Saudi Women’s Dance". (This name is a misnomer in my opinion since it is misleading as to the origins of the dance.) This dance is called SAMRI, or RAQS KHALIJI or RAQS NESHAT by natives of the Arabian Gulf and Saudi Arabia.

Aziz informed me that what I was seeing on his tape were actually Syrian Bedouin women who were hired to perform at the function where the footage was filmed. There were things that were very noticeable about the dance and the dancers. First, the rhythm to which they were dancing was quite slow. (I later learned that the rhythm is called “Samri” and the dance is called after the rhythm.) Secondly, the dancers did a lot of gliding around the floor, utilizing head slides, certain arm positions and patterns, occasionally tossing their long thick hair from side to side, and putting their hands to the side of their noses. They rarely smiled. These women wore traditional garments known mostly as THOBE; the big, colorful embroidered dresses we all associate with the dance. The women used the dresses as props in the dance, sometimes holding them in one hand and letting the dresses move around them, sometimes holding the fronts of the dresses away from their bodies and doing head slides or rolling the dresses.

I have heard that this dance is an imitation of life happenings in the Gulf. I have seen people add movements that they claim are imitations of horses rearing their heads, or tossing their manes, for example. However, in talking with Melinda “Mouna” Smith, I heard a pretty believable version of that theme. Ms. Smith married into a Kuwaiti family and taught school in Kuwait for seven years, living intimately with Kuwaiti women of all ages. She said that the dance originally was specifically an imitation of things surrounding the activity of pearl diving and living with the sea. The hair is tossed in mimicry of ocean currents moving seaweed. The dress is rolled to imitate the action of waves. The dancer puts her hand to the side of her nose as a diver might when descending through the water to oyster beds. There are countless representations.

Among women in the Gulf, the dance was and is performed at parties and celebrations and to entertain themselves. Abdulaziz Al-Rashid, a native of Kuwait told me that the women in his family make a friendly competition of growing their hair to compliment their dancing!

As the dance has evolved in the more modern societies of the nouveau riche Middle East, it is now acceptable in many regions to perform at mixed gatherings. I have seen video footage of Saudi women dancing at a gender mixed party to modern Arab tunes in cocktail dresses. I also have footage of women dancing in a room full of nothing but men, though I am not sure of the location of the event. Travel and television give women glimpses of what their neighbors are doing in dance and we can see Saudi women adding a little push out with their derrieres, a movement borrowed from an Iraqi dance. I have a video clip where one woman mimics Fifi Abdo’s gesture, shaking her abdomen with her hand! There are many accents and movements now, quite different from traditional Samri, depending on where one lives and to what one has been exposed. This is not a choreographed dance style and it is possible to see many changes in the form.

The evolution of the dance poses many questions for the serious student. If we look at dance as an extension of the culture of distinct peoples, we always have hopes of being able to trace its origins. In the global environment, this becomes less and less possible. Hopefully we will take advantage of knowledge of tradition while we still can.

Ma’a khalis al shoukur (with purest thanks) to Abdulaziz Al-Thani and Ehab Asfahani for their contributions through film, and to Mouna Smith and Aziz Al-Rashid for sharing their knowledge and experiences.