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EGYPTA: Myth, Magic, and Mystery

... a dance drama of Ancient Egypt

EGYPTAancientEgyptiandanceSilkRoadDanceCompanyPosterNTextframe.jpg

Egypta, a Revivification of Ancient Sacred Dance

performed by The Silk Road Dance Company

Kennedy Center Millennium Stage, Washington D.C.
report by Pen Katali, M.L.S.

Egypta impressed me as a stunning artistic success, splendid beyond belief. The work can touch your innermost heart and exalt your soul. It is composed of fifteen episodes, alternating ensemble pieces with solos, telling the story of women and the Divine Feminine as the heart of ancient Egyptian civilization.

The seamless transitions from one episode to the next were well designed and smoothly executed, so that the work flowed as a unified whole.

1. Prologue: The Prophecy of Thoth
The exordium featured Thoth emerging from the formless mists of the unfathomable past, to declare the sacredness of Egyptian civilization and the seriousness of its loss. In this episode he was essentially a static figure, suggesting the impassivity of the perspective of eternity while setting the stage for the lively dances that followed. The recitation drew upon ancient Egyptian scripture, the Corpus Hermeticum, thought to have been the word of Thoth.
2. Gift of the Nile
Rippling waves of primeval waters give birth to all life. Nile nymphs undulate gracefully, evoking the movement of water, as the land of Egypt becomes populated with living beings. But watch out for Sobek the crocodile!
3. Priestess of the Snake Goddess Renenutet
With this episode begins the actual re-creation of ancient sacred dance. Haidi Kestenbaum inhabits the role of priestess so fully with her sinuous hips and flexible body, she evokes the presence of the Goddess and takes the audience back in time to the ancient temples where dance was worship.
4. On the Land
The next transition takes us from the divine to the human realm of women. The dancers portray peasant women working the fields, telling of Egyptian womanhood with the timeless baladi dance that is still the joyous recreation of village women in today's Egypt. The dance forms a living link between the present and the past through the ages via the continuity of the feminine spirit that draws its vitality from the land. Horus carries the sun disk across the stage and hands it to the Goddess Nuit as the sun sets.
5. The Goddess Nuit and the Dance of the Cosmos
As night fell and Nuit appeared in the Dance of the Cosmos, She was so breathtakingly beautiful that I was shaken to the core of my being. Tears of sacred awe and divine love rolled down my cheeks during Her dance, for the living presence of the Goddess was blessing us from the stage. Nuit, the goddess of the night sky, carries the sun disk through the night as dancers carrying stars (using the authentic Egyptian temple art design) wheel and twirl around her to celebrate the circular motions of the heavenly spheres. Parastoo Ghodsi beautifully portrays Nuit; her last name appropriately comes from the Arabic word quds, meaning 'sacredness'.
6. Pyramids
Four dancers employ the geometrical form of their bodies to construct pyramidal shapes from the ground up, with a precision of form that bridges the abstract and the human, while the God Anubis oversees and blesses the construction.
7. In the Temple of Isis
At the center of this scene Keylan Qazzaz reigns majestically as the mother goddess Isis, standing regally tall in Her queenly presence. The priestesses of Her temple celebrate the sacred dance around her, conjuring up a vision of numinous beauty to pay homage to the Eternal Feminine.
8. Invasion of the Foreigners
In this work's only male solo dance, Jhim Midgett as a Hyksos marauder terrorizes and cruelly beats the women of Egypt. For once, the story of invasion and conquest is told from the women's point of view. Jhim's performance explodes from a tightly wound package of destructive fury.
9. Wrath of Sekhmet
The Lion Goddess Sekhmet is so angry at humanity's impiety, she starts to burn all life with the rays of the solar disk. The other deities trick her into drinking beer disguised as blood, so that, drunk, she passes out. Joanne Giaquinta in her "catsuit" is purrfectly divine as Sekhmet, so feral and graceful. Her role is tricky, combining seriousness and humor, but she pulls it off with style and wit. (During the curtain call, she playfully turned feline again for a moment, snarling and clawing.)
10. The Seven Hathors
Hathor, the goddess of love and beauty, could take a sevenfold form. Here, She is represented by seven priestesses of Her temple, clad in matching gowns of warm colors, executing carefully synchronized whirls and figures. Their magnificent swirls of beauty produced a hushed awe in the audience, knowing and feeling that this beauty manifested the presence of the Goddess Herself.
11. Royal Linen
Another vignette of Egyptian working women's lives, this episode enlivens the work with a bit of fun when the overseer isn't looking. Two of the linen workers begin to play at wearing the finery they are weaving, until gradually all of the ensemble join in a lively baladi dance -- until the boss comes back! The overseer is about to scold them, when her attention is distracted by distant zaghareet cries...
12. Procession
From the back of the hall, a grand festive procession to the beat of a traditional Nubian rhythm makes its way up to the stage. The student dance troupe Ensemble Mumtaz contributes to the march, which leads into a scene from the Egyptian court.
13. Banquet Dance
Anyone who has ever admired the famous wall painting of professional dancers at a party swaying their rhythmic backbends, and wished they could be present at that feast, will find their wishes fulfilled here as the painting's dancers come to life. Queen Tiye, her children, and her Royal Saluki hound witness the dancers' lively, athletic, sistrum-shaking entertainment.
14. Cleopatra
A somber note sets in as Cleopatra, representing the last of ancient Egypt's sacred tradition, bids farewell to her daughter and denies the Roman conquerors their chance to humiliate her as she chooses death. Yillah Rosenfeld as Cleopatra uses a real live serpent in this scene which is symbolic of the demise of Ancient Egypt.
15. Death of Egypt
Isis embraces Cleopatra, Anubis mummifies her, and Maat weighs her soul with the feather of truth as we are taken to the Egyptian afterlife and the judgment of the dead. The dancers form a solemn tableau in fulfillment of Thoth's prophecy in the first episode. The static poses of the first and last episodes form symmetrical bookends showing ancient Egypt's sacred tradition emerging from and returning to eternity. The message of "Egypta," foretold in the Corpus Hermeticum, reminds us that Egypt's sacred tradition can live again when people worthy of it come to revere it once more.
This was truly a Goddess lover's dream come true. Laurel Victoria Gray has the magic to actually bring the divine presence into our midst. You can tell that she created this not just as a spectacle but as genuine sacred art, as close to reviving the sacred dance of the ancient world as we will ever see. As the audience left, their hearts still beat with reverence and joy at the beauty this performance brought to life.
Goddess lovers should definitely take note of the Silk Road Dance Company because their artistic vision is to celebrate the Sacred Feminine through dance. Laurel Victoria Gray's work brings out the Sacred Feminine in Islam, since most of her work is based in Islamic cultures, particularly Uzbekistan. She has worked there with traditional dance experts and tapped into the feminine current within Islamic culture that goes back to the ancient Goddess. Let us support and cheer on the artists like the Silk Road Dance Company who are paying homage to the Goddess.

Review by Washington Post Dance Critic Barbara Allen

June 28, 2004 WASHINGTON POST

Silk Road Dance Company

Ancient Egypt came alive Saturday night at Dance Place with the Silk Road Dance Company performing Laurel Victoria Gray's evening-length "Egypta: Myth, Magic & Mystery." With the passion of an educator and avid storyteller, Gray, along with her 23-member troupe, proceeded to unfold the myths and history of the ancient world. The work is a "reconstruction of what they might have danced like," said Gray, who drew her ideas from ancient Egyptian art as well as current Middle Eastern dance styles.

Originally a tribute to the early 20th-century modern dancer Ruth St. Denis, it evoked the dramatic gestures of silent films. A colorful whirl of motion connected a series of recognizable Egyptian tableaux (at times perhaps too recognizable, verging on cliche). A deep voice coming from a smoky netherworld narrated the historical dance-drama replete with striking and sumptuous images: A quartet of glistening aqua nymphs emerged from the Nile, depicted by billowing silk. Thoth, the alligator god and creator of life, made his way across the floor swishing a magnificent gold-and-blue brocade tail. The costumes, designed by Gray and Elizabeth Anna Groth, were scene stealers.

Mythic dances were interspersed with ones depicting the everyday lives of people in the kingdom. Women shown harvesting in a ritual dance had a distinctly African flavor, and linen weavers, working at the loom with playful gestures, framed the myths nicely.

The evening was a visual treat of whirling, glittery costumes, fluid movement narratives, rich, exotic music and a dance troupe that was clearly having fun.

— Barbara Allen

Press Release: Egypta: Myth, Magic and Mystery

EGYPTAancientegyptiandancSilkRoadDanceCompanyposterKennedyCenterlarge.jpg Who:       Silk Road Dance Company
When:      Sunday, September 14, 2003 at 6:00 p.m.
               Monday, September 15, 2003 at 6:00 p.m.
Where:     Kennedy Center Millennium Stage
Program: Egypta: Myth, Magic and Mystery
Website:   www.egypta.com

The Silk Road Dance Company Presents Egypta: Myth, Magic and Mystery On the Kennedy Center Millennium Stage

Washington, D.C. – Laurel Victoria Gray’s Egypta: Myth, Magic and Mystery has been earning critical acclaim since the premiere of the work in Berlin, Germany in 1996. Since then Gray has been refining and growing Egypta in the United States where a generous grant from the Kennedy Center’s Local Dance Commissioning Project has allowed her to complete the concert length piece. Egypta will make its Washington, D.C. debut at 6:00 p.m. Sunday, September 14 and Monday, September 15 on the Kennedy Center Millennium Stage performed by Gray’s Silk Road Dance Company.

Egypta: Myth, Magic and Mystery is a dance narrative which depicts the legacy of ancient Egypt, from the Creation Myth, to the death of Cleopatra. Egypta begins with the ominous Prophecy of Thoth, God of Wisdom and Writing, who predicts Egypt’s demise. The story unfolds as life emerges from the waters of the Nile River. The everyday activities of women, such as harvesting crops and weaving linen, are entwined with ancient Egyptian spiritual traditions and myths. The Goddesses Nuit, Sekhmet and Isis, and priestesses of Renenutet and Hathor, bless—and curse—the lives of humans. Egypta’s final moment recreates the Judgment scene in the Egyptian Book of the Dead in      which the heart of the deceased is weighed against the “feather of truth” to determine worthiness for eternal life.

Gray first conceived her production of Egypta in 1995 as a tribute to Ruth St. Dennis’ original dance suite by the same name. Fueling a lifetime fascination with ancient Egypt she set out to do the impossible—create a movement vocabulary that would be representative of ancient Egypt's complex society. Though she had seen performances of “Pharaonic” dance in the past, the styling often seemed stiff. Gray turned instead to the surviving “snapshots” of ancient Egyptian life, the tomb paintings and papyri that illustrated their dances. Her first move was to incorporate traditional Egyptian and African elements into the movement. Music was also important to Gray, who rather than exclusively employing the slow music often used to conjure a sense of mystery and death, sought out polyrhythmic music and percussive instruments to capture the vivacious nature of Egyptian daily life. The result of Gray’s work is an Egypta that is truly unique in vision, movement and scope.

Costuming also intrigues Gray who believes more authentic garments result in more authentic movement. "We usually make two mistakes in designing ancient Egyptian costumes," she explains. "Stereotypical designs never seem to get past the white linen dress or the elaborate headdress of goddesses. But Egyptians had colorful woven textiles, which is why we are using some African fabric in the American production." The elaborate crowns were worn by royalty and goddess, not by professional dancers. "Since those headdresses curtail movements, past attempts at ancient Egyptian dance tend to be so slow and stiff."

To costume the new dances created for the Kennedy Center's Local Dance Commissioning Project, Gray enlisted the talent of Elizabeth Groth, a senior Presidential Arts Scholar (Technical Theater) at the George Washington University, majoring in Fine Art and Art History. Groth's inspiration comes directly from Egyptian art, also incorporating ancient Greek and Near Eastern influences. She acknowledges that "the lines are deceptively simple, and it was an enjoyably difficult task to translate the stiffly drawn, immensely formal two-dimensional to a realistic, and more importantly, moveable three-dimensional.”

Since its inception in 1995 Laurel Victoria Gray’s Silk Road Dance Company (SRDC) has delighted audiences around the country with traditional and fusion dances from the Middle East and Central Asia. Performing Uzbek, Afghani, Tadjik, Azerbaijani, Kurdish, Iranian, and Egyptian dance techniques rarely seen in the United States, their performances offer a unique glimpse of the life, culture, and art of little known regions. Nationally they have performed at Warner Brothers Studios (Hollywood, CA), Houston’s Museum of Fine Arts, North Carolina State University, Ford Amphitheatre (Hollywood, CA) the Rakkasah Middle Eastern Dance Festival (Somerset, NJ), and The Field Museum in Chicago. SRDC has also performed in some of the most prestigious venues and festivals in D.C., including the Kennedy Center, the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, the Embassy of Uzbekistan, the State Department, the Pope John Paul II Cultural Center, National Geographic Society, the National Press Club, the Washington Monument, Library of Congress and the Metro DC Dance Awards. SRDC has collaborated with such esteemed performers as Egyptian choreographer Momo Kadous, violinist Daniel Bernard Roumain, and People’s Artists of Uzbekistan choreographer and dancer Qizlarhon Dustmuhamedova and Qadir Muminov. The enemble is a Company in Residence at the Joy of Motion Dance Center in Washington, DC.

Laurel Victoria Gray, an internationally acclaimed dancer, scholar, instructor, and choreographer first discovered Middle Eastern and Central Asian dance as an undergraduate at Occidental College. In graduate school at the University of Washington she assisted in hosting a delegation of dancers from Uzbekistan and became exposed to this rare, intricate form. Since then she has traveled to Uzbekistan ten times, living there for two years and serving as a member of the jury for the 1997 International Music Festival “Sharq Taronalari” (Melodies of the East). She is the recipient of the 1999 International Academy of Middle Eastern Dance Award for Ethnic Dancer. Gray teaches “Dances of the Islamic World” a course she developed and offers as an adjunct faculty member at George Mason University and George Washington University. Recently she has been nominated for the 2003 International Academy of Middle Eastern Dance Award for Best Choreographer.

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