‘Of formulated dances the Arab has few, and those no more set than are the words of our stories: the point must not be missed, but we may choose our own vocabulary. In terms of the dance, the Arab entertainer tells stories; in the case of known and popular stories she follows the accepted narrative, but improvises the movements and poses that express it, exactly as though they were spoken words instead of pantomime. Somewhat less freedom necessarily obtains in the narration of dance-poems than in the recital of trifling incidents; but within the necessary limits, originality is prized. In the mimetic vocabulary are certain phrases that are depended upon to convey their definite meanings. New word-equivalents, however, are always in order, if they can stand the searching test of eyes educated in beauty and minds trained to exact thinking.
‘Nearly unlimited as it is in scope, delightful as it unfailingly is to those who know it, Arabic dancing suits occasions of a variety of which the dances of Europe never dreamed. In the café it diverts and sometimes demoralizes. In his house the master watches the dancing of his slaves, dreaming under the narcotic spell of rhythm. On those rare occasions when the demands of diplomacy or business compel him to bring a guest into his house, the dancing of slaves is depended upon to entertain. His wives dance before him to please his eye, and to cajole him into conformity with their desires. Even the news of the day is danced, since the doctrines of Mohammed deprecate the printing of almost everything except the Koran. Reports of current events reach the male population in the market and the café. At home men talk little of outside affairs, and women do not get out except to visit others of their kind, as isolated from the world as themselves. But they get all the news that is likely to interest them, none the less; at least the happenings in the world of Mohammedanism.
‘As vendors of information of passing events, there are women that wander in pairs from city to city, from harem to harem, like bards of the early North. As women they are admitted to women’s apartments. There, while one rhythmically pantomimes deeds of war to the cloistered ones that never saw a soldier, or graphically imitates the punishment of a malefactor in the market place, her companion chants, with falsetto whines, a descriptive and rhythmic accompaniment. Thus is the harem protected against the risk of narrowness.
‘In the daily life of the harem, dancing is one of the favored pastimes. Women dance to amuse themselves and to entertain one another. In the dance, as in music and embroidery, there is endless interest, and a spirit of emulation usually friendly.
‘One of the comparatively formalized mimetic expressions is the “Dance of Greeting,” the function of which is to honor a guest when occasion brings him into the house. Let it be imagined that coffee and cigarettes have been served to two grave gentlemen; that one has expressed bewilderment at the magnificence of the establishment, and his opinion that too great honor has been done him in permitting him to enter it; that the host has duly made reply that his grandchildren will tell with pride of the day when the poor house was so honored that such a one set his foot within it. After which a sherbet, more coffee and cigarettes. When the time seems propitious, the host suggests to the guest that if in his great kindness he will look at her, he—the host—would like permission to order a slave to try to entertain with a dance.
‘The musicians squatting against the wall begin the wailing of the flute, the hypnotic throb of “darabukkeh.” She who is designed to dance the Greeting enters holding before her a long scarf that half conceals her; the expression on her face is surprise, as though honor had fallen to her beyond her merits or expectation. Upon reaching her place she extends her arms forward, then slowly moves them, and with them the scarf, to one side, until she is revealed. When a nod confirms the command to dance, she quickly drops the scarf to the floor, advances to a place before the guest and near him, and honors him with a slave’s salutation. Then arising she proceeds to her silent Greeting. * * *
‘The Arabian dance is not a dance of movement; it is a dance of pictures, to which movement is wholly subordinate. Each bar of the music accompanies a picture complete in itself. Within the measure of each bar the dancer has time for the movements leading from one picture to the next, and to hold the picture for the instant necessary to give emphasis. At whatever moment she may be stopped, therefore, she is within less than a moment’s pose so perfectly balanced that it appears as a natural termination of the dance. The Oriental’s general indifference to the forces of accumulation and climax are consistent with such a capricious ending. In his dance each phrase is complete in itself; it may be likened to one of those serial stories in our magazines, in which each installment of the story is self-sufficient.
‘To the Occidental unused to Oriental art, the absence of crescendo and climax, and the substituted iteration carried on endlessly, is uninteresting. Nevertheless, a few days of life among Oriental conditions suffice to throw many a scoffer into attunement with the Oriental art idea, which is to soothe, not to stimulate. Moorish ornament is an indefinitely repeated series of marvellously designed units, each complete in itself, yet inextricably interwoven with its neighbors. In music the beats continue unchanging through bar after bar, phrase after phrase. The rhythmic repetition of the tile-designs on the wall, the decorative repetition of the beats of music, produce a spell of dreamy visioning comparable only to the effect of some potent but harmless narcotic.’
From all modern observations and ancient records it is evident that the Arabs’ dances differed essentially from their Eastern neighbors. Spain undoubtedly is the only Occidental country that has preserved in its vivid national dances, Jotas, Boleros, Seguidillas and Fandangos, the mutilated and deformed elements of the vanished choreography of Cadiz. Though the Moor has left so few records of his highly cultivated art of dancing, yet his spectral shadow hangs over the race beyond the Pyrenees. Of all the living civilized nations the Spaniards, more than any others, are justly the very incarnation of the vanished magic Arabs in dance. A studious observer finds in Spanish dances all the hysteria, magic, seductiveness and softness that was practiced by mediæval Arab dancers. And then the costumes—most picturesque and romantic—that the Spanish women use in their dances are similar in their lines and colors to those that were worn by the Moorish girls who entertained with their magic dances a Cleopatra and a Cæsar.