I thought of a another reason you should be bellydancing. Itâs the zaghareetâŚitâs this funny ululation bellydancers make when they want to cheer for something. Let me tell you how to do it, in case you are ever watching a bellydance performance and you hear all these people making this crazy noise and you wonder what thatâs all about. Okay, first, just go âLoo loo loo loo loo loo loo!â in your normal voice. If youâre doing this at your desk in your office, do so quietly because you donât want people thinking youâre some sort of howler monkey. âLoo loo loo loo loo loo loo loo!â Got it? See how your tongue touches the backside of your front teeth? Thatâs important. Practice that until you get it right. Itâs not hard, I know you can do it.
Okay, now that youâve got âLoo loo loo loo loo loo loo loo!â down, speed it up and do it at a higher pitch, or note, or whatever. You should open your mouth a little more to do thisâŚbut you know, still keep it down in case the other forklift operators are trying to concentrate. Now the sound you are making should sound more like âLuhluhluhluhluhluhluhluhluh!â Isnât this fun? âLuhluhluhluhluhluhluhluhluhluh!â Remember it has to be high pitched and you might want to add a big âAhhhh!â in the beginning so really it should sound like âAhhhhhluluhluhluhluhluhluhluhluh!â Okay, and this is important, you need to cover your mouth when you do this because otherwise (you may have noticed this already if you have a mirror by your desk or the docks or the caboose or wherever you work) it looks really, really dirty. Now, obviously, if you just smack your hand over your mouth no one is going to be able to hear you going âAhhhhhluluhluhluhluhluhluhluhluh!â and that will defeat the whole point and your co-workers are going to think youâre all weird for no reason at all. So what you do is flatten your right hand and stick it over your top lip horizontally and this not only makes the whole thing a lot less pornographic but also makes a little echo chamber to make the zaghareet go further, which the bellydancers will appreciate very much.
So now that youâve got ululation down, you can also spice up your vocal accompaniments with a couple of other sounds. If youâre dancing in chorus formation and you see the girls who are out in front do something cool, you can go âAowa!â (Itâs pronounced âAay-oh WA!â) This means something like âYou go!â in Arabic, supposedly, but I think dancers just say it because itâs sort of cute. Aowa! You can say it in a couple of tones of voice for maximum effect; either really cute and perky which is more of a âYay!â feel or more drawn out, like youâre really impressed, like âAaaayyy-ooohhhhh-waaaaaaaahhhhhâ which is more like saying âDamn, girl! You good!â Also you can go âYa la!â or âYa habibi!â at any point while people are dancing, again just to show appreciation. You probably should wait until someone does something pretty impressive, like a cool backbend or a crazy full-body shimmy or something like that. Donât just do it every time someone does a hip circle or something because not only will you lose your voice before the night is through but you will also annoy the dancers. Ululating is a delicate thing. You have to use it appropriately.
Oh, and if a dancer does something really undulative and snaky with her hips or arms or something, you can hiss at her. In a good way. Just go âTss tsss tsss tsss ssssssssss!â As if youâre some sort of asp or something. That is lots of fun. The dancers, whether you are dancing with them or just watching them, will love it. If youâre the one dancing, donât forget to do little yells from time to time. I donât do this much myself unless Iâm leading a move that has a vocal cue but thatâs mostly because I have to concentrate so hard on the actual moves that I canât do much embellishment. Itâs very cool when dancers get so into what theyâre dancing and are having such a good time that they just let loose with âAyyyyy yooop!â or whatever. Note that this is what tribal dancers do; I have no idea if any of this is appropriate for cabaret dancers. You will just have to take your chances.
[You know, none of what Iâm writing about lately is what Iâm thinking about mostly these days. Usually I donât feel comfortable writing about how sad I am in excruciating detail because thatâs very boring and how many times and how many ways can you say âIâm sad because I broke up with the love of my lifeâ in your online journal? Iâm trying not to dwell and I know itâs going to get better but itâs not better yet and sometimes I have my doubts that I will ever be better. I just feel so empty and I donât know what to do to fill that emptiness. It doesnât help that all my friends are married now and canât empathize with a breakup very well anymore. Which makes sense since I understand one of the whole things about getting married is that you never have to break up again. But still, I feel sort of alone and lonely. Iâm trying to keep busy just like youâre supposed to, which is where the bellydance and riding my bike and all that come in. Itâs working a little bit in that Iâm not crying myself to sleep every night anymore. Which is good. Breakups are sad. Why, then, did I think I was going to get some sort of free pass on this one and not have to grieve? I donât know. Letâs talk about silly bellydance stuff some more, okay?]
Now, in other bellydance news, I know some of you may have been concerned that I didnât mention pimp hands in connection with bellydance. Youâll be happy to know there are several tribal moves that approximate pimp hands pretty well, so the possibility of pimpinâ is pretty high. I still havenât figured out what kind of bellydance music would be best for pimp hands but Iâm working on it. If you start dancing or if youâre already dancing and you know how to do pimp hands, maybe you can be the first to incorporate them into tribal bellydance. No, wait, what am I saying. You can be the second to do that, since obviously I am directing all my spare mental energy (and frankly thereâs a lot to spare right now) into merging two of my favorite things in the world into a harmonious whole. Pimp hands! Ahhhhhluhluhluhluhluhluh!