Dabke (folk dancing)
Dabke (Arabic: دبكة; also transliterated as debke, dabka, and dabkeh) is the traditional folk dance of the Levant, going back generations, and is also the national dance of Lebanon, Palestine, Syria and Jordan, it’s found also in Iraq there quite often under the colloquial term (Chobi).
It is danced by men, women, or both, with different steps and different rhythms being more common in different areas of the Middle East. Dabke is a dance of community, often performed at weddings and other joyous occasions. Like other folk dances of Turkey, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Greece, Armenia, and Eastern Europe, dabke is a line dance.
However, it is also a dance of solidarity and a way of expressing nationalism and the age-old presence of art and culture in a positive way. The Dabke leader is supposed to be like a tree, with arms in the air, a proud and upright trunk, and feet that stomp the ground in rhythm, emphasizing their connection to their land.
The meaning of “dabke” in Arabic is “stomping of the feet”, and stomping, as well as jumping and kicking, are moves that characterize the dabke in a unique manner. The leader, called raas (meaning “head”) or “lawwih” (meaning “waver”), is allowed to improvise on the type of dabke being danced, and he or she would also be twirling a handkerchief or string of beads known as a masbha (similar to a rosary), while the rest of the dancers keep the rhythm. The dancers also use vocalizations to show energy and to punctuate the rhythm. Many learn dabke as children, while others perform it as part of professional dance troupes.
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Filed under: Palestinian customs | 2 Comments
Tags: customs, Dabke, dance, Palestine, دبكة
Name: Rima
Location: Palestine
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That was great! Did you learn this as a child, too? Thanks so much for the education you are giving me. Keep up the great posts!
The basic Dabkeh is easy. I remember the first time I did it I was 14, it was during a wedding. I remember the first time did the dabke is when one of these adult guests pull me off of the share and put me in the dabke row with him. To learn, all I did is just watching others doing it and do it the same but the first five minutes of my personal training was horrible, LOL. I became good at it after a while.