A Dance Depicting Ancient Egyptian Art

http://www.thewayofdance.com - This video clip is a fragment of a larger work in archaeo-choreology entitled "The Rite of the House of the Morning." It was created after three years of research in the British Museum, London, and has been performed countless times including at the request of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts in their Egyptian Gallery. We were also the dancers for the tour of Tutankhamen's funerary treasures at the M.H. de Young Memorial Museum in San Francisco. The other dancer in this clip, Mimi, went on to perform at the Temple of Karnak by invitation of the Egyptian Government, Department of Antiquities.

It is not in any way meant to be a re-creation or interpretation of the dance of ancient Egypt; it is strictly a tableau of poses found in the art & artifacts, the beliefs, ceremonies, and symbolism of their sacred texts. There is no longer any surviving dance or music from that age due to the many ruling regimes of the Nubians, Assyrians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, and Muslims. Unfortunately, one can only speculate how their dance and music might have looked or sounded.

The dance depicts the soul or Ba -- the ethereal, eternal part of man revisiting the tomb, and symbolic of one of the aspects of an individual that continues after death. The Ba is depicted as a human headed bird called the Bennu, and the dance contains some of the following images: a Bennu bird coming through the false door to partake of the offerings; a figure with just wings and legs: Isis standing in the Boat of Millions of Years; Selket guarding a shrine; a winged figure from a Queen's necklace; the Goose of Amun; etc. etc. Our inspiration came from the Papyrus of Ani, Chapter LXXXIII, 'The Chapter of Changing into a Bennu'.

Regarding the music, the Egyptians used a long-necked stringed instrument which was plucked, resembling the samisen of Japan. There were also long vertical flutes, square and round drums or tambors, and gilded wooden harps, sometimes accompanied by a type of castanet or just hand clapping. We chose this music (oboe and samisen) as it has the mystical feel of ancient Egypt, to us at least, so we did not choose to use modern day Arab music.
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