 Le Souk Dance Collective
Le Souk Dance Collective, founded in 2008 by artistic director, Joette Sawall is southwest Michigan’s only premier Middle Eastern dance group specializing in a high level of artist performance of North Africa and the Middle East along with Spanish inflections. With an advanced repertoire rarely seen in Middle Eastern dance groups the caliber of entertainment will take you on a journey of sweet aromas of hookahs and secret patios, revelers will find that 1001 nights just won't be enough. The poetic notion of Le Souk Dance Collective is an authentic, enchanting experience seducing the senses with astonishing visual sway of the flowing arms and hips. One may ask, “What is a souk?” (See box at right.)
Director Sawall sees Le Souk as a "poetic and beautiful representation of the language and art of Middle Eastern dance. The collective bridges the old with the new to create a timeless journey each performance." Many have claimed Le Souk’s work as “dramatic,” “feminine,” “compelling,” and “breathtaking.”
The West Michigan School of Middle Eastern Dance has a deeply rooted commitment to providing dance education and arts engagement programs for diverse audiences to educate the community on the beautiful art of the Middle East. For more information please contact Joette Sawall, Joette@wmschoolofmed.com or by calling 269-375-0990. Sign-up for our e-mail newsletter.
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A souk (سوق, also sook, souq, or suq) is a commercial quarter in an Arab city or a weekly market in some smaller towns where neutrality from tribal conflicts would be declared to permit the exchange of surplus goods, ideas, music, dance, and customs. Though each neighborhood within the city would have a local small souk selling food and other essentials, the main souk was one of the central structures of a large city. The souk is the central marketplace, where textiles, jewelry, spices, wooden sculptures and other valuable goods as well as the money exchanges are arranged. Traditionally it is a quadrilateral of stone-vaulted streets parallel to or crossing each other or a tight mass of buildings packed together for roads to intersect them.
In a souk, the final price of an item is reached by bargaining with the shopkeeper. All traders of a given commodity would sell in the same souk, thus ensuring a competitive market. In some African countries the souk was a place where people could come and talk, or sit down to tell stories. Many times this was done through dance and music bridging the old with the new. |
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