Mejance | Part 3 | Choreography by Zoe Liting
My write up about Mejance:
Do you know what is Mejance? Who was the one having Mejance idea? And why it is called as Mejance? Do you know Mejance has structure?
Mejance is a dance form with variety of musical composition specially made for a dancer for her grand entrance. The person who made Mejance as an important and famous Egyptian dance style to dance with was Madam Nagwa Fouad. Over the decades, people used to call Oriental Dance as 'Raqs Sharqi'. Till 90's, the term Mejance started to be widely used cause of its mispronouncing by an Egyptian teacher who was working dance lesson with the students in Russia, due to the intention of using the French word 'maneges' to describe travelling / circular floor pattern on stage entry. The Egyptian teacher could not pronounce the word maneges properly, and appearing ignorant to pronounce it correctly, she decided to change the word becoming Mejance. (Everytime I read about this, I will laugh, hahahaha!)
Ah yes, Mejance has its structure. I would say, over 80% of Mejance songs/musics have similar structure as below:-
Overture / Introduction - Dancer remain offstage
High-Energy music - Usually, Malfuf rhythm will be used for this section
Switching melody / rhythm / energy level from another. To be exact, it is style switching / rhythm switching, and it is vary according to music composers choice. For instance, it could be Taksim, Saidi, Baladi, Drum Solo, Khaleegy, Iraqi.....rhythm switching: Samai, Masmoudi, Chiftetelli, Zar (Ayoub)...etc.
Finale. Sometimes finale would repeat the overture or the high-energy music. Still, it depends on composers preference.
Hope the above description about Mejance is clear. Should you have any question please do not hesitate to message me.
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