Gilded Serpent June 2007         

by Kevin Potvin

A reluctant visitor to a multicultural arts show comes away with a new appreciation for how art entwines with ordinary life for ordinary people. . . . (click here to read article)

Excerpt: That doesn’t mean I don’t understand dance at all – as a form of art done by artists, or as an activity people do at clubs.  Haddad presented a different thing I had previously bean unaware of, and it bridged the two forms – art and popular pastime – to form a third distinct thing: popular art, or folk art, in dance form.  This was no contrived presentation of foreign exoticism to satisfy some state-granting agency looking to spice up multicultural awareness week. This was a moving and utterly personal expression given in so highly evolved a form, it appeared to be fully grounded in the Earth.

It was Lynette Harper’s talk and performance that, though it came first, served to wrap up the whole of the noon hour’s entertainment–which was fitting since she organized this show. Harper spoke in general terms of how belly dancers share their dances with each other, and how they get caught up in each other’s pleasure of dancing. “At any gathering,” she emphasized, “there was always dance; it was loved and honoured.” . . .
(previously posted in The Republic of East Vancouver, April 2004)

(See short clip “Arab Women Arab Dance” in Video section)