Tanoura

Tannoura is an Egyptian folk dance derived from the whirling dance performed as
a Sufi religious practice.  The word "tannoura" may refer to the dance, the dancer,
or the large skirt used in the performance.  Furthermore, the name of one
particular group of performers in Cairo is the "Al Tannoura Dance Troupe".

The practice of Tanoura or Sufi whirling is a type of meditation that originated among Sufis
over 700 years ago. The word “Tanoura” may refer to the dance, dancer, or the large skirt
used in the performance.

Sufism is the spiritual tradition known to many Westerners through the mystical poetry of
Rumi and Hafiz. Sufism is a mystical tradition dating back two millennia. It is generally
understood to be the mystical dimension of Islam, and the practitioner of this tradition is
known as Sufi or “Dervish.” The word is Persian in origin and literally means “the sill of the
door”, but it is used by the Arabic and Turkish language to describe the Sufi, who is the one
who is at the door to enlightenment

The performance of "El Tanoura" consists of 3 parts:  The introduction which is a

demonstration of the various musicians and their instruments.  The Tanoura presentation
dance, which is a warm-up of sorts introducing the dancers, and finally the Sufic Tanoura
dance (Darawishes) 

-The philosophical basis for the spinning is from the Mawlawis who say that the movement
in the world begins at a certain point and end at the same point, therefore the movement has
to be circular. 

- When the tanoura dancer moves himself, he is like the sun and the dancers around him
like the planets.  The dancer unties and removes four different skirts during the finale. 
Their various roundabouts symbolize the succession of the four seasons and their anti-
clockwise movement is exactly like the movement around the "Kaaba" (the holy Shrine in
Mecca)

When the dancer raises his right arm up and points his left arm down, this represents the
joining of earth and heaven together.  When he turns himself around, it is said that he
enters a trance-like state, trying to become light and go up to heaven.

The Dervish dance was an outstanding example of pure dance. The procedure is part of a
Muslim ceremony called the" Zikr" of which the purpose is to glorify God and seek
spiritual perfection.

The dance area is circular and everything is according to a central plan symbolizing the
Universe. The philosophical meaning of the spinning movement is based on the idea that
the world begins at a certain point and ends at the same point; therefore the dervishes sit in
a circle listening to music. Then, rising slowly, they move to greet the sheikh or Mawlana
(master), and cast off the black coat to emerge in white shirts and waistcoats. They keep
their individual places with respect to one another and begin to revolve rhythmically. They
throw back their heads and raise the palms of their right hands, keeping their left hands
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down, a symbol of giving and taking and the link between the earth and heavens. The
rhythm accelerates, and they whirl faster and faster. In this way they enter a trance in an
attempt to lose their personal identities and to attain union with the Almighty. Later they
may sit, pray, and begin all over again. The ceremony always ends with a prayer and a
procession.

The Story of the Dervish Performance

You might run across a Whirling Dervish performance anywhere in the world, but your
chances of doing so vastly improve in Egypt. Not only is there the dervish theater located
near the Khan el-Khalili, but many belly dancing shows in nightclubs and dinner boats will
also include Whirling Dervish. It is an entertaining performance that most will not want to
miss. But most people who attend such performances have little idea of the nature of this
dance, which is called the sema. It is a rare occurrence of religious ceremony transcending
into performing art.

The dance has been performed for over 700 years by the Sufi, a rather mystic order of the
Islamic faith. A story is told of a tradesman in a small village in the East who sat on his
knees in his little shop, and with his left hand he pulled a strand of wool from the bale
which was above his head. He twirled the wool into a thicker strand and passed it to his
right hand as it came before his body. The right hand wound the wool around a large
spindle. This was a continuous motion on the part of the old man who, each time his right
hand spindled the wool, inaudibly said "la illaha illa'llah." There could be no uneven
movement or the wool would break and he would have to tie a knot and begin again. The
old man had to be present to every movement or he would break the wool. This is
awareness. This is life. Sufi means awareness in life, awareness on a higher plan than on
which we normally life.

The Persian word darwish (literally: the sill of the door) is accepted in Arabic and Turkish
(dervish) to describe the Sufi who is the one who is at the door to enlightenment.

Some say the label Sufi (in Arabic suf means wool) grew from the wool cloaks worn by
these holy beings. Others like to think that its origin is from the Greek word sophos that
means wisdom.

The Egyptian Sufi dancing is different to the Mevlana Dervishes in Turkey. It is more
colourful and with more people involved in the performance. The concept is built around
the idea that the universe stems from the same point of rotation. Starting and ending at
the same point, represented by the senior dancer, “Lafife” and symbolizes the Sun, while
the junior dancers “Hanatia” are the constellation revolving around him. The whirling
motion itself reflects the importance of circles in Sufi philosophy and cosmology, within
which revolution is the fundamental state of all beings. The aim during this ritual is to
desert “the nafs” or ego (or personal desires) and listening to their master and Sufi music,
thinking about God and whirling on a spiritual journey to reach the “Kemal” (the perfect).

For a dervish, there must be a purpose, a cause for existence, and inside the cause, a True

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 Human Being.” Jelaluddin Rumi

The musical instruments used include rebaba (folk fiddle), ney (flute), mizmar (shawm),
frame drums, sagat (cymbals), and tabla (doumbek drum). In the Sufi tradition the ney
holds great significance as air has to be breathed in and out rather than blown into it, and
that the wind passing through the flute is not just the breath of the player but the breath of
God. So once the breath enters the journeyer (the dancer), he seeks union with God through
the whirling movements. There is also the chanting of “thikr”, which is the repletion of “la
illaha illa’llah” (there is no god but God). However, some Dervish may only repeat
“Allah” because they believe man can die at any moment, and they want only the name of
God on their lips and in their hearts.

The changes in music, body language, and facial expressions are intended to
communicate. The tannoura contained a cohesive message, communicated sequentially
over the course of the show. The dancers whirl continuously sometimes for up to 45
minutes straight, varying their pace to match the music, then stop and be completely fine.
As they turn, they manipulate long skirts in a colorful display and executing skilled moves,
such as throwing the skirts in the air, spinning the skirts at different levels and angles,
even spinning the skirt over head and while lying down. When the dancer tilts at an angle
where the right hand is raised up and the left almost touches the ground, it signifies a
union of the heaven and earth.

It is a rare occurrence of religious ceremony transcending into performing art. But it is

obviously more entertainment than religious ceremony. It is also claimed that the trance-
like state that the Dervish goes into extends to the observing audience, so don’t feel
surprised if you find yourself transfixed watching these well trained performers on their
spiritual journey.

From Al-Ahram Weekly Newspaper

The mystic circle in motion

The show took place in the Wekalet Al-Ghouri, an old and evocative venue with brown
Arabesque windows; the ambiance was more than perfect. It was equally amazing to watch
the dancers who kept on moving in small circles without a minute to rest. It certainly left
me dazzled. How were they able to do it?

Some of the dancers joined the company when it was formed in 1994, while others are still
training in private studios. Those who have the skill to dance in the tanoura (whirling
dervishes) are luckier -- the technique is very similar. From time to time the company
publishes announcements welcoming new dancers and offering training for those who have
no knowledge but want to learn Sufi dancing.

Mawlawya was established in 1994 as a religious chanting and dance company. El-Touni
studied the old ways of religious and Sufi chanting from different eras. Mawlawya as an art
was first established by Galaleddin Al-Rumi some 800 years ago, and it appears to have
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come to Egypt with the Ottoman conquest in 1517. "The tradition survived and flourished
in several parts in Egypt until 1952, when the new principle of socialism set in place by the
1952 Revolution outlawed it, just as it had been outlawed even in Turkey itself. However,
the mawlawya tradition has recently been born again in Turkey although merely for
touristic purposes.

The lyrics of the songs are derived from famous Sufi poems by Ibn El-Fared and El-Hallag,
Ibn Arabi and others. The technique is almost the same, and entails, so to speak, moving
around with a few gestures and movements of the arms and twists of the head. "It is
basically a mood of meditation, an attempt to communicate with God," El-Touni says. "It
was invented by Al-Rumi as a way of mourning the sudden death of his master. Therefore
it is known as a sad ritual."

There is a kind of philosophy in the idea of revolving, he continues; the planets revolve
around the sun; the Tawaf or moving around the Holy Shrine during hajj also goes from
left to right, and the blood circle also goes from left to right and it only goes from right to
left when the heart stops beating.

"But, for me it is a matter of love; loving God, a carnival mood. I teach the company how
to love each other; how to love the dance itself; how to express their feelings and to
communicate with God while dancing," El-Touni adds.

El-Touni was born in 1966 and is a graduate of the Education College and worked as an
Arabic language teacher in a secondary school. Five years later he left his job and travelled
to Greece, where he stayed for six years and embarked on an entirely new career as a
munshid [religious chanter] with some Sufi music bands there. The Mawlawya also run
some workshops with Sufi musicians from Cuba, Spain and the United States.

So far, Mawlawya has danced on hundreds of nights in many places in Egypt, Greece,
Cyprus and France and in the US, and has received a warm acclaim wherever it has
appeared for its unique and sincere performance. In Egypt, the company performs in
several governorates, most notably in Malawi, a small town in Minya governorate, where
about two million Sufis from the surrounding villages have attended its recent shows.

The company will soon embark on an entirely new experience when they present for the
first time a play called The Mountain, an adaptation of a novel by the Algerian author Al-
Taher Bin Galloun entitled Laylet Al-Qadr. This will be presented within the framework of
the Cairo International Experimental Theatre Festival, due to take place next month. El-
Touni, who studies his masters, says it is apparently involved in the theme intertextuality in
theatre, with a special focus on Russian drama and the theories of Mikhail Bakhtin. For
him mawlawya is "some kind of theatrical art, which needs to be developed and is open to
mix with other kinds of music like world music."

El-Touni dreams of a tekeya, the old Ottoman word for the premises of such dance
companies, a place where a good reciter of the Quran teaches his students. "Such a place
should have productions from other similar Sufi companies from around the world, as well
as a school to teach the Quran to young people, and it should provide loans for assisting the
poor and the elderly as a way of teaching people how to cooperate and love each other."
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