Ring Event Report
September 6, 2008

The second annual Chung Ling Soo Stage Magic Competition was held on Saturday, September 6, at 7:00 pm at All Souls Congregational Church in Bangor.

Peter Boie won the 2008 Chung Ling Soo Stage Magic Competition with a surreal modern act in which he played the part of a hapless commuter waiting for a bus as a series of increasingly bizarre magical occurrences took place. His briefcase wandered offstage when he set it down. His tie changed color and grew to colossal proportions. His cell phone vanished and reappeared. Doves, billiard balls, and cards came out of nowhere. Once he was rid of his jacket and magically expanded tie, his shirt changed from business blue to magic orange in a flash transformation. Throughout the act, Peter's outstanding acting, flawless magical technique, and the originality of his act's framework drew gasps, cheers, and finally wild applause from the audience and a panel of expert judges.

The Mysterious Baxter (Brother Don Paul) took Second Place with a charming 1930s-style nightclub act featuring magic with coins, silks, rope, and billiard balls. Brother Don's warmth and humor carried the audience back to the luxurious Paradise Nightclub for a few enchanted moments. Professor Miller took Third Place with an extravagant stage act in which he produced yards of silk and Chinese fans and parasols, seemingly from thin air. Wes Booth also competed with a magical courtship of his assistant Donna, producing color-changing silks, flowers, and finally a real bunny bearing a ring to win her favor.

The evening's entertainment was rounded out by four performers not competing in the contest. Dr. Wilson paid tribute to Chung Ling Soo by performing the Ladder of Swords, an act performed by Chung Ling Soo's assistant Kamataro. Three Middle Eastern dancers (Lorien Wood, Emma Creaser, and Sara Moreshead) carried away the audience with movement and beauty, opening the show, providing transitions between the magical acts, and offering a rich set of closing performances while the judges were deliberating.

People are often surprised to find that Middle Eastern dance is more than an expression of sensuality. Its roots go deep, and it encompasses all aspects of life: sorrow and celebration, vulnerability and victory, birth and rebirth.

As we experience it today this ancient dance is an evolving art, a mixture of movements from ritual and social dances of various countries (Egypt, Turkey, Morocco, Greece, Lebanon) as well as movements borrowed from other cultures and dance forms (Indian, African, Polynesian, jazz, modern dance, ballet).

The exact origins cannot be pinpointed, but some of the movements come from ritual dances such as the Egyptian Zaar (a trance dance that placates restless spirits), the Moroccan Guedra (a ritual dance of blessing), or the Moroccan Shikhatt (which helps prepare young women for marriage and childbirth). Other movements derive from the social dancing done by and for Arabic women of all ages at gender-segregated celebrations - not as a "performance" but as an expression of joy and community.

From this historical base evolved the practice of hiring a dancer to entertain guests at Arabic weddings and other festive occasions. With her performance the dancer would help create the mood of exuberant celebration, sometimes using such spectacular props as a flaming 3-tiered candelabrum balanced on her head.

In the 1920s, an enterprising Lebanese woman named Badia Masabni opened the first Cairo nightclub featuring staged dance performances, which are the basis of the style known today as Raqs Sharqi or "Dance of the East" (often called "cabaret style"). These clubs became popular with visiting foreigners, and the dance began to shake off its folkloric roots and take on Western influences. The familiar "bra and belt"-style outfit and the "Sultan's harem" fantasy originated in Hollywood rather than in Cairo or Istanbul.

The dance spread to the west through immigrant communities, and by the 1970s belly dance studios prospered all over the United States. Dramatic elements such as veil and sword were introduced, and the influence of jazz dance and modern dance on the traditional Middle Eastern style deepened.

Today Middle Eastern dance is performed in staged shows, in restaurants, and at parties and weddings all over the world. Many different styles have emerged, but generally the dance is characterized by flowing undulations as well as precise torso isolations. Most styles stress the visual interpretation of complex Middle Eastern rhythms and melodies and above all that elusive ingredient, individual self-expression. When you watch a belly dancer perform you are seeing what she hears.