Hila Mizrahi

What ethno means with me

Belly dance and Middle Eastern movement adapted to a private show. It is the style I started with before I came to this work, so it is the base rather than an addition.

The technique is unlike anything else in the catalogue. The body stays put and muscle groups fire separately: the stomach without the shoulders, the ribcage without the waist. The feet barely move and most of what happens takes place above the hips. That is also why it needs less floor than any other style.

The sound: the only thing here that does not come from a speaker

I work with sagat — pairs of small metal finger cymbals — and play them while dancing, in my own rhythm, over the music.

It changes a room more than it sounds like it would. The sound is close, sharp and precise, and it pulls the eye to the hands exactly when it should. There is a practical side too: if your speaker is weak, it bothers me less than it would any other style, because part of the rhythm is coming from the room itself.

Alongside the cymbals there is a coin belt, and that is a second layer of sound — every hip movement is audible. A small movement is heard only by those close; a wide one is heard by everyone, and I work with that like another instrument.

What I need is not floor but ceiling

My veil opens to three and a half metres and travels above my head. A two-metre-forty ceiling still works at a squeeze, a low chandelier in the middle of the room does not, and a ceiling fan ends that part on the spot.

What I ask for: a metre and a half square of clear floor with clear air above it. If there is a chandelier the dancing area can move to one side, and if it cannot, I switch to smaller silk fans. Better to know beforehand than at the door.

One more thing that surprises people: I dance barefoot. A rug or warm parquet is my ideal surface and cold tile the least pleasant. I am the only one in the catalogue for whom a rug actually helps.

Music: please do not send me a playlist

It is my one request that sounds odd, so here is the reason.

Middle Eastern rhythm is built on structures with no pop equivalent — a fast maqsoum, a slow baladi, a saidi with an entirely different accent — and I build the number around those transitions. An outside playlist breaks the structure.

You can ask for a mood: classical Egyptian, modern, something with a strong darbuka. And one familiar track can be worked in, no more.

Who it works for

This is the style a mixed room takes best, because it is familiar. Many people have seen belly dance at a wedding or a hafla, so they come to it without the barrier they have in front of a style they are seeing for the first time.

Excellent for a birthday with a mixed group, for an evening for couples, and when hosting guests from abroad. Less suited to a loud party already at its peak — that needs energy rather than precision.

I also do latino, which is my second style. To an untrained eye they look similar; technically they are opposites, because there the movement comes from weight transfer and the legs work.

What I wear

The costume is a bedlah: a decorated bra, a coin belt at the hips and a long skirt with a slit. Alongside it a silk veil, sometimes two long silk fans, and a headpiece. All of it is mine and there is nothing for you to arrange.

Because of the jewellery and the coins I need a room with a door to get ready in rather than a corner behind a curtain, and it takes about fifteen minutes.

There is no character and no costume in the theatrical sense. That is the difference between what I do and cosplay, and it is worth knowing before you book.

What this is not

It is not a folklore performance and not a cultural showcase, and it is not an oriental costume worn for effect. It is a set in a Middle Eastern movement language, with the same boundaries as every other style: guests do not initiate contact, I set the distance and I end the set.

Where I am booked

The whole service area. A great deal in Rosh HaAyin and around it, where ethno is asked for more than anywhere else, and also in Tel Aviv, Bat Yam and Netanya with guests from abroad.

The price is standard, and the veils and cymbals are included. Cash at the end.