Sivan Dahan

Where this comes from

I grew up on dancing at Moroccan weddings and learned it before I knew it could be a profession. It is not a style I picked for a catalogue but what I have been doing since I was nine.

The difference sounds small and is felt in the room. Ethno learned from videos looks like a sequence of movements. Ethno you grew up inside looks like a language, and it can be improvised to the room rather than run off a list.

Shamadan: the candle tray

This is what people remember from the evening, so let us start there.

A shamadan is a candelabrum carried on the head. It comes from the Egyptian and Moroccan wedding tradition — the dancer opens the ceremony with the tray alight on her head for the whole number. Mine weighs about three and a half kilos and holds nine real candles.

What it needs from the room: clear air above my head, no low chandelier and no ceiling fan. And still air — an open window in a breeze puts out half the candles in thirty seconds.

What it needs from me: slowing down. With a lit tray on your head you cannot move fast, and that is exactly what makes this the quietest part of the evening. In a living room with the lights off it looks unlike anything else in the catalogue.

If the ceiling is low or there is a fan, I drop the shamadan and work with Isis wings instead — a completely different section of the same length.

Drum solo: the loud part

The exact opposite of the candles, inside the same set.

A drum solo is a passage where the tabla plays alone and the body answers it directly: every strike gets its own movement. It is the fast, sharp, most precise part, and it demands attention from the room — which is why I place it after the candles rather than before.

It is also the part that works best on an audience that does not know the style. There is nothing to explain: the drum hits, the body moves, and it reads immediately.

What I need, and it is little

• Two metres by two of clear floor — less than any other style in the catalogue
• Clear air above, no low chandelier and no fan, if there is a shamadan
• A hard floor or a thin rug; I dance barefoot
• The window closed during the candles
• A room with a door to get ready in — the kaftan and jewellery take about fifteen minutes

What I do not need is a powerful speaker. Part of the rhythm comes from me, from the coin belt and the cymbals, so a decent domestic speaker is entirely enough.

Isis wings: the alternative

When there is no clear ceiling, this is what replaces the shamadan, and it is not a consolation prize.

Isis wings are two large fabric fans that open from the arms and surround the whole body. They are extremely visual — in a small room it looks as though the room filled up — and they need width rather than height: two and a half metres to the sides and a two-metre-forty ceiling are enough.

What they do need is still air. An air conditioner blowing straight at the dancing area makes the wings uncontrollable, so I ask for it to be aimed aside or turned down for those minutes.

How long the set runs

My structure is fixed: about twenty-five minutes solo, in three parts. A slow entrance with silk scarves, then the shamadan or the wings — the quiet part — and a drum solo to finish. That order is not random: it takes the room from quiet to loud rather than the reverse, which is what makes the ending feel like an ending.

Who it suits

A mixed room takes this best, because the style is familiar from weddings and haflas. People do not have to decide how to feel about what they are seeing — they already know.

Excellent for a birthday with a mixed group, for an extended family evening that includes older guests, and when hosting visitors from abroad. Less suited to a loud party already at its peak, where the candles simply will not be seen.

The other side: fashion

My second style, and I do it when the room does not suit ethno — a low ceiling, a large group, or an evening that wants something cooler.

Fashion is a line rather than a square: a straight run, holds, a turn. It has no props and no fire, and it works under stronger light. My two styles barely touch each other, and that is deliberate.

For larger groups I also do a club set, which needs three metres by three and a speaker with bass.

Safety: how I handle fire

Real candles in a living room deserve to be taken seriously, so here is how it works.

The candles are fixed into the holder rather than standing free. I light them myself after clearing the area and put them out myself at the end of the section. I do not let any guest hold the tray, however much they ask — it sounds like fun and ends in wax on the sofa at best.

And if there is a curtain close by, children or an animal in the room, I drop that part without argument. Tell me in advance and I will bring the wings instead.

Where this is asked for most

The whole service area. Mostly Rosh HaAyin, Petah Tikva, Ashdod and Beer Sheva — this style is asked for there more than anywhere else.

The price is standard, and the shamadan, the wings and the costume are included. Cash at the end.