Ethno erotica in Tel Aviv

An ethno set: what it actually is

Ethno is belly dance and Middle Eastern movement adapted to the format of a private show. The base in the neck and shoulders stays, the hips work in isolation, and the arms tell half the story.

The style starts far away. The first two minutes are large movement with fabric and no approach towards anybody, which is the reverse of most of the catalogue. From there it shortens: the veil comes down, the distance closes, and the tempo rises through the last third.

In intensity it is restrained, closer to fashion than to lap dance. In warmth and movement it is near latino, but the technique is a different thing entirely.

Isolation: why this is not latino

To anyone unfamiliar both styles read as "a lot of hips", and technically they are far apart.

In latino the movement comes from weight transfer: the legs work and the hips answer. In ethno the body stays put and muscle groups fire separately — the stomach moves without the shoulders, the ribcage without the waist, the waist without the knees. That is isolation, and it takes years.

The difference is visible immediately: in ethno the feet barely move, and most of what happens does so above the hips. It is also why this style needs less floor than any other.

The only style that works on a rug

For every other style we ask for a hard, smooth surface, and a thick rug is a problem. Here it is the opposite.

Ethno is danced barefoot. Heels do not suit it at all, because the whole movement is built on the contact between the sole of the foot and the floor. A rug, a carpet or warm parquet is its ideal surface, and cold tile is the least pleasant one.

What it does need is for that surface to be clean. It sounds obvious and it is not — an evening where people have already eaten on the floor or spilled wine needs five minutes of clearing up first. We will ask for that, and it is the only demand this style makes about the space.

What it does need: height

The real requirement of ethno is not on the floor but at the ceiling.

Three and a half metres of silk turns around the dancer and travels above her head. A two-metre-forty ceiling still works at a squeeze, a low chandelier in the middle of the living room does not work at all, and a ceiling fan ends that part of the show on the spot.

What we 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, we drop the veils and work with small fans instead. Better to know in advance than to find out at the door.

Finger cymbals: the only live sound we have

Sagat — pairs of small metal finger cymbals — are part of the act rather than decoration.

She plays them while dancing, in her own rhythm, over the music. That makes this the only set we run with a sound that does not come out of a speaker, and it registers in the room: 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, ethno suffers less than any other style, because part of the rhythm is coming from the room itself rather than from the system.

Music: why an ordinary playlist does not work

Middle Eastern rhythm is built on structures with no pop equivalent: a fast maqsoum, a slow baladi, a saidi with an entirely different accent. A dancer builds the number around those transitions.

So this is the one style where we ask you not to send a playlist of your own. You can ask for a mood — classical Egyptian, modern, something with a strong darbuka — and she will build a set from it. One familiar track can be worked in, but not more.

Who it suits

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

In practice it goes well at a birthday with a mixed group, at an evening for couples at home, and when hosting visitors from abroad — in central Tel Aviv hotels and in Netanya it is the first request tourist groups make.

Geographically most bookings come from Jaffa, Florentin and Bat Yam.

What it 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 striptease set in a Middle Eastern movement language, with the same boundaries as every other style here: guests do not initiate contact, the dancer sets the distance and she ends the set.

With us it belongs to Tala Dorian, who learned the base before she came to this work. The rest of the dancers can be filtered in the catalogue. The price is standard, and the veils and cymbals are included.