Orly Portal

“This dance is a love song for love, for all my loved ones and lovers, A song of praise for the ability to be a loving woman who is not dependent on love.”
–  Orly Portal

Fakarouni is a dance of passion, a ritual revealing the intimate connection between the temporal body and enduring love. The work is set to the music of famed Egyptian musician Umm Kulthum who, called by many other names including the “voice of a nation”, made her way in a man’s world to become a modern Arab cultural icon and a proud female expression of liberation from patriarchy. In Portals’s first work for male dancers, gender is blurred as ancient archetypes are broken, forming a new definition of masculinity and femininity. Portal joins her voice with that of Umm Kulthum, weaving music and dance together with the undulating ceremonial body to create a mesmerizing tapestry of desire. The movement of the pelvis holds traditional and folkloric social meaning, and conjures the ingathering of the exiles. Fakarouni is a work of virtuosic contemporary cabaret that is at once modern and ancient, mythic and existent.

This video is an excerpt of a full evening-length work.

Orly Portal, is a dancer, choreographer, teacher, movement and voice therapist, and researcher of Moroccan folklore. She has developed a unique dance language that focuses on the body’s natural movement and gestures that respect physical and mental structures. Her creative path highlights contemporary interpretation of ancient traditions and combines elements of contemporary modern dance, contact improvisation, Feldenkrais and belly dancing.