Russya-Sandra Otto started dancing at the age of six. She discovered Oriental Dance in 1987. Russya works with Egyptian and Turkish musicians, performing at traditional celebrations. She performs throughout Germany, and she has performed in Europe, Indonesia and Australia. Russya recently taught workshops in Perth, Western Australia. She will conduct a workshop at the Sydney Middle Eastern Dance Festival in May. While in Perth, Russya spoke to Kerry Stewart.

Kerry: Russya, you have a background in ballet, jazz, modern dance and acting. Can you talk about your training and what it has brought to your oriental dance?

Russya: I started dancing when I was a child so I was trained to pick things up, to learn quickly and think quickly, to analyse movements and to have a feeling of space, of moving on the stage…what I see in a lot of dancers is no feeling of moving in the room, they do not have a sense of direction and where you are in the room.

Kerry: Do you think it’s important to learn when you’re young?

Russya: No, not when you’re young, but if you want to be an artist or a professional performer, it’s important to know what an audience gets; when you are in different positions, you give them a different image or a different feeling. If you want to express something, you need to be aware of where you stand and what that means.

Kerry: What brought you to Oriental dance?

Russya: In my ballet class I always was the little round one. I had the feeling I didn’t really fit. It was all so straight and I was a little bit squeezy,  jumping around and not so serious…I tried this and this, I tried to tap dance, I tried everything a little bit. When I heard some Oriental music, I thought “that sounds cool” and so I thought I’d try that. The teacher was talking my dialect, the dialect I speak at home. She was gorgeous looking with red lips, not as strict as my ballet teacher, who was very strict. She was floating around and she was a little bit rounder too, so I thought “Wow, here I fit”. And it fitted for my body as well… I‘ve got problems with my hips and my bones because the training was too hard for my system and so this fitted my body system better.

Then I went to Munich to the Centre of Oriental Dance and then I trained with live music. Some of those musicians became my friends, and we still perform together. From there I took lessons everywhere and travelled and went to Mahmoud Reda, Dualat Ibrahim, Hassan Affifi …Raqia Hassan…

Kerry: So there’s a fairly organised system for oriental dance training in Germany?

Russya: Not so much when I started, it was just getting popular. When we had someone over from Egypt, there would be twenty or thirty people in the class. But in the last five years it’s gotten exceptionally crowded and full and it’s organised. The standard, of course, has dropped, now a lot of people with low standards can open schools and perform…  

Kerry: In your article (1), you talk about the development of “ a German style of dance”. Can you elaborate on that?

Russya: Yes, it’s quite interesting, especially the comparison with dancers from France, or America…we have dancers like Beata and Horacio Cifuentes who have been trained in ballet, so they really like to use space a lot and elements from classical dance much more than the Americans do. Their movements are very precise. Americans use their hands much more, and veils, which you wouldn’t so much see in Germany. And we have male and female duets too, which is not so common.

Kerry: You also refer to “Beata and Horacio Cifuentes with their unique style of dancing” – can you talk more about that?

Russya: They are quite unique. They have trained so many teachers…I also worked with them for a while. They have an amazing technique. It just doesn’t stay a hip drop, they’ll have a hip drop with a body wave and a shimmy on top and that’s really something. When you train with them, the technique really goes far. It is still increasing in difficulty. They do things and you look at them, you think how can you possibly ever do this?

Kerry: Would you say their technique and style is a large part of the German style you talked about?

Russya: They have influenced a lot of German dancers.

Kerry: You have said that in Germany you are close to Egypt, how has that influenced German dance?

Russya: We are close to what you can do in Egypt with what music, what you wear, what is traditionally done and what not. In America I have seen shows where it is all fantasy. It’s really pretty to look at but if you were an Egyptian you would say “you can’t do this”.

Because we’re close, we have so much knowledge about where the rhythm comes from or why you wear this kind of costume, what you normally do and don’t dance to this music…

Kerry: So you feel you are more in touch with the traditions?

Russya: …sometimes you just have to lose the traditions too. For example, Egyptians did not use movement in space, they were standing in one spot and with other modern elements coming in, now they do a lot of things which are from modern dance or classical ballet, lean-outs which are not traditionally Egyptian…At least you have to know where what comes from and if you know what it comes from you can turn it somewhere else, but I think you have to know what you are talking about first. 

You have to know that in baladi that the arms are much more basic and the feet are down to earth and that in classical you are always lifted – there are things you should know, where Saiidi comes from or who danced Ghawazee and what the typical movements are for this dance. But when you know them you can add something extra. Then you can say that it’s fantasy or erotic dance or bellydance.

Kerry: You mentioned earlier about Finland having an Oriental Dance Festival. Can you tell us about Oriental Dance in Europe?

Russya: It’s really all over Europe, and it’s getting over to the East. I’m in contact with Poland and Russia, so I might go over there this summer, it’s just starting there now. Finland and the Norwegians have a big bellydance Festival and dancers come from different parts of Europe, some Germans one English. It was nice for them to have teachers from different countries there. It was just a little cold!

Kerry: How have dancers and teachers you have worked with like Beata and Horacio Cifuentes, Mahmoud Reda and Raqia Hassan influenced your own dance?

Russya: First when I learn something I try to be as exact as they are for a while then I rehearse it for a while exactly as they did to get it “in my body” then I have this movement, it is mine, although I may have to adapt for my own body, or longer arms…Then after a while some movements drop out and I don’t use them anymore – sometimes they come back some years later…I think I’ve learned something from every teacher.

Egyptians teach not so much technique, they teach more choreography and style, they don’t explain what the movement is doing in the body, you really have to watch a lot to get what they do…

Kerry: I am particularly interested in what you learned from Suprapto Suyardamo (the Javanese master of dance and meditation). You worked with him for several years.

Russya: I did a performance school in Hamburg and there I came across his work. He is an amazing person. Very spiritual. He has created his own way of moving, he calls it free movement, emerta  movement – if you are forced to freedom, what’s after that. If you are forced to freedom, what do you do with it. That’s what he simply does. He takes away music, he takes away tasks and expectations, until you are in a state of doing the same movements again and again. You get to a point where you can see your repetitions in your movements, in your feelings. When you do the same movements again and again, you get bored and so you broaden your habits. It’s opening the structure in your head and you learn to see more.

It was quite impressive to work with him.

Kerry: It sounds as if it’s made a big difference to your teaching.

Russya: I think it’s made a difference to my life because I learned a lot about myself.

Kerry: Did you live in Java?

Russya: I went to Bali for a while and he came to England for a while and I stayed with him there.

Kerry: You said he was a very spiritual man. Do you think that what you learned from him brought a spiritual side to your dance?

Russya: I don’t think I’m a spiritual dancer. I want to give people something when I’m dancing, like joy or emotion but I’m not performing or thinking that I’m doing a ritual…that’s not what the dance wants to be.

I’ve done ritual shows, not Oriental dance, but modern, with a completely different angle, performed in a Buddhist temple…it’s not a show. I think bellydance shows give pleasure, give enjoyment to the audience, but I don’t think it’s spiritual.

Kerry: You have danced with Egyptian and Turkish musicians. What are the main differences for you between Turkish and Egyptian music and dance styles?

Russya: I must say, I like the Egyptian more. The music has more variety and they use more rhythms than the Turkish. Egyptians have a different style of playing.

The Turkish like to play very loud, they use a lot of electronics in their music. They play the 9/8 karsilama a lot, which the Egyptians don’t do.

Even the costumes are different, they show more flesh than in the Egyptian costumes (that is, until Dina came out with her tiny outfits).

There are different styles in Turkey as well. They have a minority group from Kurdistan who pray with their music and singing. They all stand up together and dance. The audience, everyone, it’s not led by the dancer. The musicians do it, they have the drums and the mizmar and they all dance.

Kerry: You have large Arabic community in Hamburg. You say that they “don’t mind if the dancer is German so long as she dances like an Arab woman” (1). What does dancing like an Arab woman mean to you?

Russya: They like to see the face dancing as well, when you know what the music is about and when the songs are in your face, that’s what they really like, or when you just enjoy the music…sometimes you see a dancer and the face is frozen or the smile is forced…and there are a lot of parts in the music which are not happy, they are sad and you shouldn’t have a smiling face, this is bewildering for them…it’s not appropriate.

Kerry: Going back to knowing where the traditions come from…?

Russya: Yes, you have to watch yourself. When I do a Saudi or Egyptian wedding and I do an Om Kolthoum song, they love that, but I wouldn’t do that at a Turkish venue. You would never dance an Om Kolthoum song at a Turkish wedding!

At these weddings, if I know them a little bit, after I have danced for them, they always invite me to stay and have food…

Kerry: That’s an appropriate thing for you to do…?

Russya: They don’t mind if I have to go but they always offer, it would be impolite not to invite me for something to eat.

Kerry: What do you mean by ethno-fusion?

Russya: Each year there is a big show in Dusseldorf, that’s Europe’s biggest bellydance show, and this year I did a fusion of the Requiem from Mozart played by Egyptians, so that’s two very different things put together…it’s really a fantasy. Sometimes I mix Indian music with Arab music…I have done a dance with a candelabra to music from Swan Lake.

Kerry: When you are fusing styles, can you still be authentic?

Russya: If you do fusion, you are not authentic anymore except for your fusion…it is not traditional, you don’t have to keep up rules which belong to Oriental dance. I’m doing something artistically going in another way, I don’t have to stick to the rules. I think I can break open things. I can do a split, for example, or I can do some things on the floor, which I wouldn’t do if I danced an Oriental piece.

Kerry: In this different context, do you feel that anything is acceptable? Can you still be respectful of those traditions that you’re drawing from?

Russya: I would not like to insult people with movements, but I don’t think there are sacred movements in Oriental dance… It’s a show dance, it’s for emotion, it’s for entertainment. It’s very open, anyhow.

I do what a lot of people don’t do, a lot of dancers don’t put sadness, grief or madness in Oriental dance. I just had a piece, a very modern piece with only drummers and consisting of seven different rhythms. One of the drummers wrote it and it is a little bit like his life story, when he left home, became half-mad, he completely lost himself and then he finds himself and comes back. He put it in the rhythms…and then he gave me this piece. There was something in the music which you normally don’t have, a nervous breakdown, or grief or pain.

It was quite interesting, because people reacted positively. Some just didn’t expect to be confronted with something not nice but most people really liked it. So that’s maybe where I go a little bit further than other dancers.  From theatre, I’m used to expressing pain and emotional disasters.

Kerry: It’s also traditional in classical ballet to express these emotions…

Russya: …and a lot of grief and sadness…

Kerry: Can you talk about your theatrical work?

Russya: The last was a children’s play I did, it was quite cute, I was a little ice bear!.. It depends what’s on …I’ve done children’s tales, Shakespeare, Schiller, I did a piece from Anouilh, it depends what’s on the market.

Kerry: So you audition for these parts or work for a theatre?

Russya: I audition then, if I’m lucky, I work for them. That’s how it works in Germany. Either you’re at one theatre and you stay there for three years or you’re freelance and you audition for different pieces…

Kerry: This is something you enjoy as well as the dance?

Russya: Yes, I can’t really separate them. It’s expressive art, whether it’s in the body or the body and language, it comes from the same source. 

Kerry: Your singing too? You have done some formal training.

Russya: Yes, but more for my own pleasure. I sometimes sing in a piece, but I wouldn’t consider myself a singer. Sometimes I have to sing and I know how to do it, but I’m not really a singer.  I’m more a dancer and an actor.

Kerry: Do you sing as you dance like some dancers do nowadays?

Russya: Yes, when I have a baladi song I sing with it, not with a microphone, but I move my lips. I know the melody…and it’s a nice way to remember choreographies, with melody.

Kerry: You work with Arabic musicians. Have you learnt Arabic?

Russya: I have tried…I know the songs, and if I don’t know them, I get the musicians to translate.

Kerry: How do you teach improvisation? For someone learning the dance, it’s a big step from learning rhythms and techniques to being comfortable with improvisation.

Russya: You have to have a basic set of techniques, certain steps, and you have to know how to connect them with music.  So you know that with masmoudi you can do this and this and this, and if you have eight different movements you can use with this certain rhythm, it’s much easier to improvise. In the taqsim, a lot of times it’s only improvised, you have to really go for it and explore…I sometimes let people really explore movements to see what they can do with it. Or I take away things, I let them sit on the floor and see if they can move their upper body to see what can I say with this if I only have my upper body or if I only have my hands…how can I interpret music only with my hands if everything else is taken away. That sometimes opens new areas in the body…if you are restricted and express something there, then it gets easier when you have your whole body.

Kerry: When you are choreographing, what inspires you, the music, an emotion…?

Russya: Most of the time it’s the music. I listen to the music over and over and then I start improvising with the music. For myself, I only choreograph roughly and I improvise when I perform, but to teach a choreography, I throw away a lot of moves to get a line, or structure. For example, I will repeat steps from early in the piece at the end for when people in the class are getting tired and don’t want to learn new steps.

Kerry: You say that “Life is an expression of joy. Being human is dancing.” (2)

Russya: That’s not from me, I read that. I think it was Krishna. That’s something I live by… I think expression always clears your system.

I think movement is a way of getting things out and of turning even sad things into something beautiful -  or just enjoying yourself, or for women enjoying their bodies. I think that’s something a lot of people don’t get as a child, a lot of women are not allowed to fully express their beauty. That’s the character of this dance…there’s beauty in everyone and it has to get out.

References: 1. Russya  Oriental Dance in Germany (article)  Bellydance Oasis, Issue 5, 2001.

2. Web Site: http://russya-sandra-otto.de