I enjoy reading stories, I enjoy listening to stories, and I enjoy telling stories. On Legacy's 10th anniversary party, I'll tell you a story with my feet. It's a love story between a handsome man and a beautiful woman. The story is called "Eyes like Yours", and I am going to tell it to a great audience with my golden girls clogging Toastmasters.
Being the Persian Queen, Scheherazade (Persian: شهرزاد Šahrzād) told stories night in and night out to her beloved Shah, Shahryar (Persian:شهريار Šahryār). She did not end the story, so that the king would keep her alive in order to hear the end of the tale. The next night, as soon as she finished the tale, she began (and only began) another. So it went for 1001 nights.
Scheherazade told several famous stories like, Aladdin, Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, and The Seven Voyages of Sinbad the Sailor. She is beloved by the old and young alike. I wish someday I could become a story teller like her. Are you all ears to "Eyes like Yours" by Shakira?
"Oh, you know I have seen a sky without sun, a man with no nation, saints captive in chains, a song with no name. For lack of imagination, he I have seen darker than ebony. Ya he Ya he Ya la he! And now it seems, that I, without your eyes could never be. My one desire, all I aspire is in your eyes forever to live.
Traveled all over the seven oceans, there is nothing that I wouldn't give, came from Bahrein, got to Beirut. Looking for someone comparing to you, tearing down windows and doors, and I could not find eyes like yours. Oh, You know I seen a woman of means in rags and begging for pleasure, crossed a river of salt, just after I rode a ship that's sunk in the desert."
rabboussamai fikarrajaii
fi ainaiha aralhayati
ati ilaika min haza lkaaouni
arjouka labbi labbi nidai
I still remember the late evening I arrived at Holiday Inn in Lahore ten years ago. I was mesmerized by the fancy Arabian dress of the doorkeeper. I couldn't believe my eyes that I was in the Persian world of fantasy in person. The two weeks business trip was etched in my mind. There was a real world of 1001 nights.
In less than a month, I am going to put on the dazzling dress for the first time to feel what it would be like to be Queen Scheherazade telling her stories to King Shahryar. I need to polish my clogging shoes to get ready for Legacy's 10th Anniversary Evening. I can't ask for more nights, because it is the one and only Night on April the 20th! Sherry
7 comments:
Dear Sherry,
You are like a dream girl to me; so poetic, imaginative, passionate and romantic. You have the talent to find the beauty and value of a simple encounter, and always seize the moment, and embrace challenges to make the best out of them. If not for
You, I may not have the heart to find out what the “Eyes Like Yours” may insinuate to us, and how thrilling the love of Scheherazade to Shah, Shahryar could be.
Having you in the group is truly a blessing. We won’t have possibly achieved so much without you. Thank you, Sherry.
Eyes like yours is an easy intermediate line dance, choreographed by Barry Welch. The sequence is as follows, 2 INTRO-A-B-C; 2 INTRO-A-B-C; 2 INTRO-A-BRIDGE-C
INTRO: 2 Fancy Doubles, 2 Basics, Fancy Double; PART A: 2 Brush & Turns (1/4L), Vine, Jump Push-off, REPEAT; PART B: Brush, 3 Unclogs, 2 Basics, Fancy Double (1/2L), REPEAT; PART C: 2 Clog Over Vines, Triple Brush, Rock Back, Karate, Fancy double, REPEAT; BRIDGE: 2 Basics
As soon as the music plays, Sherry and Kate dance to rear row to the first 8 beats, facing back to the audience. Irene, Lydia, Trini dance to front row, facing back to the audience first, then turn to face the audience to the second 8 beats. Everybody moves the belly for 32 beats in unison!
Stanza I (2 INTRO-A-B-C): the front and rear rows dancers hold hands facing each other to clog over vine.
Stanza II (2 INTRO-A-B-C): the front row and rear row change position during two intros. All dancers move backward except Lydia remains in the center. All dance to face the audience during two brush turns of Part A, and unveil the mask during clog over vine on their own.
Stanza III (2 INTRO-A-BRIDGE-C) two rows become one semi-circle during two intros. All dancers hold hands in circle the first clog over vines, dance to a straight line during the bridge.
Beauty is a prerequisite, wisdom perpetuates.
It is a destinty that I started reading "The Arabian Nights" today, the 28th of June. The story took place in an ancient dynasty of the Sassanidae, two daughters of grand-vizir, the elder Scheherazade and the younger Dinarzade, saved thousands of women from being beheaded by Shahryar.
After performing "Eyes Like Yours", I fell in love with Arabs, from the music to literature.
Who knows when I shall embark upon my journey to acquire the Arabic!
It was a destiny that I ran into an old gentleman this morning (June 28th). While I was looking for new books on the shelves of Taipei City Main Library, he asked me if there were any books in Japanese. I looked at him and struck a conversation with him in Japanese. He told me that he was 85 years old and showed me a book in his bag.
Believe it or not, it is "千夜一夜物語(Alf Layla wa Layla)"! What a mysterious coincidence! 本当に不思議なものだった！
I finished reading 1001 nights this afternoon (June 30th). While reading the book, I couldn't help feeling pityful that I couldn't read the poems in Persian, therefor missed the subtleties of language lost in translation.
I picked up "The Rubaiyat" of Omar Khayyam from my book shelf next to my desk.
A Book of Verses underneath the Bough,
A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread-and Thou
Beside me sining in the Wilderness-
Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow!
Oh threats of Hell and Hopes of Paradise!
One thing at least is certain-This Life flies;
One things is certain and the rest is lies-
The Flower that once has blown forever dies.
(translated by Edward FitzGerald)
It is like a string of unexpected events. I opened "The Prince of the Marshes--and Other Occupational Hazards of a Year in Iraq" by Rory Steward this morning.
Rory speaks Farsi, the Persian language which was widely used as a second language in the Indian subcontinent till in 1843 when the subcontinent began conducting business in English. Even some scholars think the name "Persian" is more appropriate as a mark of cultural and national continuity, "Farsi" is encountered frequently in the linguistic literature as a name for the language, used both by Iranian and by foreign authors.
I now need to make a choice between Farsi and Arabic.
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