Valerie G. Barnes Connell Jordan
Northern Advocate
Yasmin Ramzy, who has danced, taught dancing and found her niche in choreography was in La Ronge in October to worth with the Ishraq Dance Troupe to choreograph a piece of music, Journey, with members of the Troupe.
Ramzy had been in La Ronge the year before and created two choreographed pieces for the dance troupe.
“I enjoyed working with the girls. I find them so brave and hard working. They put everything into it, you know, they don’t lounge about it … they’re emotionally brave and I like to work with people like that,” she said in an interview with the Northern Advocate.
She asked the girls why they chose this particular dance form, “Like why Arabic dancing,” and their response, it was available and they grew to love it.
Ramzy said in her long career, dancing and choreographing for dance that spans 44 years performing in 70 cities across five continents, she finds, “most people who take it fall In love with it.”
She also met and heard the music of Tammam Al Shoofi, who is a musician and composer on her first trip to La Ronge. She heard this piece of music AL Shoofi composed, one time that would become the music behind her second trip to La Ronge.
After returning to Toronto, Ramzy said, she was talking with a friend.
“I told my friend about it. He said, wouldn’t it be amazing for a piece of music to be commissioned by this guy for the girls,”
Tammam AL Shoofi, who now lives in La Ronge and is the group’s musician, composed the music, now titled, Journey. Tammam, who is from Syria, sent the song to be recorded in Syria.
The music is named, Journey, because it is the story of Al Shoofi’s journey from Syria to Canada, Ramzy said.
With strong support from Dance Saskatchewan, Ramzy travelled to La Ronge to work with the Troupe to choreograph a dance to go with the music.
Creation of the choreography of the music for dance was a different experience, Ramzy said.
With every piece of music the choreography is “different creative process,” she said.
“I wanted to not listen to the music and not create anything until I was in the room with the girls, because I wanted to use their energy and their ideas to be part of the choreography, because the music was made for them,” Ramzy said.
Over the years Ramzy has become very quick and can “choreograph as fast as I can talk,” but she slowed the pace with this one.
The next time she heard the music, “it was in the room with them. They had never heard it before. We all pretty much listened to it for the first time together and then I used their reactions from it and how they felt about it. So, their ideas to create the choreography.
Over a four-day span she worked with the dance troupe members. “I wanted to do it with the girls. Also, they had to learn and practice a bit.”
The choreography is done, Ramzy said, but now it’s to practice “to perfect it first to perfect it, get the timing right and all that kind of stuff,” she said before it’s ready for performing.
They did do a “demonstration performance on the core for Tamman, who composed it. He got to see the final version and they will quite likely perform it again somewhere, but it’s not completely finished.”
They will need to rehearse “cause it’s ensemble choreography so from themselves, but everybody has a different role right.”
And that’s the role for Charlene Bosiak, who has been Ramzy’s student for 20 years. She taught dancing for many years in La Ronge, taking a break during the COVID19. She came back and formed the Troupe in early 2023.
They have performed around the community several times.
Al Shoofi named the them, Ishraq Dance Troupe.
