Bülbül Club

In the organizer's words:

Welcome to the Bülbül Club - the meeting place for dancing together and dances from West Asia and North Africa. After an introductory workshop on a dance style, we dance without borders - like Bülbüls! In Arabic, Hebrew, Kurdish, Turkish and Persian, Bülbül is a proverb for joy and for speaking fluently and vocally. In addition to dancing, the club also invites people to exchange ideas and celebrate together.

By and with Omar Mohamad, among others

Assyrian dances: Khigga, Bagiye, Gubare & Lela Bassa

Shlomo u Shlama!
Welcome to the next edition of the Bülbül Club together with the Assyrian Youth Association of Central Europe NRW (AJM NRW e.V.).

With a workshop on Assyrian* dance styles such as Khigga, Bagiye, Gubare or Lela Bassa followed by an exchange and party.

All dances are circle dances or line dances that are common in the Assyrian community. Some of them are dances that are also danced in other cultural circles with the same rhythms but different songs. However, some are also more modern or more specific dances that are actually only found in the Assyrian community. It is always good to have a loose body, a good sense of rhythm and not be afraid to get close to your dance neighbors.

We are the AJM NRW e.V. and want to share our Assyrian dances with you. We mainly dance community, circle and row dances. Our culture and the preservation of it in the diaspora is very important to us, as we as Assyrians are an indigenous population group of Mesopotamia (today's Iraq, Syria, Turkey, parts of Iran), which as an ethnic Assyrian and religious minority as Christians is sometimes existentially threatened in our home regions.

For us - as for many people - dance is an instrument for expressing joy, history, culture, identity and resilience. "Shooshla!" is an exclamation when dancing in our first language, which is also the name of our digital dance project, which you are welcome to visit online!

Let's dance hand in hand, in an open line or in a circle and immerse ourselves in Assyrian culture together.

You can find insights and tutorials for practicing at home and getting in the mood here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMDJXocAr3s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCRSGHZhzQg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRA8CIZxvts

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5l5-UjUfg0

By and with: Maya, Maikel and other AJM NRW members.

A cooperation event between tanzhaus nrw and the Assyrian Youth Association of Central Europe NRW (AJM NRW e.V.).

*As AJM NRW e.V., we are very aware of the different namings of our community and understand "Assyrians" as a generic term for all people from our community, regardless of their spoken dialect of our first language and today's areas of origin. The most common other names are Arameans and Chaldeans.

You can find more information on this in this PDF.