Arabian Nights Festival

Thursday night was the 2nd Annual Arabian Nights Festival at Cedars Mediterranean Café. The event was held by the Middle Eastern Culture Club (MECC). The evening featured fine middle-eastern cuisine, Arabic tea, hooka and belly dancing for entertainment. President Andrew Nelson, grad student majoring in political science said, “The event is held to raise interest in Middle-eastern culture.”

Nelson knows first hand about Arabic culture. In summer of 2008 he traveled to Yemen and this past summer studied abroad in Syria. “It was really an incredible experience,” he said. “I know there is a lot of political conflict with these countries, but when I was there, they all wanted to know about America.” Nelson hoped that the club and the festival would draw the attentions of Texas State students to this world.

Amjad Mohammed is the Arabic Language coordinator one of the faculty advisors for MECC. He came to Texas State from Jordan in 2007. He helped start the MECC to bring attention to the Arabic program. “It would be wise for many students to take Arabic. It is very useful in fields like political science, international studies and especially business,” he said in an interview. “Then I started to realize that there was a real lack of knowledge here among the students about Middle-Eastern culture. So we started to hold events and invite speakers from the Middle-East to get students interested in the club, the culture and the language.”

The Arabian Nights festival drew a large crowd to Cedars. Amjad called the event, “a huge success.” “Last year there were roughly 50 students. This year there were more than 80. And they were not just students but faculty and even San Marcos residents.” The night began with huge plates of food from the region. Beef gyros called Shawarma were the main dish with sides of humus and falafel. The air was filled with the rhythmic beats and sounds of Arabian music. As the crowd dined, the belly dancing troupe, Sabaya, took to the floor and proceeded to enchant their audience with their art form. The dancers even took members of the audience from their seats to join them and soon everyone was dancing and having a wonderful time.

After the crowd sat down to enjoy Moroccan tea and smoke water pipes called hookah the dancers were able to sit down for an interview. Rania Kandil has practiced Arabian belly dancing for nine years and has even gone to Egypt to learn with the best. “Belly dancing is a very misunderstood dance form,” said Rania. “It really began as woman dancing together. It’s even been theorized that back in the day when there were no C-sections it was a way of teaching pregnant woman to move their hips and control their bodies for giving birth.”

Angela Nations, another dancer there that night, is actually a Texas State graduate with a BFA in Theatre and Dance. “I studied a lot of modern back then and now I’m able to sort of incorporate that into Tribal belly dancing,” she said. “One thing you need to know is belly dancing is very welcoming. You will see dancers of all ages and body types.” The two girls agreed that the style of dance is very difficult. “There’s a lot more than just moving your hips, it’s your whole body,” said Angela. Rania also added, “But the challenge is definitely its own reward.”

MECC hopes that in the future they will be able to hold more events like this one and at even bigger venues. Amjad said that they hope that they will have live music and maybe add some more educational attractions to their future events. “Right now we’re in need of funding but it’s events like this that get our name out and hopefully we’ll get what we need to keep events like this coming.”