Bülbül Club

The Bülbül Club is a meeting place for dancing together and dances from West Asia and North Africa at tanzhaus nrw. 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 and others.

Assyrische Tänze: Khigga, Bagiye, Gubare und Lela Bassa

Shlomo u Shlama!
We’d like to welcome you to the next edition of the Bülbül Club, in collaboration with the Assyrian Youth Association of Central Europe, North Rhine-Westphalia Regional Branch (AJM NRW e.V.).

The event will start with a workshop on Assyrian* dance styles such as Khigga, Bagiye, Gubare, and Lela Bassa, followed by a get-together and party.

All of these dances are circle or line dances that are common in the Assyrian community. Some of these dances are also performed in other cultural circles with the same rhythms but different songs. However, some are also more modern or specific dances that are actually found only in the Assyrian community. It’s always good to have a relaxed body, a sense of rhythm, and no hesitation about getting closer to your dance partners.

We are the AJM NRW e.V. and we want to share our Assyrian dances with you. We mainly do community, circle, and line dances. Our culture and its preservation in the diaspora are very important to us, as we, as Assyrians, are an indigenous people of Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq, Syria, Turkey, and parts of Iran) who, in our homeland regions, face existential threats as an ethnic Assyrian and religious minority of Christians.

For us – as for many people – dance is a means of expressing joy, history, culture, identity, and resilience. “Shooshla!” is an exclamation used while dancing in our native language, and it is also the name of our digital dance project, which you are welcome to check out online!

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

You can find insight 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

With and by: Maya, Maikel and other members of the AJM NRW.

A joint event organized by tanzhaus nrw and the Assyrian Youth Association of Central Europe, North Rhine-Westphalia Regional Branch (AJM NRW e.V.). 

*As AJM NRW e.V., we are very aware of the various names used to refer to our community and understand “Assyrians” as an umbrella term for all people from our community, regardless of the dialect of our first language they speak or their current regions of origin. The most common alternative terms are “Arameans” and “Chaldeans.”

Find more info in this PDF (German only).