Meiver - Nebtidi Mnein El Hikaya - MassRaqs 2010 Boston, Massachusetts

MassRaqs, September 2010 www.massraqs.com www.meiver.com Improvisational Solo Dance to Live Music - Raqs Sharqi by Meiver Musicians: Tarek Abd el Hai (Lead Vocals) Ghassan el Hashim (Keyboard) John Nejm (Katam) Larry Bejjani (Tabla) Costuming by Shadia Tohme About Meiver: Deeply committed to using art for social justice, Meiver is interested in exploring the role that the popularity of Arab arts can play in bridging cultural gaps between East and West. As part of her Master's Program in Gender and Cultural Studies at Simmons College in Boston, Meiver wrote her Master's thesis on the transnational, gender, and racial politics of belly dance, with particular focus on the role of American dancers in the global Oriental Dance scene. Since the Fall of 2010, Meiver continues this research as a Performance Studies PhD student (Northwestern U). She has been performing in the heart of Boston's Arab community for all of her dance career, and is frequently invited to lecture about the history and global context of the dance, as well as to teach and perform dance by community groups in Boston. In April 2010 Meiver was a featured speaker at the International Bellydance Conference of Canada, where she was a panelist (http://bit.ly/9fESGa) and gave a lecture, in addition to performing. She has been teaching Oriental Dance since 2002. Her teaching approach emphasizes the development of a dancer's technical skills and artistry, awareness of the dance's history, culture and context, musical literacy and performance readiness.