“The Twain Shall Meet: Influences and Innovations
On Middle Eastern Dance and Music”

Performance Lecturers:

Joe Zeytoonian and Myriam Eli

Course Description: Harmonic Motion’s Joe Zeytoonian and Myriam Eli explain and demonstrate in performance how Western concepts have influenced traditional dance and music forms from the Middle East. Included are the effects of Hollywood, jazz, contemporary dance, New Age and free music, flamenco and other European styles, as well as the transformation necessary for presenting folk forms in night club and concert settings.

Biographical Information: Harmonic Motion (www.harmonicmotion.com) is a music and dance performance group that focuses on folkloric and ethnic idioms and cross-cultural projects.

Joe Zeytoonian is an udist, singer, percussionist and composer who has received various fellowship grants and honorable mentions from the Florida Department of State, Broward County and the National Endowment for the Arts, in addition to the 2000 Florida Folk Heritage Award from the Division of Historical Resources. He has recorded various albums of traditional Middle Eastern and Armenian music, as well as pop music with Gloria Estefan and Shakira. He is co-director of Harmonic Motion with Myriam Eli, with whom he has toured the United States, Turkey, Japan and Latin America.

Myriam Eli performs traditional Middle Eastern, cross-cultural and improvisational dance, and plays a variety of Middle Eastern hand drums and percussion instruments. She has received awards from the New York-based American Academy of Middle Eastern Dance and a fellowship grant from the Florida Department of State