Let's Dance My Way Follow The Zapin

The Utmost Confusing Traditional Dance, Zapin

When god had decided to put us all human into a great test, He must have the Zapin Confusing Steps in mind. Oh yes, it was a great torture not only to body but to my mind as well having to memorize all the difficult steps. I’m personally extremely into dancing, but this particular dancing is really challenging my sanity. Well, needless to say, though there are many other type of dancing such as Indian Traditional Dances, Mak Yong and Chinese Traditional Dances which I have tried before, I have eventually mesmerized to the details in the steps of Zapin. I have had tried Chinese Traditional Fan Dance few years back, the whole experiences were absolutely memorable. We have to perform on a Night of Cultural Performances and boy was it not memorable?? We have been practice for quite some time and though there were so many ‘drama’ in the middle of the ‘telenovela’ we had eventually sorted them out. Anyway, back to Zapin, there were lots and lots of new things I have gained in IPTI, bad and good. I’m not quite sure which category will fit Zapin though. Well, needless to say, being in Johor, without the Zapin would almost be impossible, especially when you are studying in a hardcore, big time patriotic college!

Anyway, back to Zapin, again, though it may bring along some dreaded memories to some, the dance itself is not at blame. From my recursive research, I have found out several interesting facts about Zapin. Among Them would be the fact that now I’m well aware that Zapin is originally from Arab and Middle East during the 14^th century. I had also found out that there were some restrictions to the dance as for it was affected by religion elements before that determined only male were allowed to dance. But it is not the case today, unfortunately! Traditionally, Zapin is only performed during prestigious ceremony or in a big event, but now, you could go to a teaching institute and see a whole bunch of Zapin-Fanatic fans, practice this dance as early as 07.30 in the morning! That’s how much they love the traditional dance.

Fundamentally, it was not that hard to learn all the steps in the dance. In order to successfully cope with the technically challenging steps, we just have to have such a strong determination and good memory. This is because; most of the steps are just a repetition of the steps before. If ever someone asks me was it worth it to have to learn the dance? I would definitely say without any doubt that it is worth it, in a sense that, this is something new that I have gained and it will be with me most probably my whole life time. The difficulties and the challenges were the key reason why was the experience memorable in my opinion. And, oh yes, as a dedicated teacher, having the knowledge of this sort of cultural dance will definitely come in handy in the future should we are given the opportunity to ‘torture’ our students.