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Primordial goddess
of Altaic mythology, she awed her future husband Kara-han with her strength
and beauty when she sprang from waters that were toxic to snake and scorpion
The Altaic family
of languages is named for the Alti Mountains in central Asia. It's speakers
were nomadic horsemen of the plains that migrated toward Europe as well as
toward the Korean Peninsula and outward to Japan. Included in this group is
Turkish, Mongolian, Korean, Japanese as well as the dialects of the former
Soviet Republics: Aziri, Turkmen, Kazakh, Uzbek, Uigur and Kirghiz.
Read the epic poem
of Ak-ana and Kara-han
http://web.umr.edu/~gdoty/poems/altaic/creation.html
The origins
of Ak-Ana,
the troupe
Once upon a time, a goth named Christiane started taking classes at the
Habiba Studio in Philadelphia. As time passed, she learned well the way of
the Egyptian shimmy. She started to notice how well some of the moves she
learned went to music from bands such as Dead Can Dance, and how goth girls
in corsets would still move their arms gracefully. And she thought to
herself,m "Hmmmm."
Time passed, and Christiane's loving husband Thom became DJ Zophiel.
Christiane started taking ATS lessons from the lovely Geela Mahsati of
Hipnosis. Many were the Saturday nights that Zophiel was DJing at Ulana's,
and Christiane found herself putting the moves she learned from Geela and
Habiba to music from bands such as Switchblade Symphony, Peter Murphy, Rob
Zombie, And One, Wolfsheim, Qntal, Corvus Corax, and Massive Attack. She
played with veils and balanced a sword on her head, and found out that Juno
Reactor makes great zill practice music.
She met Kat, Megan, and Jaz, and all took lessons with Geela. Jaz took
lessons with Azhia as well. They attended bellydance workshops. They bought
many nifty bellydance things. They attended goth club nights and danced
together, using their ATS moves on the dance floor.
Meanwhile, Christiane found many kindred goth sisters in dance online,
particularly Maisah Astarte, who coined the term "raqs gothique" to describe
the style of bellydance they were all doing. Having fed bands for
Philadelphia's Dancing Ferret Concerts, assisted Zophiel in 13th Child
events, and attended several haflas, Christiane thought, "What would a
gothic hafla be like?"
She took her idea to her friend Kat, who said, "You better have us dance,
too!"
"We need a name!" said Christiane.
And Kat pored through much goddess lore, and came upon the one named Ak-Ana,
the primal one who stunned her husband with her beauty and strength as she
emerged from the formless waters. And Jaz, Megan, and Christiane said,
"That's it! We have a name!"
And so now they dance together, to the music that they love.
The way to the first event was not smooth, but obstacles were overcome, and
it came to pass that the first Raqs Gothique in Philadelphia was held May 7,
2005. Ak-Ana hopes that with the support of their dance sisters and the
local goth community, there will be many more events to come.
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