Raqs Roots Intensive 2026: Ihsas el-Musiqa

This November, groundbreaking bellydance researcher Nisaa (Heather D. Ward) and renowned Egyptian traditional musician Reda Henkesh return to Manchester UK for the third time

Dates: Friday 20th to Sunday 22nd of November 2026

What it’s all about: for all the bellydancers out there with a powerful thirst for meaningful cultural connection – this is a dance weekend like no other, created just for you. You will learn from our two world-expert teachers in a small group (maximum 35), with exceptional live music throughout, and a focus on understanding and feeling through an Egyptian lens.

What our 2025 attendees are saying…

“It was like you brought Cairo to Manchester for one weekend”

“It was really a dream come true for me. The workshops with Nisaa, Reda and musicians were so informative and I got so much to digest. The show One Night in Old Cairo was beautiful and the live band was amazing! […] And having the food included in the workshop days was wonderful, especially because it was halal and vegetarian.”

“Music like this, musicians like this, events like this and people like this are the reason I’m still dancing”

Prepare for deep conversations, refreshing perspectives, and real life experiences that’ll make you fall in love with this dance and music all over again, as we break free from the “bellydance bubble” and enter the world of Egypt’s traditional musicians and dancers…

Feeling of the music

This year’s theme is “Ihsas el-Musiqa/إحساس الموسيقى” – the feeling of the music… A topic which has kept coming up again and again during all of our classes in prevous years, as the ethos and meaning of traditional Egyptian arts.

Our class topics for 2026 include the fine subtleties of Egyptian rhythm; skills for improvised dancing to live drum solos, taqasim, and classic songs; the evolution of music for Egyptian dance; and perhaps most importantly the transcendent ecstatic states of tarab and saltanah – all drawing upon Reda Henkesh’s lifetime of experience at the heart of Egypt’s traditional music and dance world (with a career that has spanned playing for ghawazi and awalim, as well as for legendary dancers like Nagwa Fouad and Mona Said), and Nisaa’s extensive historical research and her fieldwork with traditional dancers and musicians across Egypt.

What’s new this year?
As well as a full weekend of lectures and workshops, and our Saturday night live music show, this year we are adding a new Friday welcome party for all attendees – including introductions to our teachers, a delicious Lebanese buffet dinner, and a relaxed evening of live music from our guest musicians to get you into the zone for the weekend!

The weekend schedule

Meet your teachers

Full workshop descriptions

Fundamentals of Feeling: Tarab and Saltanah in Egyptian Music and Dance Performance – 1.5h lecture (ONLINE OPTION AVAILABLE)

Description: The importance of ihsas, or feeling, in Egyptian dance and music cannot be overstated.  Time and time again, Egyptian traditional entertainers remind us that technique is meaningless without feeling.  Indeed, feeling is so central to Egyptian music and dance performance (and to Arabic music more broadly) that there are specific terms in Arabic to describe the feeling states that are created during performance.  

Tarab refers to the deepest possible emotional response to the music: a state of transcendent ecstasy evoked in the audience by the performer, while saltanah describes the ecstatic state experienced by the performer during the creative act.  Contrary to current trends in the workshop and festival industry, tarab is not a song style. 

Rather, both tarab and saltanah are feeling states that can be evoked and experienced in a range of performance genres.  Join Reda and Nisaa for a detailed exploration of these key features of Egyptian music and dance performance and why they should matter to practitioners of Egyptian belly dance!

Improvisation and Feeling in Egyptian Belly Dance – 1.5h dance workshop with live music

Description: Improvisation is an important and valued skill in Egyptian music and dance.

It is through improvisation that the musician or dancer can fully immerse in the moment and allow feeling to flow through their performance. However, improvisation is a skill that must be honed, and it depends on a solid understanding of Egyptian music.

In this workshop, Nisaa and Reda guide you through a range of exercises designed to improve your ability to improvise effectively to Egyptian music, accompanied by Reda on tabla and our guest musicians ElGamal ElKordy (accordion) and Emile Bassili (violin), enabling you to find the feeling in your performance.

An Exploration of Feeling in an Egyptian Song – 2h dance workshop with live music

Description: The feeling of an Egyptian song emerges from the complex interplay of its constituent rhythms, melodies and lyrics.

The role of the dancer is to become a physical embodiment of these features, thereby conveying (and evoking) feeling. This is why it’s absolutely critical for Egyptian belly dance practitioners to understand their musical accompaniment!

In this workshop, Nisaa and Reda guide participants through a deep analysis of an Egyptian song, illustrating how all of the song’s components convey feeling, and exploring how to embody the song and its feeling through movement.

With live music from Reda on tabla, and our guest musicians ElGamal ElKordy (accordion) and Emile Bassili (violin)

Time to Face the Music: Egypt’s Evolving Musical Culture and Its Implications for Egyptian Belly Dance Practitioners Today  – 1.5h lecture (ONLINE OPTION AVAILABLE)

Description: Throughout its history, change has been the norm, rather than the exception, in Egyptian musical culture. Many of the most dramatic transformations undergone by Egyptian music over the past 50 to 60 years have been driven by events of national or global significance, including the decline of Muhammad Ali Street, the rise of the international Egyptian belly dance industry, the 2011 Revolution, and the COVID pandemic.

Today, amidst pay cuts and declining performance opportunities, Egyptian musicians struggle to strike a balance between keeping tradition alive and keeping food on the table. Some have found work in the international belly dance industry, where they face low pay, high workloads, and the demands of a foreign consumer base that do not necessarily align with Egyptian tastes and aesthetics. As a result, the music that is produced and performed for this market is increasingly disconnected from both traditional aesthetics/values and current trends within Egypt.

In this lecture, Reda and Nisaa explore the changes in Egyptian musical culture that have led to the current situation. Through a comparison of traditional drum solos with drum solos produced for the current foreign practitioner market, they illustrate how and why the music of the international belly dance industry has diverged from Egyptian realities. Most importantly, they discuss ways that foreign practitioners can reconnect with Egyptian reality and re-center Egyptian musicians.

Finding the Beat: An Exploration of Egyptian Rhythm – 1.5h dance workshop

Description: Egyptian rhythms – and the percussion instruments that create them – are a core element of the Egyptian musical tradition. Rhythms aren’t just timekeepers: each Egyptian rhythm has a unique personality that contributes to the feeling and flow of the music.

For Egyptian belly dance practitioners, understanding Egyptian rhythm is essential to the process of embodying and interpreting the feeling of the music. In this workshop, Reda and Nisaa guide you through a movement-based exploration of the structure and feeling of the rhythms that are fundamental for every practitioner of Egyptian belly dance.

This is a truly special opportunity to learn about Egyptian rhythm from the perspective of an Egyptian traditional artist with a lifetime of experience performing Egyptian percussion!

Feeling the Beat: Improvisation and the Traditional Egyptian Tabla Solo – 2h dance workshop

Description: In the present-day international Egyptian belly dance industry, the overwhelming dependence of most dancers on pre-recorded music, together with the prevalence of choreography in classroom settings, has led to the preponderance of tightly choreographed, technically intricate dancing.  Nowhere is this more apparent than in the tabla solo, which has evolved into a precise technical exercise – both in the way that it is played and in the way that it is danced. 

This approach to the tabla solo contrasts markedly to what is typical in traditional settings, where improvisation and interaction between drummer and dancer is prioritized over technical precision.  The traditional Egyptian tabla solo requires the dancer to have not only a solid understanding of Egyptian rhythms and percussion motifs, but also the ability to recognize and respond to them in the moment.  In the traditional tabla solo, the dancer and the drummer improvise together – they feel together – in order to create something spontaneous, unique, and full of feeling. 

Join Nisaa and Reda for an exploration of the traditional Egyptian tabla solo, in which you’ll learn about the typical structure and flow of the solo and how to approach it through dance.  Most importantly, you’ll experience what it’s like to create a tabla solo with a world-class percussionist with decades of experience improvising with dancers!