Belaharr:
Drums and Dance from Austin Tx.
Belaharr is a group of drummers, dancers, and friendly musicians in Austin, Texas,
that perform rhythm and music drawn from afro-cuban, middle eastern, and other world cultures.
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Belaharr is a group of drummers, dancers, and friendly musicians in Austin, Texas,
that perform rhythm and music drawn from afro-cuban, middle eastern, and other world cultures.
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Worlds
The first Belaharr CD, Worlds, is available now. Featuring a range of rythms and musical sounds from around the world, the songs reflect musical influences from the middle east to afro-cuban to polynesian to indonesian. You can hear some of the range in the sample mp3's below. Belaharr:
Worlds
 Here
are a few samples from
the CD
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Drumming and Dancing
Belaharr includes the dancers who appear at most of our
events. We are also joined by other troupes at some
performances. There is a
unique interplay between rhythm
expressed on the drums and rhythm expressed in the movement of the
human body. We are lucky to know and work with dancers who are
able
to help us communicte that interplay today.
 Sonya Taft, drummer and dancer with Belaharr, art show, Austin TX.  Quadira , at Casa de Luz  with Ahmed Garcia, Friendly Musician  James Hazelrig, one of Most Friendly Musicians with us at Ruta Maya in Austin. James provides the music on many of our CD tracks. |
  Diverse
Space Dance Theatre, under the direction of Toni Bravo, performing
one
of their works with us on Earth Day 2008
 Lori and Angela of the AJNA Project dancing with Belaharr at Eath Day 2007 in Austin Tx. |
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| For performances, events, or occasions,
contact Scott Swearingen 512 693 8020 scottandgeorge@earthlink.net  |
New CD coming soon: Belly Up!
We have the new CD almost ready! Tentatively titled Belly Up It features a whole bunch of
middle eastern flavor songs Good To Dance To. Dancers will love
it and have
something
to dance to on stage. Drummers ought to like it too because Fadi
is on this one, and his
Dumbeck work is something to hear! Cedric returns to play on
about half the songs, adding his unique stlye and sound to the mix.
Here are some of the cuts to give you an idea of the sound. The final mixed versions willbe available on the CD, tentantively scheduled for release in March La Belle A'Di
A standard that most dancers will recognize. Those impossibly fast drum rolls are just Fahdi being impossibly fast on his dumbeck. This is all humans drumming - no machines. Unless you cound Fahdi's hands as machines........Scott and Sonya are in there too on the other dumbecks. Traditional This is a song both Fadi and Cedric knew, and they just banged it out in between recording other songs. Cedric added in another violin part and Sonya added the 'zills, and you will like it! Wedhe Fadi started playing this when we were warming up in the studio and we all liked the rhythm. Cedric jumped in on it as we were playing it and it all sounded pretty cool. So Scott got out the Duns and Sonya got her 'zills and after a couple of run-throughs we had a brand new song we had never played that may well be the best on the CD. |
Upcoming
Performances
MakerFaire, Austin Sat, October 18th. 8-930 PM Its after dark, so lots of great fire dancing to go along with our stage dancers. Yamina will be there along with Baru, and we may play along with Sangre Del Sol ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Recent fun with Raks Helwa at Ruta Maya, always a great place to play and dance RAREst of Them All: The Event Big party on the roof - BIG fun! |
Belaharr Drummers are
 Fadi Skekar
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 James Abbot
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 Brett Weaver
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 Scott Swearingen
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 Chris Anderson
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Sonya
Taft: drummer, dancer, teacher
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Some Basic Hand Drum Lessons Scott did a few lessons last
year for Expert Village on how to play djembe and dumbeck.
These will give you some beginning techniques and rythms that will get you playing your drum f or fun by yourself or with friends. Many people have emailed and told us they are a helpful way to get started with their drums. Please note that Expert Village
edited
those videos, not Scott, so the quality is a bit inconsistent on some
of them
This link is to the Djembe
Lessons; and this one is to the Dumbeck
Lessons
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" Friends with Fiddles - Cedric Hazelrig often plays with Belaharr and performs on some of the songs on our CD Bedlambards Really cool tribal dance by some friends AJNAProject Belly Dance by some new friends Sabaya bellydance A great place to get hand made drums, percussion, and other cool tribal things is from travelin' tribal guy Martin Hill at thetribalrevival.com Best store to buy hand drums and percussion in Austin drumzaustin.com Good site to find out about drum events in Austin and Central Texas (including info on full moon drum circles in Austin) rhythmconnection.net Desert Passion Theater a long time Austin venue for various styles of middle eastern dance desertpassion.com A toad with a wry sense of humor toadalamode.com |