Suhaila grew up attending parties where regular people celebrated with Arabic Family styled steps and debke lines. In 1981, at the age of 14, Suhaila saw her first professional debke troupe at a Fayrouz concert held in the newly opened Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco. 

Lebanese singers and musicians had been touring the U.S., but it was after 1981 that their tours became more frequent and their popularity soared. By the time Suhaila began dancing at Byblos in 1985, it was pretty much mandatory that belly dancers performing in the clubs know enough debke steps to dance with the crowd.

Suhaila performed in Lebanon with debke in the show every night.  She worked and trained with the prestigious Caracalla Dance Company where she met one of their featured soloists, Sami Khoury.  Sami helped Suhaila develop the structure and flow of shows for the Lebanese audience.  

Folk Line Dance

The debke is a folk line dance performed in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, and Palestine. Each village or group has their own variations of the basic step and rhythm. The line is traditionally led by a group of well-respected men from the community who typically embellish the basic steps in a collaborative display of strength and stamina. Professional troupes incorporate a wider variety of steps, stylizations, and sometimes acrobatics.

Prior to her official retirement from teaching in 1985, Jamila requested that Suhaila include basic debke steps in the Vocabulary, and these steps are now officially added. These examples are based on traditional, Lebanese “folk” debke.  Changing the arm positions and energy placement changes from the region from that version of the debke derives.

The debke step is traditionally done in a line traveling to the right while holding the hands of dancers to your left and right. The goal is to understand and connect with the underlying vibe and sentiment of the movements and the other dancers in the line.

Defaults

For 
the purpose of learning in a classroom environment, we use the following defaults (unless otherwise noted in step descriptions):

• The feet are flat and turned out in a relaxed, open 5th position. 

• You travel to the right. 

• The arms are down, whether holding hands with dancers on 
either side of you or loose at your sides. 

• When holding hands, keep your four fingers connected. 

• When holding hands as you move to the right, hold the hand to 
your right upper handed (with your hand on top) and hold the hand to your left under hand (with your hand underneath).

• This family of steps is counted in 6 to match the traditional 6/8 debke rhythms.