Cairo, the 4th November, 2010

Egyptian wedding controversies and delights!

Most egyptian dancers performing in the Cairo market nowadays are not DANCERS.

This is a question of great controvery as far as I know because egyptians tend to think that any egyptian girl/woman is born a natural "raks sharki" dancer. Tell them "no, you're wrong" and speak about educated dancers who actually KNOW what they're doing and they 'll dismiss you as a lunatic recently arrived from Mars.

Accepting this pre-conception and struggling against it has proven to be a lost battle as you cannot fight general ignorance and a mentality which has been stucked in false moralism and religious absurd rules for such a long time. The Egypt of TODAY is less intelligent, developed and civilized that the Egypt of 50 years ago and that's a fact I have to accept and never cry about ever more...just not worth it.

Knowing all this a a bit more...it was not surprising to have a "praying meeting" of women in my backstage room in yesterday night's wedding.

While I was preparing myself to perform with a huge orchestra composed of some of my all time favourite egypcian musicians (one of the delicious goodies I get from working in Cairo), I had to put up with a group of loud egyptian women who took charge of the room with the excuse of "praying time" which is an argument no one can compete with.

I am the devil, anyways...the dancer MEANING here the opposite of GOD (according to current muslim mentality in Egypt and other muslim countries).

I complained that I had no privacy, I refered I was naked and needed respect and space in order to get dressed and do my job but nothing was heard because these ladies were : PRAYING.

Conclusion: These women did everything BUT praying.

They could manage to be on the floor reciting the Holy Coran and check my body, cloths and make-up at the same time. Multi-tasking, again...

They could even pray, check me up and complain about the "dancer's clothes" that were " haram" , too close to them and NOT TO BE TOUCHED...all at the same time.

Impressing!

I could have thrown a tantrum and put all of these women out of the room but I would launch myself on stage in a bad mood, nervous and with an awful feed-back from the audience as these women were part of the audience!

What to do?

Breathing deeply, I tried to ignore the nasty comments about my dancing clothing.

Ignorance and rudeness do not deserve my attention and it's certainly not worth ruining my mood and my show because of them.

Breathing ever deeper, I managed to ignore the staring, the constant giggling, gossip, knocking on the door, comings and goings of these women who looked at me as if I was the devil and their biggest dream to become.

And Egypt is all this. Terrible and wonderful in the way it can transform you and make you stronger and wiser.

Conclusion:

The show was AMAZING. There were lots of lights on my face, the sound was high and the orchestra was even higher. I went into a trance state, as usual, and became the better part of me.

The part who is not afraid of anything and feels free to dance, love and LIVE like the truly braves of this world.

Unsettling goodie/note:

The group of "false praying women" became my fans.

They came to me in the end of the show and showered me with compliments and hugs.

There was still a lot of staring and picking at my cloths and body (it's always there with egyptian women!) but there was also lots of appreciation and tenderness.

And another piece of this surprising Egypt that breaks my head and my heart just to mend it so dearly the next moment...