"La tortura" / The Torture

Shakira and Alejandro Sanz didn´t really know what they were talking about when they presented this clip under the suggestive name of "La tortura"/The torture.
No, dear singers...You ain´t no clue about the meaning of the word "torture". But I will gladly explain it to you.

Two parties in a row without my own orchestra, here in Cairo. Another musicians were supposed to have been hired for the occasions and I decided to take the risk and perform with them. It was not the first time I´ve danced with musicians I don´t know but that usually happens outside Egypt, not here where my people is ready to jump into the stage in a flash.

Striving for new challenges and exciting music played by orchestras I don´t know really put me in a great mood. Yet the surprises are constant and both parties turned out to be much different than I imagined. There were no orchestras, as the clients told me there would be, and I was forced to dance on a cd that I always keep as a safety net for umpleasant occasions such as these.
The first party was bearable, although the effort to dance on cd kills me from inside. After six years of working with live,GREAT egyptian music, I guess I lost the emotional thread that connects me with sounds digitally reproduced by machines. Where is the SOUL, the improvisation, the breathing and energy of the musicians? The FEELING we all share with our audiences?! Hard, very hard...


Then the second party, yesterday night. Definition of Torture:

*The orchestra I was promised was absent so I had to dance, one hour and a half, on cd.

*By the beginning of the first theme, I noticed the tempo of the music was wrong. Instead of playing in the normal speed of the music, it was slower, so slow that the voice of the singer - Om Kolthoum- sounded like the vegetable lady´s voice calling clients to check newly arrived sack of carrots and cabbages. NOT cool.

*My bra opened. Something that hadn´t happened for a long time (thanks God and the Angels) suddenly reminded me that I need to find myself a new and more efficient dance dresses designer.

*People were smiling and some were enjoying the "torture" with me but most of them were very disrespectful of my work. Waiters almost passed through my legs with shishas and trays with tea, friends of the client went along their ways crossing the space where I was dancing to the point of almost getting their asses kicked through a dance movement (speaking of which...why, oh WHY, did I let such chance get away?!) and some "ladies" seemed to be in deep terror due to the presence of a "rakasah"/dancer.

* I struggled for an whole hour, trying to make sense of an out of tempo, distorced music (I was informed the stereo was old and there was no alternative machine to remediate the problem), forcing myself to look at the moon and enjoy myself, despite everything. The episode of the bra opening offered some extra spices to the night, pleasant to some and annoying to others who thought I did it on purpose (?!!!!).

* Never did I miss my musicians so much as these two past nights. Damn, I LOVE those guys.