Taking it to the next* level.

For me, Life is a succession of GROWING curves, challenges, courageous jumps into the Unknown and endless Lessons. I´ve always assumed myself as more of a student than a teacher: indeed.

I cannot stop but wonder how to REACH european audiences with my Dance after I got used to perform mostly for egyptians for the last few years. I also dread the moment I will have to go on stage without my musicians and the possibility of failing in that purpose that I take for myself - as an artist: TO TOUCH my AUDIENCE´s SOUL. 
Not an easy task, I see...

Cliché: the more you know, the more you realize how little you know. Sure enough. But damn sure you see very clearly WHAT you still have to learn - in front of your eyes. I mean: the horizon is cloudless, spotless:  exposing all that you still didn´t do and the next STEPS towards a higher version of yourself (as a person and  as an artist - both interconnected). 

TAKING IT* to the NEXT* LEVEL has been my most recent role - I might even say obsession.

Taking Dance into a level that I recognize as ARTISTIC and SOUL touching. It´s a sphere way beyond the technical side of the dance, the interpretation and the competent masks we use - consciously or unconsciously. It´s also ahead of our own time and limitations: it´s the PATH - the barometer of our evolution, THE RETURN to the origins of Oriental Dance.

Yeah: taking it to the next level has been offering me some sweet sleepless nights and a lot of brain energy. 
How to "forget" what I learnt - so far - and rescue a LANGUAGE that will talk - by itself - with my audiences?! How to find the synthesis between the egyptian style I´m used to dance and the demands of a western public which is - in many ways - more demanding, distant and detached than the egyptian public.

I am partial: still feel that egyptian audiences are the best in the world (for several reasons) but LIFE is my stage, baby. And the responsability to be up to the expectations is the price to pay for the FREEDOM and BLESSING of sharing my art with the whole world.

How to move BEYOND technique and dance clichés, be true to myself , do what I KNOW to be the authentic egyptian dance and MOVE my audience´s hearts - all at the same time?! 
Be soulful yet dynamic; 
energetic yet cool;
 self-conscious yet relaxed; 
humble yet self-confident; 
emotional yet rational enough to make an intelligent use of all my resources (space, audience´s mood and energy, dance vocabulary, etc);
 present in the moment yet aware of time management on stage;
 warm yet cold enough to be my best critic;
 let myself go yet knowing exactly what I´m doing...uff!

Wondering: working on it: getting lost and then finding myself, little by little, fall after fall.

Notice: Falling is also good (it´s ALL good, actually): falling is a dance step and a language in itself.