Joana Saahirah @ Eilat festival 2013 Gala of stars

In this video you can see me struggling with the recorded (deeply flawed) version of my own "majancé" composed for me by Hossam Shaker. The title of this music is - profetically - "Joana around the world" and it was composed, step by step, between me and Hossam with whom I spent endless nights working.
I left my shows around 1.30h-2h in the morning and I ran to this office in the desert near Maadi to sit with him and the "k´anun" and compose, guiding him into the kind of music I wanted, half awaken and half sleeping while trying to figure out what kind of music would define me then.
A cup of coffee and an immense passion had us for hours, wondering about the kind of music that would translate me by the time (if a music would be composed for me now the result would be so different).
I learnt - at the time - that a lot of dancers (specially egyptians) would ask composers to make them copies of the successful music others had used. I couldn´t figure out WHY someone would pay a composer to copy (???) another person´s job just because it was a popular music.
It was immediate:

"-Hossam, I want NO COPIES. Forget what you heard and seen before. This is ME and my music must be totally mine, original, personal, risky, jazzy, DIFFERENT. Copies are for employees, mediocre people and weak of spirit and I´m none of them.
Let´s be ORIGINAL over here and let success in the hands of GOD."

This was the first time I accepted the challenge to perform it on cd as I always did it live with my own egyptian orchestra (which added things, corrected it, changed it for the better and to suit the STAGE and ME). I don´t regret it but I can still see my fight with the music´s weaknesses and flaws and even find it amusing to observe how I got around it all.
CONSTANTLY LEARNING and getting out of my comfort zone is REALLY my thing* and this video proves it.

Being part of EILAT FESTIVAL (organized by Orit Maftzir and Yael Moav) was a happy surprise for many reasons but, mostly, for the way I felt treated as a person and as an artist.
I felt my work, vision, knowledge, name and career deeply respected, appreciated, loved, RECOGNIZED in a way that is not so common to happen in the Oriental Dance environment.
Only the GREAT can recognize and not fear the talent and abilities of other people.
Every dancer - not only me - was treated with utmost tenderness and care (students, dancers in the competition, teachers, etc) and THAT is PRICELESS.
It´s never too much to thank the ones who do great things so here it is my thank you note - again and again.:)