London - death and rebirth of a Gipsy

Oh, man...where should I begin?

 

Such a long time since I´ve updated my blogs. The truth is I´m not good at doing things I don´t feel and it´s a fact that LIFE is taking over my time, energy and focus in a way that makes me less prone to updating these "babies". Yet I am here. Alive. Dead and reborn. In Love*. In-hope. In-me and in-the-world.

Let´s start by the beginning (and I promise to be brief, tasty and truthful):

I LOVE LONDON* in all its brutality and marvellous (endless...) treasures. It took me one month (and a week) there to realize how much fascination I feel for this city, how much it inspires me (there are places that awaken your inner ghosts, demons and angels and London is one of them) and to receive a couple of AMAZING lessons I was probably in need of.

Dating London was an impulse - one more that I followed without asking "why". For a girl who loves the "whys" and "why nots" this is BIG thing: not asking why. I just went. One month and a week of work, lessons, new experiences, people, landscapes, horizons and energies.

 

London gets under your skin - literally. The cold and the dampness starts by bothering you, even hurting you. Then your muscles talk to your bones and decide - democratically, of course - that they´re taking it all in and making it* their own. The vapours, shadows and blue lights of the London´s sky become part of who you are (I think my hair turned blue and some water from the Thames´river can be seen and heard inside my hips).

 

London was JUST what I needed - as everything else is JUST what we need if only we can recognize* it.

 

There´s no way I can gather the time, focus and energy to fairly describe everything* I experienced in this last month in London - other priorities rise above it. Yet here´s the resume of (yet) another FABULOUS time in my life, a time when I clearly saw I was dying and being born again (what a beautiful Journey*):

 1. Teaching (my weekly Master Classes) as well as private lessons was fantastic. I LOVE teaching in all sorts of circumstances (big groups, HUGE groups in major international festivals, small groups, private lessons, you name it); I think every single class has something to offer the students and myself and none is more important than the other. Teaching 600 dancers in a major event can be as rewarding as teaching only 1 dancer at a private lesson. It´s never the quantity that matters the most but the QUALITY of what it´s done.


2. The support (or lack of support, to be accurate) from the Oriental Dance community in London was not a surprise. People will be people...you know the rest.
It´s great when you´re just an invited star teacher/performer who´s passing by to drop her/his pearls at the city and vanish for good but the story changes (drastically) once people feel their territory is threatened.

 The curious - and ironic - thing is that I am no threat at all. What I do has always been apart from the markets where I work (in Egypt as well as everywhere else I go).  My work is unique and totally out of the common "belly dance" classes and performances. I could never occupy anyone else´s territory simply because I am not interested in it at all. I´ve always created MY OWN TERRITORY (which others have followed, copied and used at their own pleasure) and have no interest (or time to focus) in what´s being done  outside of it plus I don´t follow trends - I create them.
No need to fear me at all. I promise.  ;)


3. I realized who are my friends and enemies - the distinction between the first and the second became absolutely clear. Thank you very much.



4. I fell in love with London, its darkness and rain, its Museums, bookshops, cafeterias, theatres, weather (yes, THE weather!), river Thames, melancholy, parks (Saint James Park near Buckingham Palace=love at first sight), hidden corners, stories and History.




Jude Law = TEMPTATION**********************

5. I´ve fallen in lust with the Musicals and with Jude Law (watching him play "Henry V" - by Shakespeare - at the Noel Coward theatre was the BEST artistic revelation I´ve experienced in a long, long time...what an ACTOR and what a MAN, gorgeous man).


6. I´ve taken note after note for a fiction book I plan on writing right after my two (already written) books are published and way out there in the world). London is pregnant with ideas, personal miracles and tragedies and incredible characters; no other city seems to gather such an array of precious & rough stones.


7. I´ve met - face to face - a burglar inside my flat, I´ve been at the house (museum) where Sigmund Freud lived and died and digged into a cycle of conferences relating Women and Madness. A little bit of trauma, a little bit of drama and generous amounts of MADNESS - that material from which CREATIVITY is made of.


8. I have to THANK all the dancers who´ve studied with me while I was in the city and to promise that bigger and higher experiences are on the way for them (for us).
Each one of the dancers whom I met were a combination of POTENTIAL, INTELLIGENCE, TALENT and HUMAN QUALITY. They know who they are (love you and thank you, lovely women!).

Painting exhibited at the National Gallery in London ("A satyr mourning over a nymph" by Piero di Cosimo)

9. I would also like to thank Leila Haddad for her amazing workshops (it has been a while since I had the pleasure to be a student, instead of a teacher)  and inspirations and for making me feel my craft as I should always feel it: as the eternal apprentice.

10. Thanks to the London National Gallery and the Tate Modern Museum for the guided tours and for Paul Klee´s exhibition (high quality food for my soul).

11. Thanks to all the new friends I made, strangers who have provoked me, taught me, shocked me and marvelled me. You ALL made my trip SPECIAL.

12. Thanks to my Advanced English course supervisor who expelled me from the school because (and I quote) " you don´t need to be here". To be honest: yes, I actually needed to be there but thanks for the compliment.

13. Thanks to the Dance shows I´ve seen - opening my mind and heart beyond their gates. The "gay parade" show at a fancy, posh, don´t touch me without your gloves theatre; the Saddler´s Wells gems; the Classical Ballet of the Royal Opera House. All of them teach me about ORIENTAL DANCE, myself and life.

14. Can you explain LOVE? You can´t. There you have it: me and London! Don´t ask, don´t explain. It was what it was; it is what it is. Explaining it would be minimizing it. Love is like Life: way bigger than any label or fancy description.


Bonus: a (catch it if you can) vídeo made at Saint James Park (which became one of my favourite places in London): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbHJ7vGqDpA

 

Tea for two and two for tea ;)
LOVE YOU, LONDON! See you soon*********************