interview samia et taheya.mpg

Oriental Dance history in the making over here.
Part of interviews to iconic egyptian dancers Samia Gamal and Tahya Carioca.
It doesn´t mean they were the best of their time. I believe they were not. Yet they were the most well known and, certainly, they DO represent a kind of MAGIC that I guess it is practically lost in egyptian oriental dance.

Mona el Sayed and Lucy are, for me, the last egyptian oriental dancers who deserve that name. With the end of their active careers as performers and teachers, something not short of a TREASURE gets lost forever. Ironically enough, it is a duty of FOREIGNER DANCERS all over the world to RESCUE that TREASURE (so simply called SOUL/HEART) and bring it back to life once more. Once the East gave us some of their juicy SPIRIT and FEELING. Now I guess it is our turn to give it back to them.

I am, certainly, doing my part. Hope you all, dear fellow dancers, do the same!

Joana Saahirah of Cairo tableau "maalema"

Here it is, the "maalema" side of me which has always been quite active due to my Life´s circumstances.

P.S. Notice how my "assaya" (stick) is too long for this stage hight so I break part of the big candelabrum above me with it. After that, I am dancing over many pieces of glass, not knowing if I will step on them, fall and get cut by them or be lucky and get way with it...
The dancers around me were going nuts with the subject and I had to give them subtle signs that everything was under control and I would not stop dancing just because of this incident.
Besides, I am a trained dancer/actress so NOTHING can make me stop on stage. No disaster, big or small, bra or skirt flying shame, falling flat on the floor or tantrums from musicians can stop me.

P.S.2
"Maalema" all the way. Notice how I orchestrate/correct the musicians WHILE on stage and give directions to the dancers so they move, act a bit and react accordingly to the music and situation...Only 5% of my attention and energy is, in fact, in my Dance. The rest of my energy is making sure that everybody else is doing their job.
LOL

Egyptian Belly Dancer

Video of me, hidden in the depths of Youtube.
Thanks, Paula Barbosa, for finding it and sending it to me.
A LOT of "face dancing" over here. God*s, I LOVE Dancing. It shows...
Also love the devotional face of my accordeonist while watching me dance.
Me and the accordeon have a VERY special relationship.
God bless Music, Musicians, Dancers, Artists...

P.S.:
Small correction:
This is not an egyptian bellydancer. It s me *(part portuguese, part spanish, part egyptian, part of the whole world)!!!

The Zar

Beautiful, nicely done short documentary about the marginal dance&music of "zaar", outlawed and ostracized in Egypt.
I call it the psychological clinic for the people.
Therapy through music and dance, a pure, primitive way to Re-CONNECT with oneself. It doesn t surprise me it is considered against the law over here.

I ve been and participated in several "zaar" sessions in Cairo and other villages around it. It always felt like home to me and none of the negative ideas associated with it *(exorcism, the devil s work and other such non sense) applies to reality.
Sure there are lots of intentions behind what s REALLY happening. The participants consider they are possessed by "djinns" that need to be released through the dance BUT what I really see is a group of hard working, exhausted, frustrated, sad women seraching for a healthy way to feel better.

Women play and dance for their own health, their own survival, their own soul s salvation. How can THAT be considered out lawed???

Gift for all of my friends, followers, fans, students, fellow Artists, fellow Human Beings.

A great video with a simple, yet POWERFUL message to let inside your heart and CHANGE your Life.

Enjoy and Blessed be the first step of this 2012 journey:

http://http//topdocumentaryfilms.com/you-can-heal-your-life/

Pina | Trailer D (2011) 3D Berlinale 2011 Wim Wenders

Yeyyyyy!!!


Got this movie - and another one by Pina Bausch - yesterday night.
Feel so excited to find an ARTIST who thinks and creates OUT of the BOX, working DANCE in the most intelligent, passionate, emotional, spiritual, physical way.
Revolutionary, if only it could be understood by many of us (which I think it is not).
To say I LOVE it is not enough.

The Body 1 (eng - sub)

Film directed by Dina Gamal el Dien, kindly sent to me by Vasco Pimentel.
Egyptians are, finally, speaking openly about DANCE and the BODY LANGUAGE which is SACRED and NOT full of sin and garbadge in the so very traditional way around here.
Only dirty heads - full of repression, fears, limitations and ignorance - can SEE through the "haram" (forbidden by God) veil when it comes to REAL DANCE. If your mind and eyes are dirty, then it s dirtiness that you ll see. Please don t blame it on the dance itself (although there are "dancers" who do not DANCE but shake their woogie boogies and not so much more than that) but on your own limited, polluted mind and eyes.

Just hoped to see a fair reference to egyptian dance here but I guess that s STILL asking for too much. Time will come, eventually...(working on it).

Joana Saahirah performing the "Shisha Dance" in full blast Baladi

Be happy and SMILE!

Joana Saahirah of Cairo on baladi, Egypt

Still eating "full and tameya" with my bare hands...
once you are born from the "people of the earth" you never quite loose your original ground.
So thankful for my "fellahin" family who gave me the connection to the ground and the wise humbleness of the simple people.

Baryshnikov about Pushkin

Baryshnikov talking about one of the best classical ballet masters of all times: Alexander Pushkin.
Watching this video reminds me of my first steps in dance and as I started learning the craft at the Classical Ballet Conservatoire at the age of 5 years old.
When I was 16 years old, ready to choose to become a professional classical dancer, I left behind Classical Ballet and never looked back because I knew, by then, that art might have been my essential base but was not my CALLING.

Classical ballet was too conservative and restrictive for me. You could not go out of the stipulated structure or move your body in any way it felt. You had to obbey and accept the movement others would impose and I was never good at obedience...

Since I had begun learning ballet, I felt caged into a golden prison where beauty and pain mixed together in a very alluring and dangerous way.
I wanted to be free and faithful to my wild nature and my teachers often complained I didn t control my hips and hands (I wonder from where did it come from! Hmmmm....any guesses?).

I didn t decide NOT to be a professional classical ballet dancer with anger or sadness, although I cried like a baby everytime I watched ballet pieces after that, but I remained loving it in silence, from far...searching for my TRUE mission in dance which ended up being Oriental Dance.

This video also reminds me of the discipline, hard work and humbleness I was taught into. Those are gifts from my past and I am deeply grateful for them.
If I still dance classical ballet?
Sure I do.
Often alone, as a personal training no one, except my own critical mirror, watches. It s a memory lane trip and keeps me rooted, flexible, connected with the place I first learned from.

And yes, I still cry every time I see a good classical ballet performance. I cry due to the emotion - if the dancers are good - and due to my own longing and memories of a full past at the barre repeating and repeating a certain movement or combination until it was what others considered PERFECT.

I came from a world where BEAUTY and artistry cannot be achieved without pain and arrived to Oriental Dance where hard work is always combined with pleasure and never going against my body s nature and instincts. It has been quite a ride!

So many things a dancer is made of...so many.
Yet this was my womb and you always return to the womb.

Sergej.S.Prokofjev - Romeo & Juliet ( Fonteyn,Nurejev )

Magnificent Prokofiev and the GENIUS of my beloved Rudolf Nureyev (one of my eternal crushes)...
Ah, if Shakespeare could see this immense beauty!

Chicho Frumboli y Juana Sepulveda 'Borges y Paraguay', Mallorca08

Ai, Chicho de mi alma que me arrebatas y me matas!
Tango is REALLY getting under my skin (or was it there all along?!)...
As I turned myself into what most people consider a "Belly Dance" star, I almost lost - ALMOST but not quite - the pure pleasure of DANCING.
LEarning Tango is working as a wonderful reminder of the reason why I started dancing, as a baby, and never EVER stopped.

And what can I say of the WONDERFUL sensation of dancing with a beautiful/talented partner???Holly Lord!

PORTUGUESES PELO MUNDO - CAIRO ( EGIPTO )

Television program where I was interviewed right here in Cairo. Besides me, there is the beloved and ultra-famous Manuel José, the football trainer from "El Ahly Club". Beautiful man, human being and a successful football coach...Love him (as all Egypt does! ). See Cairo through some chosen portuguese eyes... Sorry for the absence of subtitles. You ll get the feel of it, anyway. "Portuguese in the world" is the title of the program and I had lots of fun shooting for this show. What a pity much of it could not be included in the final, edited version of the program. Enjoy!

Luis im Auto. Katze überfahren

Another video answer from Simone of Merano towards my irritant curiosity relating the Tyrolese people. Actually, I always referred to mountain people as a whole (women and men) but, for some reason, what stood in Simone s mind was my curiosity for Tyrolese MEN! Do I have "Tyrolese men eater" written on my forehead? Well, maybe I do.

LOL

Yes, sir. MEN. Mountain men. Oktoberfest, drunk, cave men type M-E-N. Do I sweat Tyolese men allure? Did I mention Tyrolese men in my dreams and Simone heard it from her appartment? I really don t know what it was but...here it is Simone s answer to my supposed fixation on Tyrolese men. Check this video and know why, for sure, I will never ask about the subject.


EVER AGAIN.

Entrevista a Joana Saahirah do Cairo

Memory from the Egyptian Revolution!
This is one of the many interviews I gave on portuguese television at the time of the Egyptian Revolution. I hope you understand portuguese to know what we re speaking about!

As soon as I returned to Portugal at the beggining of February, I was showered with television and radio interview requests in order to comment on the political situation of Egypt.
It was such an abnormal situation to be in but I could not give my back to the country I already consider "home".

I went on several National News editions and other television programs, not to speak about my work as it has been usual for many years now, but to follow and comment the incredible Egyptian Revolution.

It was hard to keep the tears from falling from my face, on many occasions. Watching the street fights in Midan Tahrir on the studio s screens and having the cold blood to comment on them was not easy as it wasn t easy to be rejected by the Muslim Comunity in Portugal, when I tried to organize a multi-religious prayer at the Lisbon mosque for the sake of EGYPT s peace and FREEDOM.

Nothing was easy, in fact.
And it still isn t.
The Revolution was a huge step from which egyptians are fairly proud but the FUTURE has to be built from now on.
Hoping for the best!

Joana Saahirah of Cairo improvizing on egyptian tabla

SAUDADE...

Missing my Cairo´s usual stage at the NILE MAXIM and all the other amazing (and strange!) venues I had to chance to work at...
missing everything I once took for granted.
My work and amazing musicians with their childish crazy quarrels, the odour of shisha and hot tea boiling from "baladi" coffee-shops, the sudden love affairs enjoyed to the sound of Om Kolthoum, the surprises of every single day in a magical land where human logic does not apply.

Missing.
And learning the TRUE meaning of APPRECIATION and GRATITUDE.
Dreaming about returning to Cairo as soon as possible!

Sweet Charity (1969) de Bob Fosse

Dance is an universal language and all I admire is TALENT and FREEDOM to create movements which transcend movement itself and touch other people's minds, hearts and souls.
Dance as a simple repetition of movements someone has taught a dancer seems totally dull and empty to me. Movement machines are not the same thing as DANCERS, in my humble opinion.

DANCE happens when movement and body become BIGGER than themselves and go beyond all barriers...


After Gene Kelly, this is THE MAN of my DANCING HEART: dancer and choreographer Bob Fosse! I could eat him with a spoon for dessert just for his talent, that's how sweet he is to me...and intriguing.;)
THE genius of my election (or one of them...:)

Comprovising with her accordeonist

I don't really know what's the meaning of the word " comprovizing" (check the weird title of this video) but we might be headed for something new here...(always looking at the bright side of LIFE!) maybe it means a sweet combination of compromise and improvization.

Compromise Plus Improvization = Comprovizing!

There you have it ! (I am starting to get away with bulshit like a typical egyptian...well done, girl! I see I've been learning some real stuff...;)

Away from the bulshit and the weird title...here I am doing my free "awadi" with one of my favourite egyptian instruments: the accordeon (which is not a traditional instrument in arabic music but rather one of the modern additions to it like bass guitar, saxofone, orgue, etc).

Hope you enjoy watching it as much as I enjoyed dancing it.

Antonio Banderas - Take the Lead - Tango scene

Now...that's what I am talking about!

From the deepest of my ignorance in the subject (yet getting there...),I can already say this is not the best TANGO technique or close but they DO have the feeling.
And that's what I am talking about, my dear friends!

I finally discover a kind of DANCE that is the exact mirror of this side of me that is a helpless romantic in full bloom and PASSION.
Why didn't I start studying TANGO before?!
Will not loose a moment, from now on.

And I wonder what effects this new PASSION will have on me and on my Oriental Dance?!
Well, let's wait and see, shall we?!

Arabic Songs (Eng. Subs) Kifak Inta كيفك إنت

Cairo, the 3rd November, 2010

My favourite song from my far from favourite singer (Fairouz)

Fairouz (lebanese biggest DIVA) has been a subject of argument and argumental fighting between me and lots of lebanese. They say she's the best, I answer Om Kolthoum IS THE BEST.

They love her voice, I think it's too high pitched and gives me headaches.

They say her reportoire is innovative and I say her reportoire is a mix of copies from different songs from all around the world with a sense of identity loss that does not, particularly, appeal to me.

Yet this song makes me enter in direct contradiction with myself.

Kifak enta is special...don't really know why.

Wish I could dance it one day, also don't know why.

And yes, I assume my absolute contradictions and unsolved mysteries. I must hate Fairouz so much that I listen to her again and again in this song that makes me wanna dance...

(Don't even try to figure me out! Neither will I.)