Sahra Saeeda is an international treasure, one
of the grande dames of oriental dance. She is to Egyptian dance what Howard Carter and his discovery of King Tut's tomb were to the world of archaeology.
She’s taught and inspired thousands of
dancers all over the globe during the course of her incredible career. She is a generous and giving instructor,
passionately sharing wealth of knowledge of raqs sharqi and Egyptian folklore,
in both her international dance workshops as well as her popular four -part intensive,
Journey Through Egypt, which she also presents around the world. Her incredibly elegant, soft and thoroughly
Egyptian style of belly dance is gorgeous, and she performs with command and
grace, reflecting an almost otherworldly passion for the dance that is
extremely rare. She has always been a huge influence on me, not only as a baby
dancer, but also to this very day…and I’m sure many other dancers can say the
same thing!
Sahra is quite possibly one of the world’s
leading authorities on Egyptian dance, and her position is unique: though
scholarly and thorough in her approach, her writing and field research is never
dry or boring because she adores her work.
And unlike almost any other scholars, Sahra didn’t just study the dance
in its myriad forms, she lived it.
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| Sahra at UCLA with Mahmoud Reda & Farida Fahmy |
She is one of a small handful of foreign
dancers to have really “made it” in Egypt, becoming a star. In 1983, a fortuitous chance meeting with The
Reda Troupe’s legendary diva Farida Fahmy at UCLA’s Dance Ethnology Masters program
where they were both studying, lead to a longstanding and close friendship,
which ultimately facilitated Sahra’s move to Cairo.
Sahra recalls,
“I was doing my Masters Theses
on the zeffah – the Egyptian bridal
procession- and was asking questions but getting all sorts of different
answers. When I asked (Farida Fahmy) about this, she asked me if I knew what cities, villages or areas the people I was
talking to were from; or if knew anything about their class, socio-economical
group, or that sort of thing. She told
me that the only way I would really find out the answers was to come to
Egypt…so I did!”
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| Sahra with Sayyed Al Joker, in the Le Meriedien days |
In 1989, Sahra departed for Egypt, on what
was supposed to be a three month long research trip. Instead, from an audition Fahmy set
up, Sahra wound up living and working in Cairo for nearly six years, performing nightly at the chic Le
Meridien Hotel doing countless shows with her own orchestra and back up
dancers.
As if that wasn’t enough of an accomplishment
on it’s own, in between rehearsals and shows, she used her time to put her
extensive scholarly background in Athrolopology and Dance Ethnology to work. Throughout
the years, Sahra’s creative output has been as significant as it is prolific-
there are few artists whose body of work can compare to hers. Aside from making
terrific performance & instructional
videos and recording music CDs while in Cairo, she also did extensive field
research, filming all over Egypt.
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| Saidi Wedding, shot during a JTE research trip |
Journey
Through Egypt is based on her work, study and lifestyle, and has been an absolute
must for dancers of all levels for years. Recently, JTE has gone online,
providing a much-needed resource for
dancers who really want to understand
where these unique folkloric traditions stem from.
And even
more recently, Sahra has started a Kickstarter fundraiser to convert
her extensive library of over thirty
years worth research to digital file before they disintegrate- and so they can
be put on line. She has hundreds of
audio cassettes and video tapes to digital, so they can be put online,
preserved as a resource for anybody- dancers, musicians, scholars, costumers,
dance aficionados- to study and enjoy into the future.
Sahra says. Taking a breath, she continues,
“Recently I rounded up all of the old tapes that had been scattered about my office and storage unit and my assistant and I found over two hundred cassette tapes packed with research footage on the various dance zones of Egypt!”
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| Sahra with superstar Fifi Abdou, Cairo, 1990's |
There are books in the works, too, which will be presented in both online and hardcopy format.
“ The way I am doing the series of books is similar to my Zeffah Primer. It will be a series, with
each book about fifty pages,” she says,
“The first "volume" of
each region will be an overview of the area and the dances within it. I like to structure my research this way:
1. To note which dances are of the indigenous (non-professional) population in their daily lives
2. The local professional dancers
& musicians and how they dance
3. How the regional group represents
the dances of each area of the country
4. How Mahmoud Reda and the Reda
Troupe represent this region's dances on the theatrical stage
5. The way the Kowmeyya Troupe does
the same
6. How Cairo entertainers
(particularly belly dancers) represent each region’s dances in the professional
context of their shows. “
Though this is a massive
undertaking, clearly Sahra is more than enthused to continue
her important work, her life’s
work. The incredible response to her Kickstarter funding project has been
more than she could have ever hoped for.
“ Now I can keep returning to Egypt to do even more research!”
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| Bedoiun girls from the Siwa Oasis |
She adds, “And I can also hire a
professional videographer and sound person, instead of taking film on my crappy
little camera, with the sounds getting drowned out by Cairo traffic! I’ve
secured a fantastic interpreter from Aswan who used to work with National
Geographic, too!’
She stops for a moment before admitting,
“I’m so overwhelmed an honored that I get to do this… we’ve reached above
and beyond even our Stretch Goals, and everyone has been so generous…. the
comments and the things people are saying…well, I’ve actually been sitting here
crying with happiness for the past three days!”
If you would like to make Sahra cry
even harder- and help preserve the history
of our art for future generations by
contributing to this important project, please visit this link, which will be live
for only FIVE MORE DAYS:
Keep up with all of the news on Sahra’s JTE Facebook Page here:
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| In Situ: Sahra in Aswan, Egypt, 2013 |
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