SAHRA SAEEDA'S JOURNEY THROUGH EGYPT: FROM THE PAST TO THE FUTURE AND BEYOND...

 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.

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!”

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.

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.

“During my time in Egypt, I sought out people to interview about the various dances found throughout the country and more…. from stars to  “lower class” dancers- it doesn’t matter to me, it’s all valid, and all of it needs to be preserved!”,
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!”

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!”                               

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:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/421917208/journey-through-egypt-dance-archive

Keep up with all of the news on Sahra’s JTE Facebook Page here:

https://www.facebook.com/JtE.Egypt

 

In Situ: Sahra in Aswan, Egypt, 2013

MY, HOW TIMES HAVE CHANGED!

I also have a major birthday coming up in a couple of weeks… so it’s causing me to reflect on everything. I have been a professional belly dancer for eighteen years, and since belly dance has literally been MY LIFE for almost two decades, it’s gotten me to thinking.
The world of belly dance has changed perhaps more in the past decade or so that it did in the many decades previous…. or maybe even the past few hundred years!
Nearly twenty years ago, when I began dancing “just for fun”, I had no idea that my entire life would screech into a 360-degree turn-around and become dominated by Oriental dance. If you had told me at that point that I would become a professional belly dance performer and instructor who traveled the world dancing and teaching, I would have laughed you right out of the dance studio!
Women that are beginning to dance today have no idea what it was like starting out a couple of decades ago. How times have changed!

(Here, the violins swell up and dominant the soundtrack…. Get out your hankies, girls!)

IN THE OLDEN DAYS, WE DANCERS HAD TO WALK TWELVE MILES BAREFOOT THROUGH A RAGING SANDSTORM JUST TO GET A LOUSY HIP- SCARF!

But seriously- even though time line-wise I am not even closely on par with the pioneers that were performing Oriental dance generations before me, when I started out, there was no Internet. Not only did that mean that research meant spending hours at the library, it sometimes meant relying upon hearing cultural info or dance advice via word-of-mouth.
Not only that, if you wanted to translate the lyrics to an Arabic song, you had to find a waiter at an Arabic club or restaurant who could understand the dialect, and if you were lucky, could tell you what the song meant. …Or somebody’s Syrian grandma at a wedding which song was playing!

Videotape footage of Egyptian stars like Nagwa Fouad, Mona El Said, Aza Sharif, and Fifi Abdou were few and far between. There was hardly any footage of American dancers, either! You would hear tell that Dahlena, Shareen El Safy, Fahtiem, Cassandra, Dalia Carella, Morocco, Ibrahim Farrah, etc. were great- but you couldn’t really see them unless they came to your town. That’s how far our technology has come. Hello, YouTube! And speaking of visiting dancers, the workshop circuit wasn’t what it is today, either. I remember the first time Raqia Hassan came to the States- droves of dancers came from all over to attend her few workshops, teachers and students alike.

Back in the early 1990’s, there were no CD’s of course, so you had to try your luck at what I used to call “ Arabic Cassette Roulette” and hope that the tape (with the picture of Sohair Zeki on the cover) that you bought at the Lebanese grocery store actually played, let alone had some “decent” danceable music on it; something that you could use for a show. And, I might add, there was no such thing as burning CD’s; you had to make tape recordings for shows. I remember when Arabic pop first came on the scene- we were all delighted that there was some up-beat, short songs- easy for playing sagat to- finally getting produced! The first Arabic pop song I ever heard was “Ei Yanni” by Amr Diab, who was a newcomer back then. I remember we were all marveling at how “modern” it sounded!

I live in Los Angeles, and even though that is a major metropolis, there was practically no Oriental dance scene. Well, there actually was, but networking was HARD, and small cliques existed. There were Arabic clubs of course, because LA has a huge Arabic, Armenian and Persian population, but the clubs were small and geared towards an ethnic audience- they didn’t ever advertise in American papers. To find them, I practically had to go on a treasure hunt! There were only a couple of yearly events occurring: MECDA’s Cairo Carnivale, and Tonya and Atlantis’ Belly Dance Of The Universe Competition.

We saved our tips all year long so we could attend these events and load up on pricey Madame Abla costumes, “rare” music and accessories; it was the only shopping opportunity available! The costumes then cost way more than they do now, and that’s just base price, not even counting inflation. These few and far between events were virtually the only place one could see multiple dancers, as well.

Showcases in Los Angeles were practically non-existent, except for Anaheed’s legendary Wednesday night ‘do at The Middle East Connection. This weekly event featured live music and sign-up dancing and nurtured beginning performers such as Veena and Neena Bidasha, Jillina, Rania, and myself- plus countless others- in our early forays into performing Oriental dance. A little after that, Hallah started a Tuesday night showcase at the now-legendary Arabic club Al Andalus. Both of these nights were like Bootcamp for aspiring belly dancers. they featured live music and were a way to see many dancers, hear amazing musicians, and lean your performance chops.

Egyptian style dance was present in LA, but only a couple of artists were teaching it then. Sahra Saeeda was still living and dancing in Egypt; Zahra Zuhair was working in clubs and not really focusing on teaching, she was holding pro-level classes that were tough and sweaty. It was pretty much only Aisha Ali who taught the Egyptian style and back then most people was dancing American cabaret or Turkish Style. There was no such thing as Tribal or Fusion styles- hard to believe now, but those genres didn’t even exist! Laura Crawford’s groundbreaking troupe, Flowers of The Desert, of which I was a member, was the first fusion troupe ever, and even that got its start in 1995!

Being a chick that comes from a rock and roll background, I owned plenty of vinyl miniskirts and fishnet stockings, but nothing conservative enough to wear to attend dance events. I actually had to borrow my mom’s clothes (yes, really!) to go see dancers at Arab clubs. There was no such thing as an alternative belly dance scene, so I traded in my motorcycle boots for nice heels, substituted pink acrylic nails for my chipped royal blue “manicure”, and cut off my dreads, dying my peroxide blonde and orange-striped hair back to its original dark brown in order to be hired as a dancer. Even in a city as urbane and sophisticated as Los Angles, I was the very first belly dancer to have a pierced nose!

Everyone told me I’d never be able to get a job with my nose-ring in… but I reasoned that Bedouins, Berbers and East Indian women wore them, and stubbornly flaunted mine, and miraculously, the club owners never said anything. I did have to keep my extensive arm and shoulder tattoos covered. I wore costumes that had sleeves attached, or would custom-make little shrugs to hide the “offensive” tattoos. Today, the general public considers them artful, and many dancers of both cabaret and Tribal persuasion proudly sport tattoos. Many dancers now also have neon colored hair, dreadlocks, facial and belly button piercings, too.

I used to joke about wanting to perform raks shamadan to the Doors song “Light My Fire” and people thought I was completely insane! I was roped into Samba choreography in Flowers Of The Desert cause I was the only performer who would even consider performing in a Samba costume…and show my fishnet-encased butt onstage. I was like, “Do I get to wear a headdress?!?!” Nobody would consider wearing anything to dance in other than a bedlah or beledy dress to dance in, though recently, Melodia bell-bottoms, hot pants, and any manner of outré apparel counts as stage wear. Nowadays, imaginative costumes and using non- traditional music, as a sound track to Middle Eastern dance- be it rock and roll, hip hop, industrial, Goth or whatever-is completely accepted! We now have Pirate Belly Dance, Raks Gothique, Steam Punk, Burlesque Fusion, etc etc etc. Nowadays, even Fatchancebellydance Tribal style looks “archaic”!

Having written all of this, I practically feel like a Grandma recounting ancient history…Yes, things have changed!