Souher Zaki (سهير زكي)

Hello Dancers,

This weeks post is again aimed for my Beginning class but will be enjoyable to anyone who loves belly dance. We were talking about the different styles of shimmies in class on Monday and I mentioned Souher Zaki (سهير زكي) as one example of shimmying and I wanted to share a clip to illustrate.

This clip is also really useful because it shows some different instruments that might be unfamiliar to new dancers: kanoun, riq, tabla, etc. Plus it has backup dancers in lots of fringe! (For those reading on email, click here for the clip).

In other news, my Classes Page is updated with new offerings for October and November. I’m excited to have both finger cymbals and veil classes at convenient weekend times!

And then I am really looking forward to Virtual Sirens Fest this weekend. SirensFest is a wonderful belly dance festival in Sebastopol, CA but of course this year we are online. I am looking forward to watching the great lineup and my own performance will be shown a little after 6PM. You can buy your Sirens Fest ticket here.

If you like this post, please subscribe to my Monthly Newsletter for more! I never share your email address.

That’s it for this week but I am still working on a very special post which I hope to have ready very soon. Have a great week.

Follow me on Instagram @alisabellydance to stay up to date!

Samia Gamal (سامية جمال)

Hello Dancers,

Today will just a really quick post because the week completely got away from me.

This is a beautiful oriental fantasy style clip featuring the legendary Egyptian belly dancer Samia Gamal (سامية جمال). The kind of thing you will only see in the glamorous world of the movie musicals.

Samia Gamal performing in the 1947 Egyptian film 'Habib Al Omr' (Love of My Life حبيب العمر) which starred Farid al Atrash, Lola Sedky, Hassan Fayek and Ismail Yassin.

The caption is courtesy of TheCaroVan, whose Vimeo channel I always encourage students to check out!

My schedule of virtual belly dance classes is up on my classes page and you can always contact me if you have any questions.

I’ll be back with more next week!

Safinaz and Mahmoud El Leithy - صافينازومحمود الليثى

Hi Everybody,

I have some fun clips to share today, and at the bottom of this post there are some class updates if you’d like to skip ahead.

Shaabi Movies

This post is one I have been dreaming of doing for a long time. It’s pure joy, which is something we can probably all use more of right now.

A few weeks ago I did a short post featuring a film clip from the 1970s of the Egyptian belly dancer Souheir Zaki performing with the Shaabi singer Ahmed Adeweya.

Fast forward 40-something years and Egyptian cinema and TV movies still love belly dancers and shaabi singers together. Today I want to feature one of my favourite combinations, the belly dancer Safinaz and the Egyptian singer Mahmoud El Leithy.

Safinaz /صافيناز

Safinaz (صافيناز‎) is the stage name of the dancer Sofinar - I’ve seen her listed both as Sofinar Gourian and Sofinar Grigoryan. Either way, that is an Armenian name! I have followed her career with interest in part because I am also an Armenian belly dancer, but mostly because I just love her dancing. She is one of the most popular dancers in Egypt today and has been featured in several Egyptian films.

Although technically a foreign dancer in Egypt, I think she must be so popular among Egyptians because she does have the essence of Egyptian style in her soul. Her interpretations are nuanced and beautiful when the song calls for that, and she also exudes a kind of warm, playful, even silly, joy. She doesn’t seem to take herself too seriously and she doesn’t over do it. She has brought her own personality to Egyptian belly dance rather imposing another style of dance and simply calling it belly dance.

Safinaz and Mahmoud el Leithy /صافينازومحمود الليثى

Safinaz has paired with the Egyptian singer and actor Mahmoud El Leithy (محمود الليثى) in several films. His music is in the shaabi/mahraganat style. You can seen from these clips that he also has a lighthearted sense of humor and I think they are so much fun to watch together. The songs below are what I would call the lighter side of Shaabi music. For a more complete explanation of Shaabi, I highly recommend my teacher Amina Goodyear’s Shaabi music history page.

So without any more delay, here are a bunch of fun clips with this pair from their various movies. They never fail to make me smile. PS: If you are reading this in email, you actually have to click through to the post on my website to see the videos. I am not sure why, but you do!

فيلم #امان_ياصاحبي ... ( فيلم عيد الاضحي ٢٠١٧ ) سعد الصغير - محمود الليثي - بوسى صوفينار - نرمين_ماهر - عبد لسلام بدرية طلبة شيماء_سيف علاء_مرسى عبد الباسط ح...

اغنية اذا كان قلبك كبير غناء / محمود الليثي / صوفينار فيلم عمر وسلوي بطولة / كريم محمود عبد العزيز / بوسي / سعد الصغير / محمود الليثي / علاء مرسي / يوسف عيد ...

اغنية يا واد انت يا اجنبي غناء / محمود الليثي / صوفينار فيلم عمر وسلوي بطولة / كريم محمود عبد العزيز / بوسي / سعد الصغير / محمود الليثي / علاء مرسي / يوسف عي...

اغنية " بونبوناية / فيلم عيال حريفة بطولة / محمد لطفي - بيومي فؤاد - محمود الليثي - بوسي - سعد الصغير صوفينار - سليمان عيد - حسن عبد الفتاح - حسن الخلعي - ال...

I hope you enjoyed the clips and I will end this post with a few pictures of Safinaz too.

Class Updates:

I have a few class updates:

First of all, the City of South San Francisco is making three of my virtual beginning belly dance classes available for FREE in July. You can go to this post to see the class days and times and to get information on how to register.

I am also planning a drop-in virtual finger cymbals (zils) class for later this month and also working on my August schedule, so please contact me if you would like information on upcoming classes!

Happy Dancing!

صافيناز

Armenian Belly Dancer Safinaz - Sofinar Grigorian

صافيناز‎

Armenian Belly Dancer Safinaz

Egyptian Stick Dancing - From Folk Dance to Stage Performance

Hello Dancers!

Since we are doing Saidi style dance in class this week (in Intermediate/Advanced), I wanted to share a few videos that show where Egyptian stick dancing (Tahtib) comes from and how it is adapted for the stage by both folkloric dancers as well as belly dancers doing cabaret style nightclub shows.

As the first, more traditional style folkloric clips below show, this is a dance that evolved from a martial art and that was originally done by men. When belly dancers do it as part of their show, they are almost doing a play on it. At the same time, it has become a beloved part of a belly dance show and many famous dancers have put their spin on it. I hope you will love Fifi Abdo doing her version. She is famous for it (among other things).

The last clip is of the Egyptian belly dancer Randa Kamel doing her version of Saidi in performance at a belly dance festival in Greece. Notice her head movements at certain parts! This is exactly what we talked about it class last week. Notice too something very important for all performers and especially belly dancers - her ATTITUDE!! She loses her hip scarf part of the way through her performance and she just jiggles it off and throws it out of her way and KEEPS GOING. She laughs and smiles. She doesn’t worry about it! This is the spirit of live belly dance, its all about going with whatever happens in the moment and enjoying yourself so that your audience can enjoy themselves too.

I hope you enjoy these clips even if you can just watch couple minutes of each one.

This 1976 video is published with the permission of Dr Magda Saleh. Rayyes Hassan and Rayyes Mahmoud. This video was taken in the region of SOHAG, at Sheikh Shebl.

Tahtib (Egyptian Arabic: تحطيب taḥṭīb) is the Modern Egyptian term for a stick fighting martial art originally named Fan A'Nazaha Wa-Tahtib (the Art of being straight and honest through the use of stick). The martial version of Tahtib also evolved into a traditional form of Egyptian folk dance involving a wooden stick, also known as "stick dance" or "cane dance".

Fifi Abdo Egyptian Cane (Saidi) style Dance

Remember too that I shared another really cute YouTube of Egyptian belly dance star Lucy doing her take on Saidi last week - be sure to catch that one if you haven’t!

If you like this post, please subscribe to my Monthly Newsletter for more. I never share your email address.

***

Carnival of Stars is this weekend! Two days packed full of belly dance, with performances on two stages, live music, shopping and food. It’s a wonderful experience if you can make it. I am performing on Saturday, July 20th at 4:50 PM to live music by Pangia on the Cafe Stage and again on Sunday, July 21st on the Main Stage at 1:20 PM. But you will see great performances any time you go. Be sure to get a program so you can know who is performing when. Let me know if you have any questions about this fantastic festival!

Alisa will be performing at Carnival of Stars!

***

I will also be performing in live music bellydance shows at El Morocco in Pleasant Hill on July 28th and at Tannourine Restaurant in San Mateo on August 2nd. Details on my Shows page :).

Have a great week!

Lucy's Saidi Tableau

Last night in Intermediate we were dancing to a song that quoted a bit of Saidi music and we did a some Saidi-inspired movements. I told my students that I would play a clip of belly dance Saidi so they could see some of the things I was talking about.

Long-term readers may remember this clip because I’ve played it before. It’s a classic performance by of one of Egypt’s most famous and most beloved belly dancers, Lucy. I hope you enjoy it. I love everything about this.

Lucy and her orchestra with singer Raafat, at a party for actors .

I will share more Saidi clips next week as we will continue to work on this in class!

In the meantime, I also recommend this past post I wrote about the Egyptian belly dancer Lucy, which features more clips of her dancing in different styles. Her feeling and musical interpretation are so beautiful to watch.

Just a reminder that Carnival of Stars is right around the corner! Two days packed full of belly dance, with performances on two stages, live music, shopping and food. It’s a wonderful experience if you can make it. I am performing on Saturday, July 20th at 4:50 PM to live music on the Cafe Stage and again on Sunday, July 21st on the Main Stage at 1:20 PM. But you will see great performances any time you go. Be sure to get a program so you can know who is performing when. Let me know if you have any questions about this fantastic festival!

I look forward to seeing everyone next week!

xo Alisa