Samia Gamal (سامية جمال)

Hello Dancers,

This post is for my Beginning students, but I hope anyone reading will enjoy this performance. We started dancing to the song Zeina, which was composed by the Egyptian composer Mohammed Abdel Wahab, Monday night. I wanted to show you a clip of the Egyptian belly dance legend Samia Gamal (سامية جمال) dancing to this song in a classic clip from Egyptian cinema.

Samia Gamal performs to the music 'Zeina' composed by Mohamed Abdel Wahab in a scene from the 1956 Egyptian film 'Zanouba' (زنوبة).

I think you can get a feel for what we were talking about in class about not relying so much on counting.

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You can still register and join us in Virtual Belly Dance Class this Fall!

I’m still working hard on a very special project that I am really excited to share with everyone very soon.

Have a great week!

Alisa

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!

Samia Gamal

Hello Dancers!

I hope everyone has had a great couple weeks dancing!  I had the opportunity to check the Bay Area Belly Festival last weekend - I arrived in time for the live music set with Tahneen, a favorite local Arabic music band.  It was lovely to see all the dancers perform to their beautiful music.  If you haven't already, be sure to sign up for their mailing list to stay in the loop about next year's festival and other events planned by the amazing Sudeep.

I am thinking of starting a series on American-style belly dance and dancers which, as much as I love Egyptian-style dance, is also a huge source of inspiration for me.  So stay tuned for that and today we'll enjoy the most classic Egyptian style with Golden Era legend Samia Gamal.  I chose this clip because of the song, it's a classic Egyptian song that was popular with early American dancers because it is on a George Abdo album under the title Raks el Gezlan on the album the The Art of Belly Dancing, which was one of the albums I grew up listening to!  More on all that in the weeks to come, for now let's enjoy the one and only Samia Gamal.

Samia Gamal- Golden Era Bellydancer from Legends of Bellydance DVD

There is another lovely clip of Samia dancing a drum solo here - this is a must see clip for learning about Egyptian style drum solos.

And just a few notes- I will be teaching this summer at SSF Parks and Rec for a 6 week session, I will get my Classes page updated this week with all the info.  Contact me if you have any questions!

And I will be performing at Al Masri on May 20th with Nazir Latouf and Band, at Tannourine on Friday June 1st with Khalil Abboud and Band and at Carnival of Stars Saturday, July 21st.  I will try to get my Shows page updated this week as well with all the details.

Happy Dancing!