Wednesday Inspiration: Samia Gamal

Another Wednesday, another dose of sequiny glamour and beautiful Egyptian dancing!  Today's clip is from the legendary Samia Gamal.

She has a beautiful smile and expresses such joy in her dance.  I hope you enjoy the clip and that you have a great rest of the week!

من فيلم رقصة الوداع 1954 مقام هججز From the film, Raqsat al-Wadaa 1954

Mahraganat and Knife Dancing

Last week in class we talked a little bit about the Mahraganat style of music and knife dancing.  I am not an expert on this subject, what I know about it comes from one of my own teachers, Amina, and the clips that I have seen.  I love learning about it though so I thought I would pass some examples along for anyone who was in class.

One student asked if it was men who did the knife dancing, and based on the clips I have seen, it is (except of course when belly dancers are doing it as performance).  This clip, which as an appeal for funding for a documentary project, gives a really good, quick explanation and shows examples of the dancing.

Mahragan: The Story of Egypt's Street Dance 

This scene from the Egyptian film El Farha shows a man doing knife dance to a more shaabi-style song by Abdel Basset Hammouda.  I love this song.

It's less fancy, but I also really like this clip of an Egyptian man dancing here:

Getting back to the music style of Mahraganat, this article gives a nice overview.  Though I will just write here that I have seen many different and sometimes opposing things written about it in different places.  I guess the lesson is as always to keep observing and to keep trying to understand the subtleties :)

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I hope that everyone's week is off to a great start!!

Happy Dancing

xo Alisa

Hind Rostum (هند رستم)

Lately I have been completely taken with the dancing of the beautiful Egyptian actress Hind Rostum (هند رستم).  

Hind Rostum (هند رستم)

She is not someone who dedicated her entire performance career to dance, but rather a highly accomplished screen actress who danced in many of her film roles.  She played many different types of characters in her films, but there is a lot of dancing to enjoy throughout her career.  

Hind Rostum (هند رستم)

Ever curious for more information about her that I could understand (and by that I mean In English since my Arabic is not there yet!) I ordered this book I saw

Book about Hind Rostom

This self-published effort is not a biography in the strictest sense.  It is more like a fan magazine in book form.  It contains a lot of photos of her, and though they are not of the highest quality they are still lovely.  I don't know if I could come right out and recommend purchasing this book, but I can tell you that I have thoroughly enjoyed it and am glad to have it.  It gives a nice overview of her films, and I will use that to look them up and watch them.

Hind Rostum (هند رستم)

I also really enjoyed the little snippets of her interviews and the stories about her told by her cinema colleagues.  One of the most interesting things I read was that she didn't actually like belly dancing and considered it, "against her taste and nature."  I imagine this has mostly to do with the low status of belly dance and and belly dancers in Egypt.

Hind Rostum (هند رستم)

I love her dancing.  I think I am drawn to the simplicity of her movements, her musical interpretation, and they way her vivacious spirit and radiant joy absolutely shine through.  I think she is wonderful inspiration and further proof that you do NOT have to be the best technician in the world to be a truly great belly dancer.

Enjoy the clips - and I highly recommend this DVD of her performances complied by Sausan (they are in alphabetical order so look for Hend).
 xoAlisa Greer

Hind Rostum and Farid Al Atriche

Hind Rostom dancing with a shaman in the film "Shafiqa the Copt" which is based on a true story - more on this film in another post!