Egyptian Dancer Aida Nour

Aida Nour is one of my favorite dancers.  I love her style of dancing and I was looking for more information about her life.  I came across this article on the Gilded Serpent, which looks like it is about 10 years old.  

The article discusses her early life and career and then has some wonderful quotes about dance that I wanted to share here.  One of the things I especially loved was her thoughts on improvising and responding out of love for the music.

“If a dancer has very good technique and a good ear for the music she should just dance. -Aida Nour”

She goes onto say that the dance is about femininity, and since each dancer has her own feeling, each woman's dance will be unique.  I thought her words from ten years ago were so important to repeat, because as we see an increasing shift to emphasize exacting drills and choreography, we lose this important connection to the dance: feeling and individual response to the music.

In another lovely comment, Aida Nour says that women all over the world can have a feeling for the dance and dance well, meaning that it is more about a woman's individuality than it is about nationality.

“Egyptian dance gives women femininity... each dancer has her own individual style. - Aida Nour”

I hope that new and continuing dancers will find inspiration in these words from one of the greatest Egyptian belly dancers of her generation.  I certainly do!

Here are some beautiful vintage clips of Aida Nour.

Aida Nour in 1988 Part One

Aida Nour in 1988 Part Two

Here are some more modern clips, of Aida Nour with a shamadan.  These two are among my absolute favorites, I just love her dancing so much.

Aida Nour with Shamadan Part One

Aida Nour Part Two

I hope you enjoyed those as much as I did.  Happy dancing!!

Alisa

Wednesday Inspiration: Fifi Abdou

One of my all time favorite clips today.  I love this song, and I love the way she dances to it, what more can I say??  I hope you enjoy it!

Fifi Abdou - Lessa Fakir

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

Wednesday Inspiration (On Thursday): Nancy

Today's clip is an Egyptian dancer named Nancy. I don't know anything at all about her, but I love her style.  This is a short drum solo, and I love how her movements are so strong and precise, and yet she is utterly relaxed.  There is so much beauty in her less-is-more style.  Enjoy!

Egyptian dancer Nancy, performing at the Mena House in Cairo, November 2007.

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Just little reminder that I will be dancing at Bay Area Belly on Sunday at 3:40, and at Marrakech Restaurant in downtown San Francisco that night, first show at 8PM.  As always, all the details are on my Shows pages.  Thanks so much for reading and I will be back with a new blog on Monday!!

Happy Dancing!

xo Alisa

Hakim and Halawet Rooh

Normally this would be a Wednesday Inspiration post BUT... I was substitute teaching for my own wonderful teacher last night (may your toe heal quickly, beautiful Helwa!!) and we danced to Halawet Rooh so I wanted to share this today.

Halwawet Rooh is the name of a film staring the Lebanese singer and actress Haifa Wehbe that came out in 2014.  It was banned in several countries including Egypt- you can read more about the controversy here.

Here you can see the trailer for the film.  I have not seen the whole film.  They can often be found  complete on YouTube but I haven't looked for it yet.  Despite Haifa Wehbe's incredible beauty and glamour, this looks be a very sad film which takes a hard look at the realities of life.

Halawet Rooh - The Official Trailer

On a more cheerful note, here the video for the theme song of the movie, which is sung by the Egyptian pop singer Hakim.  THIS VIDEO HAS ENGLISH SUBTITLES !! which helps so much in the understanding of this beautiful song.  Haifa Wehbe is not a professional dancer but I love her musicality and her feeling in this.  And of course, who wouldn't like to look like that in a red slip dress?!  She is so beautiful!

Halawet Rooh Movie Song's by Hakim with English Subtitles

I'd love to know what you think in the comments below!

I have a book about Arabic music that has a really nice chapter on Hakim, so I will do another little post on him next week since there isn't that much on the web about him in English.

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And I'll be back tomorrow with you usual Wednesday inspiration post... on Thursday!!  

Happy dancing.

Alisa