Endangered Species

The Dying Art of Egyptian Belly Dance

Egyptian belly dancers are an endangered species.  On the road to extinction.  That is, if there isn’t a belly dance renaissance in Egypt sometime soon.  Even Dina fears as much.  For the truth is, aside from Dina, Randa, Camelia, and more recently, Aziza, there has been a decline of good Egyptian belly dancers on the market.  This is ironic, considering that most of us imagine Egypt to be “Planet Belly Dance,” and that Egypt is the home of belly dance legends Samia Gamal, Fifi Abdo, and Soheir Zaki.  There’s also at least 40 million Egyptian women living here.  You’d think that with those numbers, this music and dance oriented country could produce a few more belly dancers.  Yet the reality is that an ugly combination of economic and socio-religious factors is robbing this country of one of its greatest artistic achievements.

I remember first moving to Cairo and being excited about all the belly dancers I thought I’d see.  Expecting to discover hundreds of naturally talented women, I visited nearly every venue that featured belly dancing.  But what I expected and what I discovered were two different things.  To my dismay, the level of dancing here amongst most Egyptian belly dancers is not as high as it used to be just 30 years ago.  

An Entirely Possible Possibility

Egyptian belly dancers are an endangered species. On the road to extinction. That is, if there isn’t a belly dance renaissance in Egypt sometime soon. Even Dina fears as much. For the truth is, aside from Dina, Randa, Camelia, and more recently, Aziza, there is a conspicuous lack of good Egyptian belly dancers on the market. This is ironic, considering that most of us imagine Egypt to be Planet Belly Dance, and that Egypt is the home of belly dance legends Samia Gamal, Fifi Abdo, and Soheir Zaki. There are also at least 40 million Egyptian women living here. You would think that with those numbers, this music and dance-oriented country could produce a few more star belly dancers. Yet the reality is that an ugly combination of economic and socio-religious factors is robbing this country of one of its greatest artistic achievements.

I remember first moving to Cairo and being excited about all the belly dancers I thought I would see. Expecting to discover hundreds of naturally talented women, I visited nearly every venue that featured belly dancing. But what I expected and what I discovered were two different things.  To my dismay, the level of dancing here of most Egyptian belly dancers is appallingly low.  To be frank, it is quite bad. With the notable exceptions of the four superstars I previously mentioned, the majority of Egyptian dancers leave a lot to be desired.

Flying High...

Well, more like drunk. Is there a better way to celebrate my coming home to Brooklyn than drinking cranberry and vodka on the flight home? But hey, it has been a good while since I’ve consumed alcohol. It’s just not a priority when you live in Egypt, a country as dry as its dessert sands.

I will admit, I’m a lightweight. That’s because I rarely drink. It only took one cup of the stuff to blur my already blurry vision and make me giggle out loud while watching Aasal Iswid. Aasal Iswid is an Egyptian comedy which translates as ‘Black Honey.’ It satirizes the oftentimes repugnant ways in which Egyptians treat each other by juxtaposing it with the royal treatment they often bestow upon foreigners. The protagonist is Egyptian actor Ahmed Hilmy, who returns to Cairo to work as a photographer after living in the United States for twenty years. Intent on ‘going native,’ Ahmed deliberately leaves his American passport in the States and proudly identifies as Egyptian. The film progresses by showing all the unnecessary travails he experienced because of this. From taxi drivers to authorities to horses(!), no one treats Ahmed the way he expects to be treated as a native of Egypt.

Teaching in NYC Nov. 14th-16th

11/13: Performing @ Columbia University Raqs    2-4pm

11/14: Egyptian Shaabi Choreography                       5-7pm

11/15: “Feeling” & Sas - Taqsim Baladi                       6-8pm

11/16: Classical Egyptian Choreography                   6-8pm

All classes are $45 and require prior notification of attendance.  Please e-mail lunaofcairo@gmail.com to reserve a spot. Classes will be held

@ Anamita Navatman Studios

344 W 38th Street, 5th floor, New York, NY, 10018 

I will also be available for private lessons.

My Interview with BellyDanceFinder!

Bellydancefinder: Tell us a bit about yourself. What is your background? What do you do when you aren’t dancing?

Luna: Three years ago, I won a Fulbright Scholarship to write a book about the history, development and decline of belly dance in Egypt. I had just graduated from Harvard University with a Masters degree in Middle Eastern Studies, and would soon be moving to Cairo. I originally planned to return home after 9 months upon terminating the scholarship. However the dance distracted me and I never finished my book! I kept taking classes and meeting new people, and one thing led to another. Before I knew it, I was performing regularly at all of the 5-star resorts along the Red Sea. Exactly one year later, I auditioned at the Semiramis Hotel and the Nile Memphis and was awarded contracts to dance at both. The Semiramis gig didn’t work out (for very ugly reasons), but I am happily dancing at the Nile Memphis every night. I also perform regularly at weddings and upscale corporate events with my band.

Celebrate Halloween
Nile-Style
with
Luna

@ The Nile Memphis!

October 31, 2011
7:00p.m.

.
$25 USD gets you a buffet dinner, a 2.5 hour cruise on the Nile, and a fun belly dance show to live music by Luna of Cairo.


Halloween costumes strongly encouraged.
Winner of Best Costume Contest receives a (sur)prize!


E-mail me at lunaofcairo@gmail.com for location & details & to RSVP :)

The Frustrated Feminist

I’m a frustrated feminist. I have always been a feminist of one kind or another, but the frustrated part is rather recent. It has a lot to do with where I live and what I do. Luckily, I haven’t reached the point of no return. I still shave my legs and armpits and wear makeup. And I’m straight. Yet I find myself hating men. Well, many of them anyway. It’s not that I hate the individuals who happen to be men. I just hate their misogyny and machismo, or whatever it is that drives them to subjugate women.   

At the risk of pointing out the obvious, I live in an ultra-patriarchal society. This means men have the upper hand in almost all aspects of life here. They are the leaders, the law makers, the law keepers, and law breakers. This is true of most of the world, but it is a little more exaggerated in places like Egypt than in the United States or Western Europe. That is not to say that Egypt is on par with Saudi Arabia, Iran of Afghanistan in terms of women-hating.  Nevertheless, misogyny does have its place here. And it takes various forms. Female genital mutilation (extremely widespread); domestic violence (the norm); sexual harassment (no comment); honor killings (much rarer but do occur from time to time). Divorce, adultery and other personal status laws overtly favor men. And of course, there is the oh-so-prevalent “a women’s place is in the home” school of thought to which men and women subscribe. Again, all of these things exist in other countries, even in our corner of the world. It’s just that they occur with more much more frequency and much less stigma in this slice of the world.

The Case for Cairo

Why you should come to Cairo. Now.

Perhaps more than most, I am known for openly criticizing Cairo. This is because I am way past the infatuation phase in my relationship with this city. I have said and continue to say that it is dirty, crowded, chaotic, draining, dysfunctional, and frustrating. But one thing I have never said about this place is that it is dangerous. If it were dangerous, I would not live here. Neither would thousands of other foreigners who live here alongside me. Okay, okay, the first week of the uprising was pretty scary. I’ll give you that. But things calmed down soon after. Sure, there is no real government right now, and there still isn’t as many police on the streets as there used to be, but I could think of much more dangerous countries that have functioning governments and plenty of police.

Despite what you hear from the media, Cairo is safe. The problem with the media is that it broadcasts from Tahrir Square to the near exclusion of the rest of the country. This results in a skewed version of reality. Tahrir is not Egypt. It is a tiny sliver of Cairo that serves as a rallying point for political agitators. Generally, what happens in Tahrir stays in Tahrir and does not affect the country at large. In fact, half of the time, Egyptians don’t even know what is happening there.

Baladi Beauty

Modeling a wedding dress in an
Egyptian magazine.

I know there’s a superstition about wearing a wedding dress before your wedding day, but I have worn quite a few wedding dresses since moving to Cairo. At one point, I was up to 20 wedding gowns a week. The irony is that I have never been married (despite the endless marriage proposals from Egyptian men). I simply model wedding dresses in my spare time, when I’m not performing or teaching belly dance. 

Let me clarify. I am NOT a bridal model. It’s just that I am a bit more ‘well rounded than all the Eastern European girls who saturate the modeling market in Egypt, so I get called for a lot of shoots which require a fuller-figured woman. That means lingerie and wedding shoots. As I refuse to model lingerie (especially in Egypt), I stick to occasional bridal modeling. It’s kind of ironic in light of my phobia of all things marriage, especially poofy white dresses. And boy are they poofy here. The minute I step into one of those monstrous things, I look like I’m drowning in a sea of white tulle and chiffon. Not to mention it is impossible to maneuver in them. Now I know why the Egyptian brides usually look scared and pissed.

Ramadan in Cairo

Ramadan suhoor at local restaurant il-Gahsh

It’s that time of year again when Cairo finally takes a break from itself. The city is quieter, and traffic is more predictable. Taxi drivers make an effort not to rip you off, and people go out of their way to be kind. From the multicolored Christmas lights hanging from mosques, to the ubiquitous fawanees (Ramadan lamps) that hang from every home and storefront, there is an undeniable mood of festivity in the air. 

It’s Ramadan, the Islamic holy month. During this time, Muslims abstain from food and drink from dawn to dusk. They avoid all things vulgar. Well, in theory at least. That means no profanity, fighting, lying, smoking, or engaging in other un-Islamic activities. The prohibited activity that concerns us here is belly dancing. 

In Egypt, it is illegal to belly dance during Ramadan. You read that correctly. This is because everything about this dance violates Islamic values of modesty for women and their male viewers. For the most part, cabarets, casinos, bars, and nightclubs close down. But some venues hire belly dancers on the sneak. These are mainly the Nile cruises, which cater to foreign tourists and cannot afford to not to have belly dancing. They way they circumvent the “no belly dancing during Ramadan” policy is by having the dancer wear a 1-piece Saidi galabiyya that covers her whole body, and hiring folklore dancers to dance in the background. Technically, this turns the belly dancer into a folklore dancer and renders her performance legally and morally acceptable. 

Song Translation Service!

Take your dancing to the next level with my new Arabic song translation service! 

Upon popular suggestion, I’ve finally decided to offer a song translation service. Now you can have ANY Arabic song translated & transliterated into fluent, native English for just $25 USD.  I provide accurate, precise translations, phonetic transliterations, and explanations of all idioms, terms, and cultural references that aren’t immediately intelligible to non-Arabic speakers. No more limited, awkward, online translations by translators who are limited in either English or Arabic.

Understanding the meaning of song lyrics will significantly improve the way you feel the music, and allow your audiences to feel connected to you. Song translation is also a great way to gain further insight into Middle Eastern culture.

The "P" Word

The “P” Word

 

No, it’s not what you think. It’s another word that starts with the letter P—one that has been pestering me for quite some time now. The word is ‘prestige,’ or bresteej¸ as the Egyptians say. :) It means the same in Egyptian Arabic as it does in English, except Egyptians also apply this concept to belly dancing. I’ll show you what I mean. 

A few days ago, I got a call to perform at a restaurant in Masr Gadida after my shows on the Nile Memphis. I would dance to CD, change my costume three times, and collect plenty of tips. I told the agent I would do it, and arranged for my new manager, Magid, to accompany me so I would have representation. Upon arriving at the restaurant, however, we discovered that there was no dance floor. In fact, the entire restaurant was no bigger than my kitchen. It was an intimate, dimly-lit, cigar-smoke-filled, Italian-style seafood restaurant, replete with foreign wines and liquors, and the type of Egyptians who could afford it. It wasn’t exactly a venue for belly dancing. And because the tables were so close together, the most I could have done was weave through the tables and do a few chest pops. To make matters worse, the customers were mainly drunk older men. Moneyed, though.

Condomonium

Condomonium

...yes, you read that correctly :) 

 

That Little Blue “Piece of Paper”

Here’s some heartfelt advice from your resident foreign belly dancer living in Egypt. Never carry condoms on you or anywhere near you while traveling in Egypt. Never. Same goes for tampons.  Most Egyptians don’t know what they are, and when their curiosity gets the better of them, things can get a bit… uncomfortable.

It just so happened that while I was returning to Cairo one night after a show in the Red Sea area, the security check-point officers decided they would stop our car and search our bags. The three guys who were with me—the DJ, the whirling dervish, and the driver—stepped out of the car for the officers to frisk them. I, being the only woman, was ordered to stay inside until the search was over. As I sat there, I could feel the car bounce as the officers opened the trunk and rummaged through our bags. And then, one by one, the guys climbed back into the vehicle, each with a look of embarrassed humiliation on his face. 

Celebrate the 4th of July Nile-Style!

4th of July Nile-Style! If you're American & in Cairo, come celebate the 4th of July at the Nile Memphis! $25USD buys you dinner, a wonderful cruise along the Nile, and an exciting belly dance show by American belly dancer Luna! Invitation extended to non-Americans, anti-Americans, wana-be Americans, and eveyone else :D Boat sails at 7pm sharp! Space is limited! Email me at lunaofcairo@gmail.com for boat location and to RSVP.

Birthday Blog

Today is my birthday. In fact, it’s my third consecutive birthday in Cairo.  And yet, if you ask me where home is, I’ll probably tell you the US.  

I’m not sure how many years you have to spend in a place before you consider it home, but the truth is, Cairo is as much my home as New York. I’ve been living and working here for almost three years now. I’m fluent in Arabic. I have sweat rivers that rival the Nile. I have made friends, enemies, and relationships to last a lifetime. I’ve laughed and made others laugh, cried and made others cry, lied and made others lie. I’ve helped people and been helped, fought and been fought, loved and been loved. I’ve been fooled, cheated, robbed and evicted. I’ve been supported and cheered on. I’ve had fits of laughter and fits of rage. I’ve almost been arrested, deported, and killed on several occasions. I’ve even experienced a revolution. In short, I’ve lived my life here, and I have a few grey hairs to show for it. If none of this makes a place your home, I don’t know what does. 

Showdown at the Semiramis Hotel

You know that hackneyed ‘everything happens for a reason’ cliché that people like to say when misfortune knocks at your door? Well, it’s true. At the time, I probably would have pelted anyone who told me that there was some larger esoteric reason for being kicked out of the Semiramis Hotel. In hindsight, however, I now understand why, in the larger scheme of things, this was a blessing in disguise.

The circumstances of my being contracted and de-contracted at the Semiramis were rather odd.  One typical Cairo evening, I found myself sitting in the Semiramis’ disco with a dancer friend and the two managers of the nightclub where Dina performs every week. Embarrassingly enough, it took me a whole hour to realize that the man sitting across from me conversing with me was the big shot manager who hires talent at the Semiramis. In my defense, I wasn’t told who this man was. My dancer friend simply asked me to accompany her to a party with some artists at the Semiramis disco, and “oh I’m auditioning here tomorrow.”  

The $6.78 CondunDRUM

The $6.78 CondunDRUM

After six months of changing drummers almost as frequently as I change my underwear, I finally found the perfect drummer to join my band. He’s skilled, powerful, properly translates my moves, and isn’t lazy or greedy. He’s everything I’ve been looking for in a drummer, and I couldn’t be happier. But, as always, there’s a problem. The other members of the band don’t like him. They say he’s arrogant and makes funny faces and gestures at them. And they want him out.

Do you see what I’m up against? Funny faces? I feel like I’m in kindergarten here.

Dealing with musicians is one of the most challenging aspects of my job. Technically, the band leader handles them for me because in Egypt, it’s not “prestigious” for a dancer to talk to her musicians (and because I have little patience for childish antics). Nevertheless, I still feel the effects of their inflated egos, childishness, and greed. And last night, it really bothered me. We were on stage, about to close the show with a drum solo, when all of a sudden, the band stopped playing. They left me hanging in front of my audience with no music to dance to. I turned around to see what the problem was, only to find them arguing with the drummer!

Finding Work in Cairo -- The Bare Naked Truth

For many belly dancers around the world, dancing in Cairo is the dream of a lifetime. Whether it’s the opportunity to perform every night to a live orchestra or the chance to earn recognition in the international belly dance community, belly dancing in Cairo brings hundreds of foreign women to Egypt each year. Some sell their homes, life possessions, and leave loved ones behind. Most go home disappointed and disillusioned, while others remain in Cairo for years hoping their dream will one day come true.

Though we all fantasize about it, belly dancing in Cairo is not for everyone. It takes a certain type of woman—physically, emotionally and intellectually—to succeed here as a dancer. And it’s not always the woman who wants it. As one dancer put it, Cairo picks you. You don’t pick Cairo. From what I’ve seen, this seems to be true. With that in mind, I put together a realistic guide to finding work in Cairo that examines the attributes of those dancers most likely to succeed. Please keep in mind that the following comments are based on my personal observations over the past two and a half years.

Dancing Deportation Drama

My Run-In with the Egyptian “Belly Dance Police”

 

At the time it was happening, it wasn’t funny, but now I look back on the day I almost got deported and laugh. I mean, who would have thought that belly dancing on a Nile cruise could land you in jail and get you kicked out of Egypt?  Do Egyptian authorities really have nothing better to do than arrest foreign belly dancers? 

It happened like this. After auditioning on the Nile Memphis last August, the management scheduled me to perform five nights a week (I negotiated hard to get two days off!) Sometimes I performed two shows a night, sometimes six. It all depended on how many reservations and sails the boat had. After doing this regularly for two months, one of the Egyptian belly dancers who previously worked there full-time grew resentful that she was now only dancing on my days off. But instead of coming to the boat to check out her competition and understand why she had been replaced, she tried to terminate my dance career. With me gone, she figured she would reclaim her position on the boat. So she called what I like to refer to as the belly dance police (mosannafaat in Arabic), and reported me for dancing without working papers.

"Les danseuses du Caire" ­ - “The Belly Dancers of Cairo”

French TV channel TF1’s 2011 Documentary on the Cairo Belly Dance World

A few months ago, I had the privilege of being filmed for a French documentary on belly dancing in Cairo. Three French journalists from French TF1 channel spent an entire day shadowing me from the minute I woke up (literally), to the minute I finished my last performance on the Nile Memphis. Their goal was to document a typical day in the life of a Cairo belly dancer. They also shadowed Brazilian dancer Sorayya Zayed; an unknown Egyptian cabaret dancer; and famous costume designer Sahar Okasha.

Being shadowed was nothing but fun and laughs from start to finish.  I am grateful to French belly dancer Maya Sarsa of Cairo for recommending me for this project.  http://www.youtube.com/user/mayasarsa

FINALLY!

Good News!!! Egyptian Paperwork Completed!

I woke up this afternoon to good news. The Egyptian government approved my work papers.  Well, whatever remains of the government. This means I am now legally authorized to work as a belly dancer in Cairo. Finally! It only took, oh, two and half years and a revolution. Actually, I was contracted to dance at the Semiramis Hotel last year, but that ended sooner than it started (for reasons I’ll write about in my next post). A week after that drama, I passed an audition at the Memphis Nile Cruise. Though intent on hiring me, the boat management lacked the requisite government license to hire foreign (i.e. non Egyptian) dancers. The management promptly apply for one, after which it contracted me to perform belly dance shows at their establishment seven nights a week. Very exciting stuff, but processing the paperwork took much longer than it should have.

This is why…

Egyptian Uprising 2011

This is an account of how I experienced the political turmoil of Friday, January 28^th, 2011, aka the “Friday of Wrath.” I apologize to my readers for not accompanying my writing with any images. Though I had originally intended to photograph the protests, I decided against it. The acts I witnessed were so unconscionable that I felt it would be unethical to capture them and slap them all over Facebook. The media does a good enough job of that. And they get paid for it. I don’t.

 

Friday of Wrath

It was 1 pm when I woke up from the previous night’s sleep. As I laid in bed, my thoughts drifted to the Memphis, the Nile Cruise on which I was contracted to dance. My musicians and I were scheduled for three sails across the Nile starting that afternoon, totaling six 45-minute performances. I wondered if they would happen—the country was scheduled to erupt into massive anti-government protests, and I couldn't imagine business running as usual. 

Not knowing whether the silence of my 13^th floor bedroom meant that the demonstrations were off, I picked up my tiny Nokia phone to call my manager. After several attempts, I couldn’t get through. I didn’t yet know it, but the Egyptian government cut all lines of communication, including cell phones and land phones and the Internet. It was a last-ditch attempt to prevent protestors from mobilizing in Tahrir Square. When I finally figured this out, a pang of panic bolted through my stomach as I thought to myself, the government controls the Internet?! 

The Harvard Thing...

…Warning.  This is a rant. 

I’m just going to say it. I went to Harvard.  Four years ago. I did a Masters program in Middle Eastern Studies and graduated with a 3.9 average. I’ve been deeply fascinated with the Middle East ever since experiencing the terrorist attacks of September 11^th firsthand, and decided I’d drive myself into serious debt studying everything that went into them.  

So why for the love of God am I belly dancing in Cairo? Shouldn’t I be putting my education to use? Shouldn’t I be making a six-figure salary working for the US government or a consulting firm somewhere? Aren’t I wasting my life “shaking my butt” in a third world country? 

The Whore on the 4th Floor

My Secret Life as a Belly Dancer in Cairo

This might sound strange, but here in Cairo, I lead a secret life. I’m not a spy or having an affair or doing anything nefarious. I’m just a belly dancer. But I make great efforts to hide this from people. When Egyptians ask me what I’m doing in Cairo, I tell them I’m writing a book about Egyptian art. I keep things vague, but not untrue. I am, after all, writing a book, and its subject is belly dancing, which is an Egyptian art. Never do I mention that I’m a practitioner of this art, however. Doing so would unleash a series of unfavorable consequences, not the least of which is being thought of as a whore.

You might be thinking, So what? Sticks and stones will hurt my bones, but words will never hurt me. Unfortunately, this is true only to the extent that I won’t be stoned for being a belly dancer. But I might…oh, I don’t know… get kicked out of my apartment.

Oddly enough, this is exactly what happened to me last year (in fact today marks the one-year anniversary of my eviction!). My landlord kicked me out of my apartment upon learning that I was a belly dancer.

My Story...

More than two years ago, I traded in my life in New York City for a new one in Cairo.  I had just graduated from Harvard University with a Masters degree in Middle Eastern Studies, and had won a Fulbright scholarship to write a book about belly dance in Egypt. A more secretive goal of mine, however, was to learn Egyptian belly dance. The real thing. Ever since participating in Raqia Hassan’s Ahlan wa Sahlan dance festival in 2006, I knew it could only happen in Egypt.   

Though I had taken belly dance classes and became a popular performer in NYC, watching belly dance superstars Dina, Randa, Asmahan, and Sorraya perform at Raqia’s festival shattered all delusions I had regarding my ability to dance. My dance confidence thereby humbled, I realized I would have to live in Egypt if I wanted to be a fraction as talented as these women. There was simply no equivalent in the US.