Egyptian Raqs Sharqi Analysis

Who is Tahia Carioca Tahia Carioca’s name (in Arabic: كاريوكا‎ تحية) can be transliterated in many different ways, including Taheyya Kariokka or Tahiya Karioka. In my writing, I will use Tahia Carioca, while in the quotations from other sources I will use whatever...

Vaudeville, Danse du Ventre (Dance of the Stomach) to Chicago The time in which bellydance started to become popular and to be taught in the USA, in the 1960s, is crucial for the transmission of Raqs sharqi on a global scale. Although Raqs sharqi in the USA was and...

Dance Movements Analysis Table 39 below summarizes the movements noticed in this time frame. The only new kineme I have noticed is the heel stomps, lifting and lowering both heels at the same time once, to stress an accent in the music. Most of the innovations instead...

Men Performing Raqs Sharqi I have not found any videos of men performing Egyptian Raqs sharqi to analyze, dating back to before the late 1990s/early 2000s. Back in the early days of Raqs sharqi, even though Badia Masabni stated that, in her troupe, ‘we also had men...

Non-Egyptian Influences As mentioned by Dina at the end of the previous section, the musicians, the feeling and the heart of Raqs sharqi are still in Egypt. This is why many Raqs sharqi practitioners (those who want to discover the roots of this dance) from around the...

Other Egyptian Dancers Apart from the dancers who perform and teach internationally, there are other examples of Egyptian dancers I found online. These are the ones who appear on shaabi music videos and I have found references to some of them on an article from a...

Background of Sahar Samara Another Egyptian dancer who teaches at the Nile Group Festival is Sahar Samara. She also participated in the raqs sharqi competition Al Rakesa, organised by Dina, and she came second. I found a little bit more information about her from the...

Camelia Background Camelia teaches at the Nile Group Festival and, according to its website (no date), she started her career as a folkloric dancer in the late 90s and later she started dancing raqs sharqi. She is now performing in 5-star hotels in Cairo and she...

Introduction to Randa Kamel Randa Kamel is extremely famous among practitioners worldwide because she travels a lot for teaching and also because her very energetic style is very appealing to foreigners. She is one of the first Egyptian dancers who is more famous...

(Raqs sharqi stars from the 1990s and 2000s) Profile and Background of Dina Dina (دينا) has been considered the last big Egyptian star of Raqs sharqi and indeed she is the last one who has starred in a considerable number of movies and TV programmes from the early...

(Raqs sharqi stars from the 1990s and 2000s) Raqia Hassan Background According to online sources (Sharif, no date; El Safy, 1995), Raqia was born in Cairo and started dancing in the Reda troupe as a folkloric dancer at the age of 14. However, Raqia felt that folklore...

Moving from the 1990s to the 2000s From the early 1990s, there has been a decline in the number of big Raqs sharqi stars in Egypt and the Middle East, for a variety of reasons, as discussed. Since then, Raqs sharqi has almost disappeared from Egyptian movies; many of...

Dance Sociological Analysis Looking at Table 31, there do not seem to be many new movements being developed in this timeframe. There are the oldest kinemes, plus the more recent ones that have, by now, become part of the movement vocabulary and various allokines. A...

About Mona al Said Biographical information about Mona al Said (منى السعيد ) is available from an article written by El Safy (1996) and from Mona’s own website (El Said, no date). She was born in Suez Canal and loved dancing folkloric dances at school. It was not...

Lucy's Background Lucy (لوسى) was one of the star dancers of Cairo in the 1980s and 90s. She is an actress, singer, and dancer (El Safy, 1993a) and danced at the Parisiana, a club in Cairo owned by her husband (Taylor, no date; Rose, 2006; TheCaroVan, 2015c). Dancer...

(1st profile and analysis of the three famous Egyptian dancers of the 1980s and 1990s) Fifi Abdou Background Fifi Abdou (فيفى عبده) was born in 1953 (Shams, 2016) and started dancing at the age of 12 (Shams, 2016), becoming a soloist in a folklore troupe at the age of...

1980s and mid-1990 Raqs Sharqi (Belly Dance) The timeframe between the mid-1980s and mid-1990s sees a flourishing of raqs sharqi in Egypt and abroad (in countries such as Lebanon and the UAE but also in London, as we will see). I have found fewer clips with dance...

Traditional Kinemes and Dance Movements in the 1970s and 1980s Table 25 shows that the traditional kinemes are still performed, along with those that had been observed for the first time in the previous timeframe, such as the hip jewel. Table 25 - Traditional kinemes...

(Continuing on the section on Raqs Sharqi in Egyptian Cinema and TV (1970s and Early 1980s) The Early Career of Nelly Fouad Nelly Fouad (نيللى فؤاد), as Evanoff (2012) reports, was born in Alexandria and she first became famous in Lebanon, before returning to Cairo....

(Continuing the section on Raqs Sharqi in Egyptian Cinema and TV (1970s and Early 1980s) Soheir Zaki's Background Soheir Zaki (سهير زكي), Nearing (2012a) and Sullivan (2002) report, was born in Mansoura, in the Nile Delta, and moved to Alexandria with her family when...

Raqs Sharqi on Egyptian TV and in Movies During this timeframe in Egypt, there are more videos of raqs sharqi from TV shows, rather than just movies. Also, there seems to be a growing interest in trying to legitimize dance as an art form. The two most famous raqs...

Timeframes and Themes In Table 20 and Table 21 (below), I have highlighted the main themes for this timeframe (1960 and 1970s). CLICK THE IMAGE BELOW TO SEE LARGE VERSION Table 20 - the 1960s and early 70s in Egypt and the USA – Part 1 CLICK IMAGE BELOW TO SEE FULL...

Introduction The 1960s early 1970s timespan has emerged from the data as a distinct timeframe, because, in Egypt, there are certain changes with regards to costumes design and to a certain extent to movement style. Also, the late 1960s and early 1970s, saw the...

Table 15 includes a comparison of the movements used by the three most famous dancers of the golden age. Kinemes All three use isolations of the hips, torso and shoulders, and a clear movement vocabulary of Raqs sharqi is already established at this stage. Following...