alonewiththemoon | Journey of Desire

My hair is orange again, yay!

I splurged a little and ordered the DVD "Journey of Desire: A Foreign Dancer in Cairo," the story of Yasmina of Cairo, how she went from being an English country girl riding show horses to being a celebrated belly dancer, how she ended up in Cairo, what it takes to be a foreign dancer there, what Egyptians--ranging from agents to costumers to musicians to other dancers--think of foreign dancers, etc., etc., etc. It's shot documentary style, sometimes featuring voiceover by Yasmina and sometimes featuring direct interviews. There are several wonderful dance videos--the rooftop baladi I'd posted a while back is on there, as is a hilarious 80s inspired sha'bi dance scene with a group of mechanics in a garage and some more classic performances. She's an inspirational dancer; during her assaya I actually forgot I was watching a movie and was surprised when people started talking again. And the documentary portions are very rich and dense with information--as the Gilded Serpent reviewer noted, it will take a while to synthesize all the information. At any rate, it's a warm and wonderful portrait of a passionate artist and adventurous soul and I deeply enjoyed it both as a dancer and as an anthropologist. The link I gave above to Yasmina's site has a lot more information about the making of it and some of the obstacles one faces in trying to make a documentary in Egypt.

I would offer to host a viewing, but silly me assumed that region free also meant NTSC, when in fact it is PAL. Fortunately my computer can play PAL format, but my DVD player can't. If I can figure out how to hook up the computer to the television, I'll host something, otherwise, if anybody who has a device that can play PAL DVDs on their television would like to invite me over and host a viewing, I'd be totally amenable to that :)

I also ordered one of her CDs, Aheb Masr!, and it is utterly brilliant. I can barely sit still on the train while listening to it and am very inspired. And bless her, she includes translations of all the songs that have lyrics. There's a sha'bi piece (Adaweya style, not modern pop style) that I think I might do for the Oasis on the Water show at the end of June; I think it would be pretty accessible to the general public.

Side note: after watching the DVD, I have a much better sense of what it means when a CD is presented as being "by" a particular belly dancer. I always thought that was just sort of branding, or a way of boosting sales, but really dancers manage their own orchestras and the music on those albums is intimately connected to the dancer who is on the cover. It's amazing, the range of things one has to do to be a professional dancer over there. It's not just a matter of dancing.

Huh, Yasmina operates a B&B for dancers in Cairo... Now that looks like the way to do it! Dream, dream, dream...