Lisbon, the 9th of April, 2008
Running under the rain is one of the most liberating, fun things to do at least for lunatics like me... It´s also a time to be with myself and enjoy the ideas – some good, some simple crap – that come with each step or every other breath I take while running…
The fact is that I did it and it´s soooo good that I´m starting to wait until a huge storm is attacking us to leave the home and run like crazy (that´s what I am, yeah…I know!).
Today is one of those days and I just can´t seem to resist, although my bones already heart from the exaggerated running rituals.Let´s not forget that I am a “one time per year runner” and , suddenly, I run an entire hour non stop just for the fun of it.I´m fit but my body is not used to this impact on my legs…anyway, I can´t resist. The same thing with cookies, dance, books , vegetables so many other things I don´t even understand why I love so much.
Coming back from my “running under the rain crazy ritual”, found the cuttest scene: two ducks from a lake (a couple, male and female) were kissing each other and bathing in the middle of the road enjoying their own private little bath tub composed of rain water falling in a hole on the floor. They didn´t even care about me and kept enjoying their “under the rain rendez vouz”! Love nature! Just LOVE nature!
Today was the jazz day.Between private lessons I gave at home and my writing work on my pc, I listened to jazz and a bit of Michael Jackson cause I ´m still with that fever…Miles Davis and Diana Krall, two different poles of the jazz scene but both make me dream, sing and dance…

Lisbon, the 8 th of April, 2008
Rain doesn´t stop pouring out from the portuguese sky in these last few days, just after I spent an whole day in my bikini, bathing in the sun while working in my laptop (yes, it´s posible to do both at the same time! Cannot resist sun and sea, that´s for sure…and will do just anything to get a glimpse of both in any circunstance!) and even using our home swimming pool…I could spend the whole day in my bikini, having lunch, running in the village, reviewing my coreographies to teach, breathing and living normally but…in bikini! And, just a few days after that, here I am running under a storm and heavy rain and wishing not to leave home (I´m trying to call all the students to come to our home for their private classes!Don´t want to leave the place…)…What´s happening to weather? And to the world?!Everything is turning upside down and you can no longer make plans for vacations or any other kind of plans, for that matter…what I learn from this common observations?! Just live the best you can each little, seemingly insignificant second of your life cause you never know what will come next, if the sun will still shine or a dark, damp sky will visit you and throw you into winter again… just enjoy each moment the best you can.

The weekend workshops filled my soul. I guess I love dancing toooooo much! I close my eyes as I listen to the music and I travel out of this world. The girls tend to stop and just stare at me and that´s cute but it means they loose concentration on the coreography we´re working on.
Love to explore emotions and expression of each individual through the dance. It´s never to much to stress into the fact that dance is the human dimension of music and it´s a dimension that demands SOUL, FEELING, SENSUALITY, WHOLENESS, STRENGHT, TRUE HEART and a LOT of sensibility to the sound and its effects on our body, mind and soul. I really punish my sweet girls with my demandings. Just can´t see any one moving outside of the music, forgettin that the most importat is to READ the music and translate it in our personal, unique way.
Journalists in Portugal – I guess, everywhere! – tend to make the strangest questions and so many of them do the silliest too…one of them, asked me how I would describe my body in three words for one of those questionaires for a women´s magazine. I never forgot my answear cause, until today, I see it like this and I ended up thinking that the question was more interesting and intelligent than it seemed to be when she first put it. My answear describing my body in three words was: emotional, passionate and alive! Until today, I see it this way and I tend to demand it from my students.
I never ask for JUST movement. For me, movement needs juice, contents, emotion, thoughts, meaning.Never, ever an empty beautiful movement.
So I ask stuff from the students that I realize goes so much beyond what you usually see Oriental Dance teachers asking from their students. I ask them to be themselves and express their best through the dance and that´s so much more difficult than just repeating a bunch of empty movements following a foreign, exotic music… even the music, as I see it and hear it, has nothing of exotic or new…it´s too familiar to my soul and that´s what I tend to teach students to do…bring the music into their souls and recognize it as something familiar by just feeling it…
Oriental Dance is about so many things and you go deeper into it and find more and more treasures and things to learn, worlds inside of another worlds…it´s an endless and fascinating source of wisdom and beauty and I keep falling in love with it more and more, everyday… I must add I´m the kind of person who gets bored so easily, therefore I need constant stimulation mentally, emotionally, phisically…Oriental Dance does that for me real fine! Everyone who knows me would think and bet that, by now, I would be totally fed up with Arabic Dance and would eventually go back to “my senses” and return to the promising actress career I left when I was just beginning, leaving my country and all my world to live in Egypt by myself chasing a dream of performing an art most people consider no more than a sexy joke! And they stare at me and find it amazing cause, by luck (bad or good, I don´t know!), they consider me an intelligent, educated individual with the use of “almost” all the mental faculties (yes, they do no I´m quite a bit crazy!) and they don´t imagine why on earth I would still be working on Oriental Dance after doing so many great things with it and having this experience of working and building my name in the centre of Oriental Dance world community: Egypt!
I always say there are layers of me that noboby knows, unless they travel inside my soul and mind and, even in this case, they will not get the whole picture cause I keep changing and reinventing myself constantly…so, nobody really knows what I´m looking for, except me. Oriental Dance keeps pushing me harder and harder and making me fall in love deeper and stronger with it…wish there was a man able to to the same!:(
Miss the stage,my terrible orquestra and pleasure of dancing in public. I hold this theory that artists are, most and before all, longing to beloved and accepted and their art is the way to get it. I know this is not a very romantic view of artists but I grew up surrounded by dancers, musicians and actors so I pretty much know what I´m talking about…you feel loved and appreciated while you´re on stage and, for me, that´s the major source of pleasure.I miss it. The adrenaline, those moments when I close my eyes and just FEEL the music, people´s energy and emotions all rolled up in my intense pleasure of dancing…WOW!!!
I´ve been listening to Michael Jackson lately. Back to my childhood and the eighties. Although I work with arabic music, my background is very ample and the range of music I love and actually listen is wide and eclectic. Michael Jackson is a creative genius, as I see him. He´s unique and so talented that makes me cry. Talent, more than anything, makes me emotional and I know how to recognize it when I see it. I love to see talent in every area (dance, music, acting, painting, writing, sculpture, etc) and really feel that it´s talent who keeps pushing me forward and inspire me to search for more and do better in my work and in my life.
Me and my sister got together and danced our hearts out with “You rock my world” from Michael Jackson.Lots of fun!
I bought the “Thriller” album and the concert and watched it in amazement. Too much talent, this guy…Love him!
No comments to the plasctic surgery craziness and the accusations of child abuse…the dark side of the genius, terrible, scorpionic and not my field at all.


Lisbon, the 3rd of April, 2008
First day of strong sun in Portugal! It felt like summer and I walked around in bikini te whole day…free and happy as a bird…no shoes, no make-up, no hairdo, no manicure or pedicure, no cloth and glitter on excpt the natural glitter provenient from joy and the sun kissing my skin!
Great day!
Ran another hour straight in the neighbourhood (green golf camps surrounded by trees, beautiful designer villas, mountains and a clean, blue sky! Doyou hate me already?!) and almost threw myself in the swimming pool after that cause I was damm hot (not in a sensual, nice kind of way!) but in an out of breath, stinky and sticky kind o way…the sun was already burning really well and saw a huge lizard running in front of me in the middle of my run.
After having prepared the coreographies to teach in my next weekend workshops, it turn out to happen that I felt they weren´t right so…I built totally new material to teach on Saturday and Sunday. Always do wat your guts tell you to do. It´s not an universal advice but it´s one I always follow. Do what you feel, even if it looks strange to another people and even to yourself.
Very hard to coreograph new songs and work on the cds. I miss the live music, it´s obvious. I feel like I´m eating food without flavour, just don´t feel stimulated and inspired. The sounds seem fading shadows of what the songs really mean and I have to struggle a lot to get the new coreographies done.
Also feel all the movements and combinations are too easy and familiar to execute. Is it because I´m used to dance so much and use so many vocabulary that it turns it into something too common and obvious? Don´t really know what´s happening…

Besides the last minute changes, I also predict I´ll be doing some really crazy stuff on these next workshops. I always come up with new things, mostly because I get bored very easily and need to feel stimulated and learning so I push myself to find new approaches to the music, the movements and the methods I use to teach…smells like a great weekend to me! I can´t wait to be with the girls! I´m happy and anxious.
Will take incense and lots of candles with me. I´m up or something wild!
In the end, prepared a song from Wael Jasar, lebanese singer who I don´t like particularly but has this song given to me by a great friend and that´s the one I prepared for the girls this weekend.

Not missing Cairo yet. Is it a bad thing? I´m enjoyig a mixed paradise retreat with relaxed work teaching, writing, reading, exercizing, coreographing and…not missing Cairo at all. I ´ve been having some pretty rought times lately and, despite the work in Cairo receiving so much positive feed-back from people, I still don´t feel stimulated and inspired. Have to turn this situation upside down. One thing I know: no one will give me that stimulation, except if Suhair Zaki came to surprise me at home and danced for me but I don´t think that is a chance for that to happen so…I have to get irt on myself and search for the extra strenght to keep going with renovated energy.
Private class teaching. Always pleasureable but time and energy consuming. The students are sweet hearts and are willing to learn from their hearts and it´s good to have a personal approach to the student through the dance, know her/him better and find a special, unique language to reach this person.
A private class is a work of dance, psycology ,sensibility, intuition, observation and love. I learn a lot from it about dance, human beings and the always personal way each individual reacts to music, specially arabic music with its special qualities and energy.
Got a new HUGE mug for my ever present tea! Some times I feel I´m a child and never really grew up. I get a kick out of the strangest, simplest things! I´m damm happy about my new, bright orange (colour of creativity!) mug for tea. No need to make sense. Just the foolish fact.


Lisbon,the 1st of April, 2008
It´s good to be at home and in peace.
I often say – and know for a fact – that peace is an inner reality, something you feel from inside and build up, protect, feed and preserve and it´s never in a place, person or special circunstance but, somehow, here in the middle of this paradise called Palmela (where my family house is situated and the place I like to stay in whenever I come to Portugal) that peace within me comes to life and breaths freely as I very rarely have the chance to do in Egypt or any other place for that matter.
This is the place of hybernation, where I run in the middle of the green, always fresh golf fields overlooking the mountains full of trees and clean air I can breath without the fear of getting a strange breathing complicated disease (as it happens in Cairo where I tend to avoid breathing causing in my confused body a complex contradiction between the necessity of keeping me alive and the need to avoid breathing complications by actually breathing that filthy, extremely poluted air…).
I run in the fields followed by one of our dogs.I watch as he tries to hunt the ducks in the lake and swimms in a slow, uneffective way making him look like a crocodile riding a bicycle under water…and then he follows me and I run, run, run…odd way to keep me relaxed. I guess I have too much energy inside me, it needs to come out in any way…let it be in productive ways, right?!
Being with my close family is another blessing and I feel I have 80 years old cause I recognize the true value of some gifts in an age when nobody ever feels it. It´s the classical situation…you grow very old and, after spending a life of running after carreer and money and other wordly values, you reach the knowledge that allows you to recognize the really valuable things in life: having loved and being loved, your true friends and your family and the quality time you have with them. Well, I guess I must have travelled in a time machine cause, no matter how much I achieve in life, I always know and treasure my personal REAL relationships and feel the luckiest person alive for having so much love around me!
As I walk through these golf fields at the sunset grabbing my mother´s hand and joking, goofing around and breathing deeply, I believe and KNOW I´m living some of the happiest and most important moments of my life, no matter how much glory the world can give me in a golden platter.This I know for sure.
This is the place where I can be myself, walk around without fancy cloths, make-up, diplomatic skills.I walk as I am, wild and out of shape hair, sexy tight cloth that could be me arrested in Cairo, bare feet, singing out loud and working at my own rhythm and…the silence!
Being an artist dealing so closely with music, I love and seek silence more than anyone I´ve ever met. The way I love music is proportional to the way I ADORE silence!Here I can have it. I can actually listen to the night birds when I go to sleep and the sun enters in the window in the morning as a courageous invader with the clear intent to make me happy! Is this a blessing or what?
My 5 o’clock tea is taking in a recently discovered bakery with the most pecaminous cakes you can imagine.The bakery sells freshly made bread and cakes in the spot and tasty, divine teas and I loose myself there with a good book.
The place is traditionally portuguese, very small in space and in perspectives but soooo tasty, deeply sensual and real!
To interrupt the paradise mood, I get an artist´s crisis.I had already prepared the coreograhies for the next weekend workshops but, sudddenly, as I perform them to myself…surprise! They don´t make sense anymore.I don´t feel them! Oh, God! Why can´t I be normal and commercial like everybody else? Do the damm thing, teach it and move on…for God´s sake! I can´t! I can never be normal and predictable and that gets on my nerves cause I hate being that way…it´s enchanting for another people who see me as an inspired kind of creative genious but it´s hell for me. I spent several hours of concentration, love, sweat, effort on building the material to teach in Portugal and was so proud of it and…suddenly…I´m not there anymore and I HAVE to rebuild it!
As I grabb on a new song – an interesting and tricky one –and work on it for an entire day and guess what?! Nothing comes. No inspiration.No movements fitting what the music is trying to tell me. In times like this, I say I am fighting with the song…and I am. The rehearsal room is like an arena wher e the bull (the song) and the bull fighter (me!) are trying to fit into each other and one tries to conquer que other without success or any kind of advance…I fight, try to enter the song´s soul and it doesn´t let me do it…there´s a resistance in me towards it, I still didn´t find my way into that material, didn´t quite find the door to the world of that song and that frustrates me but keeps me wanting more from it…like a man chasing a beautiful woman who doesn´t seem to be interested in his passion…he runs after her and she excuses herself, runs away, giggles but escapes from his hands…in the same way, the song plays with me and I keep chasing it. I am a terrible looser! If there´s one thing I HATE to do is to loose so this is my challenge and I´ll win.
Sweating, praying to God for help and inspiration, I remember that famous phrase of the filosofer Socrates : “The only thing I know is that I know nothing.”
I am with Socrates all the way.




Cairo, the 26th March, 2008
Going home, finally! Miss it too much.
I´m at the Cairo airport waiting for my airplane and already thinking about how deep I´ll fall asleep as soon as I get into that strange thing carrying me through the skies directly to Lisbon where my family will be waiting for me.
Departures always carry mixed feelings, joy and sadness at the same time. You want to arrive to your destiny which you miss but you also feel sad for leaving your friends, house, work and world here in Cairo. I´ll be staying away for three weeks and I need it.It´s like being able to breath again, after living so many months non-stop in the middle of the most poluted air you can imagine.I love so many things in Cairo and the constant amusement that is living here but I need to get out once in a while to breath. Cairo is a kind of underworld – fifth dimension, perhaps…- where you live covered by the deep waters of madness and, once in a while, you return to the surface and breath some air…the surface is Portugal or any other country where I can go out in the street without being harassed by men every five seconds!
There´s a lot of work waiting for me in Portugal but also good nights of deep sleep, shared meals with family and my BEST, BEST friends, so much students waiting for me and so much love waiting for my return. I love being successful in what I do but I discovered early on in life that nothing means as much as having people who LOVE you no matter what, independently of your success, status or mood! I am fortunate to say that I have that varied, truthful kind of love from my famlily, known people whom I contact once in a while, real friends, some students and even ex-boyfriends who turn into friends with whom I ll always have a special, deep and positive connection. That´s the most precious thing in life and I cherish it.
As my dear beloved Alicia Keys says in a song:
“Some people live for the fortune,
Some live just for the fame,
Some people live for the power,
Some people live just to play the game…
Some peoplethink that the material things define what´s within…
(…)
Some people want it all but I just want nothing at all if it ain´t you, baby…
If I ain´t got you baby…
Some people want diamond rings, some just want everything but veverything means nothing
If I ain´t got you…”

I relate to all Alicia Keys songs, she´s so honest, simple yet complex and so passionate in a personal, unique way…I´m totally into her!
I ´m very happy with the coreography I prepared for the workshop of Advanced Oriental Dance.Can I brag about myself?!No way, not elegant. But I can say I´m happy with myself about this new material I´m teaching in Lisbon (5th and 6th April) and Oporto (12th and 13th April). If any of you happens to be in Portugal on these dates, be welcome to join us in the workshops. It´s gonna be worth it!
One of the best parts of returning to my country is being able to share my increasing knowledge of the Oriental dance and culture with portuguese students.
As I live in Egypt and deal with arabic people, besides performing here for two years (my God! How the time passes soooooo fast!), I tend to get more and more into the culture and know people ´s dance, music and minds in a complete, more counscious way. It´s great to feel this knowledge growing inside me and sharing it.
I´m looking forward to go to the beach, first thing tomorrow in the morning…I wonder if it is sunny enough to bath in the sea…I hope…I hope!
I´m sure tonight´s dinner is going to be the “diet” food we love so much at our home: boiled fish and vegetables covered by a tasty layer of pure olive oil accompanied by olives and the best portuguese bread! Yeah, I know it may not sound that good to most peoplebut we´re crazy about it and it´s healthy so…
Left my baby “Sweetie” at home with my friends taking care of her…it breaks my heart! I love that creature of heaven in a mad way, like a shadow or a reflex of myself…(yeah, I know it sounds nuts to affirm that your cat is like your own shadow but I never told anyone I´m not nuts!)
Thanks God I´m gonna be busy so I´ll try not to miss her so much…
Yesterday night shows were, once again, incredible and they push me to do better and different things cause the same people is coming to see me again and again, bringing family and friends…it´s like a chain and it makes me so happy, making me forget about all the difficulties around this work.
A lot of egyptian men came tonight, I don’t know why. They knew me and manifested themselves in funny, inspired ways that made me laugh and almost loose concentration on stage.Very good! And fun!
The pressure also increases and, although it´s public that I am not satisfied at all with my orquestra from hell, I still have to do my best with what I have. Having bad conditions or none at all doesn´t mean you have an excuse not to do your best.This I learnt from the Conservatoire and from all the theater masters I was priviledged to learn and work with in Portugal. Even in the worst conditions, an artist´s talent can and MUST always shine and he/she must do their best to serve its art and give it all he/she has got to make it happen!
Some times, I am tired, I complain about the sound quality, the miserable payments, the low level musicians and all that but, in truth, I came to Egypt to make the best I can within what God has been giving me and that´s what I always do and thank the Lord for the strenght to be able to do it every day.

Brought two books to the airplane: The “Fidel Castro” auto biography (amazing!) and “Chicago” from Alla Al Aswany (book that I bought for my friend Lorna and borrowed from her). I´m loving both, although they have nothing to do with each other.
Alla Al Aswany deserves my admiration.This is an egyptian author who wrote the best seller and controversial book (turned into an equally controversial movie with star Adel Eman, between many other big names from the egyptian cinema) “The Jacoubin Building” and now he released “Chicago”. I still prefer the first book but the courage to say the truth – when the truth is NEVER said in Egypt and diplomacy is just a word to release people´s sense of guilt for constant lies and deceiving…-is there. Al Aswany tells the stories of egyptians living in Chicago and their inner world still living in Egypt, as if they carried their country and its contradictions wherever they go. He speaks what egyptians never speak about and shows off all the skeletons normally sleeping under the tables of false social order, morality and religion.
I wonder how this man hasn´t been killed (by accident, of course!) or banned from Egypt! Signs of democracy or good connections with the power?
Whatever the reason is, I thank God that someone is telling the truth and destroying a bit of the hipocrisy egyptians live by, letting their spirits and hearts be corrupted by the lies they tell to each other and to themselves.
Have to get into the airplane. Wish me a good flight.Looking forward to arrive to Lisbon!I´m happy to go back HOMEEEEEEEE!

Cairo, the 25th March, 2008

I have to admit how permeable I am to the quality of my audience and I wonder if that´s a weakness, a vulnerable characterisctic I might work to change.If the audience is egyptian, my show gets more then 50% better and the inspiration pours from my body and soul in a way that surprises everybody (myself included).
I already mentioned this incredible importance of having a receptive, interested, well informed audience for Oriental Dance but it gets more and more serious as I observe, with great joy and sense of fulfilment that egyptians come to see me constant and repeatedly and I develop my skills as a dancer more and more because of their presence.
If the audience is foreigner, I can´t do as much as I can with egyptians and I´m a foreigner, have nothing against foreigners and wonder why I get so affected by people´s energy in the audience.
I know for sure that having people who KNOW the dance and is able to distinguish between a cheap attempt to dance and a real artist is essencial to me, keeping me focused, enthusiasmed, energized and able to do better. If the audience is not close to the arabic music and doesn´t know the difference between a monkey in a “bedleh” and a true dancer, it just knocks me out and I feel I am in a rehearsal.
Great group of foreigner girls contradicting my usual rule of prefering egyptians.I wonder if they were dancers or students because they were too much into the music and observing me in a way regular people wouldn´t do. Although foreigner, they DID understand about dance and showered me with appreciation and tenderness. I love women, although they´re usually so competitive.I never quite got why women are mean to each and tend to compete so much.I always see women as beautiful, creative, strong human beings and love them.I guess that´s because I am a woman. I have to add that I usually get along much better with men but that´s another subject…men are much less complicated and I tend to communicate better and more easily with them and still…I love women.
More egyptians coming to see me with their girlfriends, families, friends.It´s just a thrill…I see how they bring new people and already told them about me, everybody expecting to show their friends or family who I am and how I dance for them, their faces full of love, enthusiasm and appreciation for me. Is this the famous and , somehow, depressing, need for love and attention that I agree all artists carry within themselves?! I feel in heaven. The musicians do their best – even if their best is so much less than perfect! – and the sound system is totally screwed up, the stage is small and I am being paied a misery every 15 days and still I feel in heaven…I guess I love dancing too much.
Between shows, I started to read “Fidel Castro” autobiography and it´s driving me crazy.So interesting! Since I´ve travelled to Cuba and saw Fidel Castro , afterwards, in a huge speech in Oporto (north of Portugal, second biggest city in my country) I managed to feed an admiration and respect for this charismatic figure. My parent´s respect for him and all the political information I had in relation to Cuba also helped to build up my interest in Fidel Castro and I coulnd´t resist when I saw this auto-biography (composed by interviews to Fifel made by a VERY lucky journalist).I couldn´t stop reading it…running from one show to another and trying not to forget to retouch my make-up, put on all the props for each dance cloth, fix the messed up hair and all the little details to be taken care of before going on stage…still grabbing the book! Couldn´t let it go.
I´m looking forward to get into the airplane on my way to Portugal and read , read, read and…as usual…sleep!



Cairo, the 22nd of March, 2008

I have thought so many times why I live in Egypt, besides the obvious reason connected to my work. Destiny? Need for challenge and learning? Karma? The simple fact that I am stubborn as a horse and cannot quit my dreams? All this and so much more?! Who knows?
I complain about Egypt and egyptians but the truth is that I have a hard time imagining myself living in another place but here for no apparent reason. It´s crazy because this is a third world country with corruption and poverty everywhere and I just can´t play the games egyptians like to play and always strive to be honest and totally straight with everything, making my life so hard and close to hell but still I miss Egypt from the moment I step into an airplane to travel.
How weird is that?
The other day I was coming back from work in a taxi and observed this man, probably not able to read or write his own language driving me home and yelling at all the other cars, shouting bad words all the time and being as rude as he could be and then , suddenly, something incredible happened… an Om Kolthoum started to sound out of the radio in the car and this man was transformed as much as a human being can be transformed.
From beast to angel with a heart, a sensibility and a soul feeling this music that, after so long, still appeals to everyone. Om Kolthoum is my biggest love, that´s known and I cannot get tired of saying it. She ´s , without a doubt, the best singer I’ ve ever heard in my life and I can´t even compare her to any other singer.It´s like that love of your life with which you can´t compare any other man or temporary passion. So I DO understand why egyptians love Om Kolthoum so much and I always feel faith in Egypt when a man like this driver is transformed in front of my won eyes from an ogre to a human being with a heart that feels and can sense something bigger and even appreciate beauty, true feeling and art! I HAVE FAITH IN EGYPTIANS BECAUSE THEY LOVE OM KOLTHOUM!
While going to Zamalek (a posh zone in Cairo where the aristocracy used to live and where many foreigners live nowadays and the house prices are beyond expensive)
I noticed a coffe-shop which name left me breathless from the hard laughing dropping out of my body like a tempest…I just couldn´t stop laughing!
The name of the coffe-shop is “Il Biss” (read as “Il Piss”).Meaning: The Pissing.
I never , EVER , get surprised by anything in Egypt.I used to get shocked, surprised, out of balance with the lack of logic, purpose, intelligence, efficiency, etc…well, not anymore!
How is it posible to call a coffe-shop “The Pissing”?!
How poetic and inviting is that?! I know I wouldn´t drink my tea in a place that is identified with one of human biological functions like pissing.
I love egyptian´s sense of humour and total lack of ridiculous sense! I laughed and laughed.Non stop.

I get really pissed off when I see arabic music video-clips and watch the obvious pornography and lack of talent in most of the video-clips featuring female singers. I think creation is free- any kind of creation- but the fact that people think and speak so bad about dancers and socially accept these disgusting video-clips with women selling their silicone made up bodies to the male audience and pretending to sing just makes me crazy. What an hipocrisy! As I work, see and get more knowledge about arabic dance I am more in love with it and respect it more, despite everything I face here in Egypt in order to work in peace without being harassed by rich men who think they can buy me offering me money, fame and carreer opportunities!
What a strange society this is.

Cairo, the 21st March, 2008

One thing I´m sure about living in Cairo: you cannot keep yourself with clean clothes throughout the day neither carry a perfect – or even less than perfect – hairdo after having to move from your home to any place more than 5 minutes away.
I get in one of the millions of taxis from this stressed city and just can´t keep myself tied up and clean for more than five minutes.I sware – and have my mother as a witness to confirm it – that I once saw a taxi carry a lamb – from the butcher´s hand – in the back seat of his precious work instrument (meaning deadly disgusting taxi!).
Since I discovered that Egypt is the land of ALL possibilities, specially the most absurd ones, I don´t doubt anything and reality never stops confirming my suspicions that I am, indeed, in a different dimension of reality where logic is totally turned upside down and what you think it´s the most improbable thing to happen is just a step away from happening!This is Egypt! Welcome to the fifth dimension…

Is it me who is too clumsy?! I always get out of one of these taxis as a trainwreck, totally out of style, my hair resembling a 80s punk hairdo, my clothes all dirty from the car bench and my mind a little bit absent due to the traffic, the noise, the crazy episodes I get to watch along the way…never boring, actually.

Getting to work on my coreographies to teach in Portugal! I´m so happy to be travelling within a few days! I just can´t wait!
The most difficult part was choosing the song for the coreography and I´m almost sure I will change it and will have to build something else from scratch cause my mood normally changes before the workshops and I HAVE to do what I feel most, at all times.

In order to travel, I need to have my passport released from the “Mogamma” from it´s stuck while I´m working in Cairo.Burocracy and more burocracy, I just hate it! I don´t even have the patience and the time to take care of all these boring pointless things but someone has to do it and that someone is ME!
Summer, more than Spring, seems to have finally arrived to Egypt! I LOVE IT! Being able to wear less and lighter cloth, enjoying the sun and the light…just the small detail that is the fact I cannot wear “normal” summer cloths unless I want to be harassed by men (and even women who look at you like you´re a real …………..!) in a way I am turned into a sudden serial killer in a second! Dangerous, huh?! Feel like going back to Taba for a few days but there´s work and too many other things to take care of…oh, sweet days on the beach…
I wonder if the weather will allow me to run to the beach in Portugal, as soon as I arrive there in a few days…If there´s sun, you don´t know how I´ll run to the beach as soon as I arrive there! How much I´m sick of this sea absence!I´m a portuguese, no doubt!
Saw the movie “The Lake House” with Sandra Bullock (one of my favourite actreesses!She does everything right…comedy, drama, action, script writing, so talented!Love her!) and Keanu Reeves (far from being one of my favourite actors but VERY charismatic!). What a special movie! Never expected it to be so good.I guess I was expecting a good love story but the movie is so much more than that…it´s a reflection about the notions of time, reality, eternity and real love being apart of our physical reality.Complex, sublime, filled with soulful details and sub-text in the actors dialogues…the kind of movie you HAVE to see many times to enjoy and you keep on getting more and more from it, learning more, understanding better and deeper! Recommend it!
Also got to see new Beyoncé show and, as a fan of Beyoncé, it didn´t surprise me that I loved it. I can´t resist to REAL talent!It´s my weakness, my passion and my salvation in life! I just can´t resist TALENT! Painters, actors, singers, dancers, any kind of artist in whom I see talent just captivates me and makes me alive. Beyoncé is one of these cases, as Alicia Keys that I also LOVE…Show girl, big production and an incredible team building her up but , no doubt, a great talent to grow and last!
Got Mariza´s cd “Transparente”. For the ones who don´t know Mariza, I ll tell you who she is. Our national song, FADO, has been recently in fashion again after a long time seen as an old fashioned kind of song and there is a rich generation of Fado singers in Portugal who are re-building the love for our national song inside and outside Portugal and Mariza is the most well known of these singers performing all over the world and being recognized with prizes and great reviews by the critics.
She´s not my favourite voice and it doesn´t strike me as a singing genius at all but it feels good to listen to good songs (portuguese fado usually has beautiful lyrics written by big poets and writters) in portuguese language.
I´m so entangled in the arabic and in the english languages – the ones I speak every day – that I tend to forget what if feels to speak and listen to portuguese language.
I will be performing these days just before I travel…miss the stage. Got four days off work in a row, too much…


Cairo, the 19th March, 2008

Today I slept like I didn´t sleep for a long time.Feel exhausted and already nostalgic because I´ll be travelling soon to Portugal and I miss it sooooo much.In one hand, I know I´ll miss Egypt from the first day I´m in Lisbon but, on the other hand, being at my original home with the people I most love in the world and surrounded by my own language makes me really happy…

Yesterday I went to pick my airplane ticket and was already planning what to do as soon as I arrive to Portugal.My favourite thing has always been walking our dog with my mother in the mornings.Is it strange that I miss something so regular and simple?! Walking our dog with my mother, hands in hands, breathing the fresh air of the morning…I can only imagine something better than that which is all of us on the beach on a sunny day, bathing in OUR Atlantic ocean full of wild and noisy waves that throw you to the floor so easily with its inigualable strenght!
That see I could only see in my country.Strong, powerful, fully present and talking to you the whole way with its smell that you can feel from kilometres before you even arrive to the actual beach.Ohhhhhh! This is my country.

As I woke up and because I´ll have an open day (meaning that I don´t have appointments but will do things in my own timing.Good!), I started to listen the new cd from Gipsy Kings I bought yesterday. Just BEAUTIFUL! Gipsy music has the strongest effect in my soul, more than any other kind of music, even more than arabic music!
I grew up between gipsies, my first REAL best friend was a gipsy and I was always taken as a gipsy by the real gipsies and by my mother who always told me I belonged to them when I started to be naughty which was pretty much all the time.
The gipsy guitar and its strings touch every inch of my soul like a wound being poked by an burning peace of iron.It´s too strong to describe but I know it goes deep inside my memories, counscious and not conscious…I just fly and get truly emotional.

I remember going with the portuguese group “Ciganos de Ouro” to Macau for a festival and the way I went out with them (some of them are gipsies and there is the incredible guitar player Pedro Joya) at night and listened to their spontaneous performances…there was a guitar player (I guess he´s still in the group) called Chico who was my favourite.He played for me again and again and I could hardly hold my tears with a mix of emotions I could never understand: joy, sadness, memories of love and loss…so much things together.

The album is “Love Songs” and it happens to have all my favourite songs from Gipsy Kings.I can´t stop some tears from rolling down my face.Memories come to my mind in a tortured kind of way but it feels good, at the same time, to release all these emotions…in the album you can find some of my most loved songs ever…
No Volvere
Love and Liberté
Passion
Caminando Por La Calle

I´m working on the coreographies to teach in Portugal and I´m having so much trouble finding the right songs, as usual…they don´t make songs like the good old ones, do they?
As I´m living in Egypt and am in constant contact with the new songs being made at a crazy speed, I confirm that the music being made these days cannot be compared to Abdel Halim Hafez, Om Kolthoum, Mohamed Abdul Wahab and so many others who produced exquisite pieces of musical art.
I know times change and it´s true that young egyptians are not that interested in listening to their “classics” (“classics” as for frozen, stone age songs our parents heard in the past but we don´t have the patience to hear it any more…) but what I feel it´s that the quality of the music is being lost and it certainly doesn´t fit the needs of Oriental Dance, it´s not made for arabic dance at all as the western instruments come and the mixing of the music makes it more and more similar to american music.
I know that, right now, Oriental Dance in the arabic countries is like a decadent memory of the past, a “vintage” part of the entertainment which is still there because it´s a kind of more or less acceptable substitute of a “streap-tease” to mirror the arabic obcessions and mental confusion…I know arabic dance is not fashionable right now in these countries and people don´t really care about it anymore , therefore music doesn´t run toward it…there´s no interest…so, I´m back to the classics.

I feel excited every time I have to find a song to coreograph and teach and the creative work starts from the moment I think about the song I´ll work on.
Still searching…Mahmoud (Reda) will be watching as the coreography grows cause I´ll show it to him, as usual.
Coreographing to teach is something I´m starting to love and develop. The need for repetition and the concentration is very useful for me due to my crazy, spontaneous improvisational character…it´s doing the opposite of all I´m used to to and it´s cool and useful.And then the search for new movements to express what I want, the surprises coming from unexpected places and the doubts, many doubts…(is it good?Not too modern? Not to difficult and strange for the students, not too everything?!) It´s a tortured work but in a nice kind of way…the same torture of your lover´s kiss on your neck when it freaks you out and gives you chills.
I jump inside the music and get lost there and there has been people almost killed with my own bare hands for interrupting me in the middle of this creative, mind loosing process…I need to be by myself, getting lost in the world of the song in the same way I imagine drug addicts get lost when they are high on drugs.
I always said to people who smoke and do drugs that there are no better drug than being in love and/or dancing. And it´s true.














 

Cairo, the 8^th March, 2008

One of those days when all reality seems to be covered by a disturbing layer of sadness and shadows.

From 12.30h until 24.00h – Full day of shows.

These hormones are driving me crazy. Women really suffer with the menstruation effects, at least, I do! I get a bit – well, a LOT – crazy in these days when my menstruation dropps and I feel like a sacred cow in India, swalloed, fat, with a big round belly, adored by men in the streets but less, less happier than the real sacred cows. Depressed, actually.

Just saw Lorna, my dear friend which is also a dancer in the same place I work , and left on her a bit of my sadness print, poor one…apologized to her after a while.Hate to be with people when I´m really down, I´m always afraid to contaminate them with my bad vibes…not good!She was a sweet heart and didn´t seem to mind my bad mood.

Plus, too much on my mind, working situation far away from what I want and work for, urgent need for so many changes, my mind and heart are living in turmoil and that shows in my work.What can I do?

The tourists of the morning and sunset cruises didn´t seem to notice I was between sleeping and wishing I was sleeping while I moved and the worst thing is that they taped the whole thing…so many cameras pointing at me and me…just trying to pull off with my best fake smile and move one…the show must go on, right?!

What if a fairy came in my rescue and stole all those cameras from the rosy tourists to erase the proof of my drastic state during these shows…I dreamt.I hoped.It didn´t happen. They came and left with their criminal, inspective cameras under their arms taking a bit of my sadness to their countries. Do people notice when you are REALLY down and feeling like a sacred cow of India?!

Today I couldn´t pull up effectively my "Therapy through dance" theory.The honest and already experienced phenomenon in which I totally believe (using dance to transform sadness into joy)seemed dull or inexistent today which only prooves I´m human and, as so, fragile and full of mutations I can´t always control.Sometimes, I forget me and others are humans. "Mea culpa". Assumed.

Returned home with a particularly noisy taxi driver trying to talk to me by force the whole way, even if my answears could be resumed to …hhmmm, hhmmmm, yes, no.

Anyone living r had lived in Cairo will tell you what a special specimen taxi drivers are and some are famous for being a true "pain in the ass" with the whole set to please you: cigars smoked one after the other, no air conditioned (dream on, you ´re in Cairo…), doors and windows which don´t work/are broken/are stitched peace by peace with wires, ropes and another strange devices, even cars with motorbike motors (ask my father for this one who almost died of the heat of one of these motorkike motors at his feet at the peakof the summer in Cairo!) and, of course, their endless talking, even when they (should!) see you´re not in the mood at all to talk with Jesus Christ if he was on earth. The good side of it is that they can be funny, very funny ad give you a feed-back on the egyptian mentality in so many ways. Their stories are surprising – even for someone who lives in Cairo and , therefore, is used to see EVERYTHING and ANYTHING – and they can be endearing talking about their families, specially their kids which usually are their biggest pride.

They always seem shocked when they know you´re not married and/or don´t have children of your own. And there you go, trying to answear to their special enquiry as WHY (???) would you not be married? Do you carry any deficiency or inccurable disease that makes you horrifying to the human men? Are you a serial killer in your free time? What the hell is WRONG wth you??

It´s obviously useless to try to explain them that you would just get married for love and the man you love would ALSO have to carry a special list of qualities that you don´t find in most men so it´s due to your demanding personality and great expectations that you always refused to marry…and yes, I had many men wanting to marry me but I always refused cause I felt it wasn´t the right thing …they just can´t understand it.I don´t try too hard to explain it, anyway…

Om Kolthoum on the radio. Always wonderful.At any time, any of her songs. I sing along with the taxi driver, that´s the only way I can communicate, indirectly, with him and he gets satisfied by this dueto we´re making on Om Kolthoum´s song and smiles at me.

Survived to the "talk show" taxi driver and got home, exhausted. We almost thought about proposing a dueto contract to any musical label but I was too tired to discuss details with him so we let it go…J

Chinese food for supper.

Fell  asleep right ahead grabbing my cat´s hip.Groovy!

Tomorrow will be a better day!I hope.

Cairo, the 10^th March, 2008

There was a strange breeze when I got out of my home and was headed to the coffe-shop where I´m supposed to meet my baby friend Lorna. As I drove off in the taxi and passed by the corniche of Maadi, I opened the window s that I could feel and, maybe, understand, what odd breeze was this, making me feel fresh and nostalgic at the same time.

Wonderful lunch with Lorna and talk, talk, talk like only women can talk…for hours and about everything…no shame, no prejudices, total openness and trust. That´s a luxury here and in life, I guess…but that´s how I feel with Lorna, although I know her for a very short time.Feel happy that I met her.

Great…I mean WONDERFUL night shows with an almost 100% egyptian audience giving me the inspiration and trust that, so many times, it´s missing in myself and my dance skills.

It was an amazing night and I felt I danced pretty well which, according to the audiences comments and reactions, was really true.

A very sad thing happened though…one of my musicians – the accordeon – was struck by a car when he was riding his motorbike to work and broke one of his legs pretty badly.

Working without the accordeon – which gives me the baladi mood – is terrible but I was, more than anything, worried with my musician´s health and how he was going to the hospital alone and all that…

After work, me and my orquestra headed to the hospital do see him and I felt like crying as soon as I entered the hospital.I HATE hospitals. Not strange, though…actually, who loves hospitals, fo God´s sake?? When I enter a hospital, I feel I´m entering hell and ll those smells from medicines make me dizzy, nauseous, sick without being sick.

My musicians were  very surprised to see me there and the injured musician thanked me over and over again for coming to see him. I felt so much pity for him, had to hold my tears and couldn´t say anything to him…just imagining him for more than a week (he´ll be operated next Saturday!) in that depressing place is too much for me to handle. Not to mention that I´ve see vet clinics much better looking, equiped, cleaned and prepared than this hospital! Public hospitals in Egypt are something out of thi world, really…

Tomorrow I already arranged to see him before work.I´ll bring him some flowers, maybe an arabic book (does he like to read? I have no idea…), some juices and tea, cookies, whatever to make him feel better…being there is traumatic enough.

Came back home feeling sorry or him and thinking how he must be feeling there in that horrible hospital waiting for an operation which can only be done on Saturday??!!! How absurd is that?? He will be laying on a bed with a completely broken leg until Saturday??!!!Oh, GOOOODDDDD!!!!

I pray for him.

Cairo, the 11^th March, 2008

Why do I seem to be addicted to Egyptian audiences?!

19.30h – 1.00h - Tonight, there were mainly arab people – from Saudi Arabia, Gulf, Dubai – and foreigners (mainly from Italia and Spain). No egyptians! I ´m starting to depend too much on this "mood booster" which is having Egyptians in the audience.  When they ´re not there, I feel I have to push myself in the wrong direction as I don´t have the warmness and the appreciative look Egyptians have towards a good dancer… the dance becomes more a solo than a shared process and I just hope they´re there all the time. Curious for someone who´s pretty much always complaining about Egyptians and how I´m tired of them in the way they lie, cheat, make movies to get their way, steal and harass women in the streets and everywhere… the fact is that they are the best audience for Raks Sharki and there you can see their true heart and soul and I must say I´ve seen beautiful things… no nation can crown Om Kolthoum as the biggest singer ever lived if this nation doesn't have a deeply noble and sensitive soul…that soul is, obviously, hidden many many kilometers under the dark sea of these people´s characters but it´s still there and their reaction to good dance is a great proof of that…

Danced on "Ansak, da Kalam" of Om Kolthoum and almost exploded of emotion, as usual. Although I didn´t have the feed-back of the audience as with Egyptians who love Om Kolthoum, I still had a huge flight on this song. Pure "tarab", that moment of sacred communion between the dancer, the music, the audience and GOD wrapping us all in a velvet beautiful coat made of peace and love.

It helped that my singer is particularly fond of the song and my mood was according to the musical piece. It´s a blessing when you can use your personal life and dramas to make your work more alive and unique and that´s what I always try to do.

Any artist needs to LIVE before being able to create with shine and contents. I always remember what my teachers in the National School of Theatre and Cinema told us while we were in our first year of acting…"Actors have to live in order to create and give a true life to their characters." True, totally true although I didn´t quite understood it at the time. You use your emotions, experiences and memories of lived days and nights and always have to be inspired by a full lived life! There´s no other way to create REALLY great things in any creative area and that´s sure for dance…

So I live and try to do it the best I can and know, always putting it in my work and that´s why it´s so personal and who ever sees me dance, can see a big part of who I am.

1.00h – Finished the night happy, drinking my tea with milk and looking at the river as we travelled back to the starting point from where the cruise leaves. Because there was spare time, me and my orquestra used it to make a small rehearsal and correct some songs which are not at their best or even their medium quality…I checked each of the songs as I suppose maestros do with their musicians. I never had the same approach other dancers have – as far as I know – to their bands during rehearsals. I always sit in a chair in the back of the room, closed eyes and total concentration on each second of music and do corrections mentally as well as I visualize myself dancing to this piece of music and , ALWAYS, ALWAYS making sure this song suits me emotionally, meaning that I will listen to it and I HAVE to feel an urgency to dance. If the song doesn´t strike me deep inside I cannot perform it as I should so I simply refuse to do it.

       WAR and NEW BOOK ( a MUST READ for Arabic culture lovers):  The Middle East, edited by TIME Magazine with introduction of Jimmy Carter.

I always though politics were bullshit mainly because they´re a theatre staged to make us feel ruled but, the truth is that money and power buys it as we buy bread for our breakfasts. Because I need money , as everybody does, but am not particularly interested in it and less interested in power and bribes and real life stages, I always saw politics as a distant subject which only affected me indirectly.

Living in the Middle East has changed so many things and my relationship with politics too.

I live in Egypt, have been in Lebanon only two years ago and am a few hours from Israel, Jordan, Iraque, etc…the geographical proximity and having seen the marks of bombs and bullets on the building where I´ve lived in Beirut  make me wake up to this terrible reality of war.

It´s scary how familiar people here are with destruction, war, blood and massacres. I come from a very pacific country and only now I´m starting to feel the impact of these simultaneous wars in people´s lives.

I´m informing myself about the subject and want to learn. As usual.

       Discovered a new tea that´s making me crazy: Earl Grey and Lavender! Deadly expensive but DIVINE. Anyone is interested in a new tea, any way??!! I don´t think so…only a crazy freak like me gets excited about a new tea she just discovered. That´s me. Don´t try to understand it. I know I don´t and I have to live with it.

Cairo, the 13^th March, 2008

Topics of the night (not that important and, nonetheless, intriguing!):

       What kind of ancient (or modern) tecnique do japanese and chinese people apply to their brains to make them able to sleep like a new born puppy during loud, agitated, traffic jammed Oriental Dance Shows?

Today, as I performed through sunset, night and late cruises (eight shows in a row, can you believe it??!!), I could observe this strange phenomenon of chinese and japanese people sleeping in the middle of the crowd while I perform.Well…if I´m in a self –destructive mood, I can take it personally and think that my shows are soooooo boring that some people – the most sensible one – can´t bare it and so they decide to sleep instead of watching it. That´s a possibility.Depressing but possible. If I need a self-esteem boost though, I can think the reason for this sudden puppy deep sleep in the middle of a loud Oriental Dance show is due to the hipnotic quality of my dance…they get so engaged with the music and with my movements that they get transpostated to another world and , in that case, I´m a kind of unpretentious spiritual guru  but, again, that only applies to asiatic people and only to some of them…so I kind of go back to the beginning and don´t have a clue how come they can manage to sleep deeply in the middle of chaos and, ocasionally, get really scared from me (am I that ugly???!! I wonder if it´s my long eye lashes? My huge "derrière"??!! What??!!!) when I show up to take photos with them (against my will, I must add…)

If any of you have a clue about this phenomenon, please email me. I´m open to the possibility of being shocked with your answears.

       Second  intriguing question of the night:

How many times is it humanly possible for an Oriental dancer to have her bra opened during a performance?

For this one, I have the answear and am seriously thinking about applying to the Guiness Book of Records cause I am sure no other dancer can beat me on this one.

The frightening answear is: 9 times in a single night!

Small detail: that dancer is ME!

I ve had the most embarassing situations on stage and, considering I` ve spent most of my life performing (dance, theatre), I´ve managed to handle these situations as a true professional and with lots of sense of humour. NEVER despair and use the incidents for your advantage, if you can…

I´ve fallen on stage dozens of times and always managed to transform it into new, original and (I hope) interesting new moves in a way that nobody in the audience noticed that I had fallen big time (except my mother who always gives me a good dose of hard love: "What the hell was that strange piruette on the floor…you looked like a lizard with his tail on fire…did you step on your skirt again…what happened?!!") and I have had a skirt falling down my legs (that one was difficult to solve but I did my little sexy number and used my sense of humour to take away the attention from my hips, bottom and all the cute details of my intimacy available to the audience)  and…I´ve had my bras opening more than once but…tonight was TOO much! Nine times in a row…and the great thing is that I survived.

       Was it from the evil eye??!!! This is something I started to believe in when I moved to Egypt and that probably was the case of tonight bra streap-tease. Too many ladies afraid for me to steal their husbands…There was a particular lady from Italy whose partner was couldn´t stop staring at me like a hungry lion in front of a steak that could kill me with her look. I better check my bag for bombs cause she must have put one inside it or she´s planning it now…maybe come back to the show, do the attack in a professional way, God knows!

       Lucky me egyptians were around and their sense of humour helped me surpass the hard moments.

       Last challenge of the night:

How can you dance when both of your shoes get broken heels, exposing a piece of iron which, in contact with the stage floor, transforms a dance shoe into a sliding shoe for skating on ice? So I slide and slide as if I´m in a ring for ice skating and try not to fall with my ass on the floor…meanwhile, my bra decides to open one more time…I smile and ask God for help and watch, a few meters from the little tragedies of the stage, some japanese sleeping while the music rocks away…

Does anyone still doubt the power of the "evil eye"?

       It was a good night, though…hard times make joyful times more valuable and intense.We appreciate them more after the little and big life catastrophes (not saying that a bra opening curse is  catastrophe…in fact, it can be a release and a personal and public revolution).

       Went home to sleep…very tired. Slept braless.

Cairo, the 9^th of February, 2008

I usually don´t open the door of my changing room where I dress myself before, during and after the shows. There are three possibilities, in case someone knocks on my door:

1.       My assistant who brings me the drinks (water and tea with milk with exactly two spoons of sugar) and the stuff I leave on the stage (veils, sagats, stick,scarfs I take from my head, etc);

2.       The chief of my orquestra presenting some doubt regarding to the programm I wish to perform for the night;

3.       A smart ass trying to speak with me or take my phone number or…simply get an extra look at me, taking the risk to get slapped on the face in case the "look" turns into touching or "funny talking".

I ask who is knocking and , in the first two cases, they answear by their names and I open the door. In the last case, I only open the door when I´m deeply distracted by something and totally by mistake…tonight that was the case.

As I open the door, a little girl of about six years old gets into the room without my permission and closes the door on her back by her own hand.

I kneel and smile at her trying to start a conversation but she´s faster than me. She asked me in arabic:

"Are you a star?"

"No, I´m not a star. I´m just Joana." – I answeared, smiling in amazement.

"My mother says you´re a star".- She continued with conviction.

"Well, your mama is very nice but the truth is that I´m only Joana.Stars are in the sky and I´m here with you, am I not???" – Now she was the one smiling at me.

"Are you a muslim?" – She suddenly shot at me.

"No, I am not."