Jane
New member
Forwarded from Edwina Nearing
April 22, 2013 -- NEWEST PHONY GHAWAZI SCAM EXPLOITS TECHNOLOGY
Considering how she is looked down on in her own country and has often had to sell her costumes, even her television and refrigerator, to cover living expenses, it is amazing how many imposters try to pass themselves off as "Ghawazi dancer" Khairiyya Mazin. First there were Karam and Amal Shauqi in the mid-90s -- they paid local taxi drivers to take people seeking Ghawazi dance lessons from Khairiyya to them instead. At least the Shauqis were real Ghawazi, just not very good ones. Then there was long-time enemy Muhammed Murad, the rababa player who tried to pressure Khairiyya into joining his prostitution ring; after she refused, he got her bumped off the Musicians of the Nile tour of the U.S. in the mid-90s, disrupted one of her 2003 Ahlan wa Sahlan Festival workshops in Cairo, and a few years later dressed Cairo belly dancers in Mazin-style bead-fringed gowns and tried to pass them off as "the Banat Mazin" in the villages of Upper Egypt. Then a colleague of his, Mamdouh Abdel Rahim, contacted Ahlan wa Sahlan sponsor Raqia Hassan with a view towards presenting his daughter Hanan there as Khairiyya's "cousin and protege;" he also arranged to meet incoming tour groups with Hanan under the same pretense when they arrived at hotels in the Luxor area.
Now Khairiyya informs me that the latest scam artist to try making a buck off the Mazin reputation, apparently with the blessing of local authorities, as he is employed by the Palace of Culture in Qurna, is touting "dance lessons and performances by Khairiyya Mazin" on the Internet. His name -- Khairiyya writes me in Arabic -- transliterates to something like Mustafa Bara'i. With his partner Mujahid Qanawik al-Zimar and "two girls who say they are folkloric dancers but know nothing about the arts of the Luxor area," they whisk prospective dance students lured by Bara'i's website off for lessons at the Palace of Culture, and though Bara'i keeps claiming to be Khairiyya's representative, victims finallly depart without ever having met Khairiyya at all.
Khairiyya asked me in her letter to "publish in the papers and on the Internet that Mustafa Bara'i is a swindler and whoever deals with him will never see Khairiyya." Unfortunately, since the Net has decimated the print media, there is no longer a single "go-to" source for dance enthusiasts like Habibi Magazine used to be in the U.S. through which I can get the word out. I've tried unsuccessfully to find Bara'i's website, so I suspect that it is in a foreign language -- French, German, Italian, or Japanese most likely -- requiring me to input a search string in that language to find it. I would like to find it if only to see how an employee of the Egyptian government advertises lessons on government property in a dance form which most Egyptians claim no longer exists or is just some kind of unskilled capering for backward villagers. Ironically, it may be these villagers and their loyalty to the Ghawazi who keep unadulterated Egyptian dance alive, while in their detractors' own backyards, the city nightclubs and other dance venues, Egyptian dance appears to be dying.
Any assistance in communicating Khairiyya's warning about these newest "phony Ghawazi" to users of foreign-language websites would be greatly appreciated.
The real Khairiyya Mazin lives in a studio apartment about a mile from the Luxor train station, at Al-Masakin al-Sha'biyya, Salah Salim Street, Apt. 27, Bldg. 2, Entrance B, Luxor. Letters to her must be sent by registered mail or they will not arrive. Her telephone number (home) is 2364693; prefix 95 when calling within Egypt but outside the Luxor area. Her cell phone number is 0163797012. Khairiyya is available to teach or perform with only a few hours' notice when she is in Luxor, that is, when she is not performing in the countryside. She can teach basic steps/movements and finger cymbals to one or two people in her apartment but needs more room to "swing a stick" -- and I do recommend studying stick/cane dancing with her once one has a fair grasp of basic steps/movements. Khairiyya is highly regarded as a stick dancer in the area, with a variety of Mazin heritage riffs and poses, some of which may now be unique since she is their last practitioner.
And now I'll try to finish the article I've been working on for the last couple of weeks, which has NO mention whatsoever of Ghawazi. Not one! I promise! . . . But where to publish it? Okay, it's not great literature, but I've put some time into it, and I don't want it to just disappear "into the cloud" as the latest Mysterious, Tech Insider's Buzz-Word has it (I only recently found out that "streaming" means "broadcast" -- why can't they just say "broadcast"? "Oh, but then it wouldn't look like we belonged to some Secret Powers group!" So buy a plastic secret decoder ring already, guys!)
April 22, 2013 -- NEWEST PHONY GHAWAZI SCAM EXPLOITS TECHNOLOGY
Considering how she is looked down on in her own country and has often had to sell her costumes, even her television and refrigerator, to cover living expenses, it is amazing how many imposters try to pass themselves off as "Ghawazi dancer" Khairiyya Mazin. First there were Karam and Amal Shauqi in the mid-90s -- they paid local taxi drivers to take people seeking Ghawazi dance lessons from Khairiyya to them instead. At least the Shauqis were real Ghawazi, just not very good ones. Then there was long-time enemy Muhammed Murad, the rababa player who tried to pressure Khairiyya into joining his prostitution ring; after she refused, he got her bumped off the Musicians of the Nile tour of the U.S. in the mid-90s, disrupted one of her 2003 Ahlan wa Sahlan Festival workshops in Cairo, and a few years later dressed Cairo belly dancers in Mazin-style bead-fringed gowns and tried to pass them off as "the Banat Mazin" in the villages of Upper Egypt. Then a colleague of his, Mamdouh Abdel Rahim, contacted Ahlan wa Sahlan sponsor Raqia Hassan with a view towards presenting his daughter Hanan there as Khairiyya's "cousin and protege;" he also arranged to meet incoming tour groups with Hanan under the same pretense when they arrived at hotels in the Luxor area.
Now Khairiyya informs me that the latest scam artist to try making a buck off the Mazin reputation, apparently with the blessing of local authorities, as he is employed by the Palace of Culture in Qurna, is touting "dance lessons and performances by Khairiyya Mazin" on the Internet. His name -- Khairiyya writes me in Arabic -- transliterates to something like Mustafa Bara'i. With his partner Mujahid Qanawik al-Zimar and "two girls who say they are folkloric dancers but know nothing about the arts of the Luxor area," they whisk prospective dance students lured by Bara'i's website off for lessons at the Palace of Culture, and though Bara'i keeps claiming to be Khairiyya's representative, victims finallly depart without ever having met Khairiyya at all.
Khairiyya asked me in her letter to "publish in the papers and on the Internet that Mustafa Bara'i is a swindler and whoever deals with him will never see Khairiyya." Unfortunately, since the Net has decimated the print media, there is no longer a single "go-to" source for dance enthusiasts like Habibi Magazine used to be in the U.S. through which I can get the word out. I've tried unsuccessfully to find Bara'i's website, so I suspect that it is in a foreign language -- French, German, Italian, or Japanese most likely -- requiring me to input a search string in that language to find it. I would like to find it if only to see how an employee of the Egyptian government advertises lessons on government property in a dance form which most Egyptians claim no longer exists or is just some kind of unskilled capering for backward villagers. Ironically, it may be these villagers and their loyalty to the Ghawazi who keep unadulterated Egyptian dance alive, while in their detractors' own backyards, the city nightclubs and other dance venues, Egyptian dance appears to be dying.
Any assistance in communicating Khairiyya's warning about these newest "phony Ghawazi" to users of foreign-language websites would be greatly appreciated.
The real Khairiyya Mazin lives in a studio apartment about a mile from the Luxor train station, at Al-Masakin al-Sha'biyya, Salah Salim Street, Apt. 27, Bldg. 2, Entrance B, Luxor. Letters to her must be sent by registered mail or they will not arrive. Her telephone number (home) is 2364693; prefix 95 when calling within Egypt but outside the Luxor area. Her cell phone number is 0163797012. Khairiyya is available to teach or perform with only a few hours' notice when she is in Luxor, that is, when she is not performing in the countryside. She can teach basic steps/movements and finger cymbals to one or two people in her apartment but needs more room to "swing a stick" -- and I do recommend studying stick/cane dancing with her once one has a fair grasp of basic steps/movements. Khairiyya is highly regarded as a stick dancer in the area, with a variety of Mazin heritage riffs and poses, some of which may now be unique since she is their last practitioner.
And now I'll try to finish the article I've been working on for the last couple of weeks, which has NO mention whatsoever of Ghawazi. Not one! I promise! . . . But where to publish it? Okay, it's not great literature, but I've put some time into it, and I don't want it to just disappear "into the cloud" as the latest Mysterious, Tech Insider's Buzz-Word has it (I only recently found out that "streaming" means "broadcast" -- why can't they just say "broadcast"? "Oh, but then it wouldn't look like we belonged to some Secret Powers group!" So buy a plastic secret decoder ring already, guys!)