Nagwa Fouad

[Yasmine Bint Al Nubia]

Coming to you live from Youtube Central... a energetic performance by the incomparable Nagwa Fouad! Enjoy!



Remember a recent clip of her judging a contest? Well here she is during her heyday.You be the judge.
Yasmine

 

[Gabi]

I watched twice - I can't help it .... I do find her energetic, which I love and I do find her incomparable in that she looks different than the others of her era that I've seen and loved but I also find her graceless and clunky. I really don't enjoy her style at all as opposed to, say, Fifi Abdou, Lucy or Randa.

Even though she's obviously the better dancer I found her as painful to watch as the gal she seemed so disdainful of.

Thanks for the excellent video find though, :clap: g

 

[Dev]

Thank you Yasmine Bint Al Nubia,
I am trying to learn more about the dance watching all the video clips.
Personally i agree with Gabi, I didnot find her dancing style very attractive.

Kind Regards

..

 

[Moon]

I liked the second dance better then the first. It doesn't look very elegant when she spreads her legs so much, but maybe the costume makes it looks worse then it is. I really don't like the costumes (wouldn't they be considered Ugly BellyDance Costumes when a non-Egyptian dancer would wear them? :shok
And I thought I saw boob shimmies instead of shoulder shimmies or am I wrong?

 

[Yasmine Bint Al Nubia]

Hi Moon, I have a few clips of Nagwa from "Legends Of Bellydance" DVD. While this isn't my favorite performance, I really like her energy and how her personality comes through. It looks like this was made in the 70"s or early 80's when she had her big spectacular shows in Egypt.
Yasmine

 

[chryssanthi sahar]

I suppose, everything is a matter of taste. I love Nagwa Fouad. She is (or was. Now she not active anymore) a great performer, even if she is kind of less gracious than Fifi, Mona and Suhair. She was very important for the developing of the modern Raqs Sharqi. She made it more glamorous and luxurious and she always invented new things for her shows. For me, she is the Madonna of the Oriental Dance And she is one of the dancers, who the more you see, the better you like (opposite to some Western belly dancers, who you like the first time you see, but already from the second time they become boring )
And to be honest, I also like the dress she has on this video clip. Of course it wouldn't suit everybody, but it suits her, because she is a strong and colourful personality.

 

[Aisha Azar]

Dear Group,
Nagwa Fouad is known for her big dance productions more than she is known for the quality of her personal dance. (She worked strictly with choreographers and personally, I think she needed to fire somebody!!)
Her overall dance style does not appeal to me very much. That being said, Nagwa Fouad has some individual things that she did when she was dancing less within the limits of the choreography, that were totally dynamite. For those of you who live in Europe, she danced in a show there in which she did one of the best drum solos I have ever seen. I think you can get the video from Momo Kadous. Nagwa has a very unique shimmy that shakes the pelvis up and down. and she can do this layered with just about anything. I am still in the process of perfecting the movement and it is HARD TO DO!! She looks completely relaxed and it is a nice, big, controlled shimmy.
Regardless of our opinion of her personal dancing, she still knows good dance when she sees it. Her performance of Ali Lows and the little Beledi dance do not disqualify her as a judge. I know of other dancers that I do not care for personally who still can tell a great dancer from a poor one.
Regards,
A'isha

 

[Moon]

I like this Nagwa Fouad performance better


A'isha, at 2.00 minutes, is that the pelvis shimmy you were describing?

 

[Yasmine Bint Al Nubia]

Hi Moon ,that was a great clip, I must agree I liked this one better maybe because I liked the music better too. Nagwa has such a dynamic personality, she fills the stage with it. Aisha also had a good point regarding her influence on Modern Raks Sharki, you can see how she influenced all of us.
Yasmine
P.S. That woman danced for 10 minutes, talk about superstar stamina.

 

[Aisha Azar]

Nagwa

Dear Moon,
Now, THAT was classic and wonderful Nagwa!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! At 2:00 she is doing a series of little pelvic tilts... not fast enough to qualifiy as a shimmy. At 4:02, about 5:09 (during the qanoun solo) and then again at 6:20 layered with a walk, you can see some examples of the shimmy I am referring to. Unfortunately, there are no close-ups and it is hard to see how it is different, but if you watch again, you might be able to tell. I can tell easily because I have studied her style in depth in order to pick up how she does it!
REgards,
A'isha

 

[Gabi]

I like this Nagwa Fouad performance better

Woo - so much better. I do believe part of what I don't like about her dancing is her upper body, shoulder, spine and neck - it's rigid.

 

[Aisha Azar]

Nagwa

Dear Group,
Gabi's is an astute observation since Nagwa Fouad has had spinal surgery and has some fused bones in her spine. She has a rather largish dent in her upper back from it.
Regards,
A'isha

 

[Gabi]

Son of a drum !!! That totally explains it :shok: including what I felt where kind of awkward transitions from one position to another in the first clip.

I'm impressed with the surgery and her ability to keep going, g

 

[Moon]

At 4:02, about 5:09 (during the qanoun solo) and then again at 6:20 layered with a walk, you can see some examples of the shimmy I am referring to. Unfortunately, there are no close-ups and it is hard to see how it is different, but if you watch again, you might be able to tell. I can tell easily because I have studied her style in depth in order to pick up how she does it!

That indeed is hard to see!
Thanks

 

[Mariesaffron]

I love the music in this clip, I am asking if some one knows the name of the artist or the song, I am reffering to the first clip, it is a classic, thanks Yasmine for this wonderfull piece. Marie

 

[Aisha Azar]

Nagwa

Dear Mari,
If you mean the first song in the original clip, it is called Ali Lows. I can't remember who does it, if I ever knew.
Regards,
A'isha

 

[sedoniaraqs]

I have never quite figured out if I like or dislike Nagua's dancing. I guess I really like certain things she does, but don't care for her overall presentation. In the second clip where she is in the white costume, I really don't like her intro at all. Those arabesque steps just seem, as someone said, clunky and graceless. I tend to like her more in the middle of her performance where she perhaps forgets about her over the top theatrics and gets down to some dancing. I also like her back and forth shimmies -- still trying to produce one of those A'isha when you get those down pat you can come up here and teach me

Another thing I have noticed about Nagua is that her arms are extraordinarily long in proportion to her body. Watch when she has them straight out or down to her sides.

She is also extremely one sided, probably the most extreme of all the Egyptian dancers, to the point that it looks to me like she cannot even do a simple hip drop on her non-dominant side, or even maintain the integrity of a hip circle -- they always poop out on the non-dominant side or she just doesn't finish them.

Sedonia

 

[Shanazel]

Judging a dancer from the mid-twentieth century by the tastes and standards of today does both the judge and the dancer a disservice. If you watch movies of Olympic Gold ice skaters from the 1940s-1960s, you will see some of the same things in them that are being mentioned about Nagwa here, including a kind of gracelessness and lack of polish that we have come to expect in both modern belly dancers and ice skaters. In order to truly appreciate a dancer (or ice skater) from another era, you have to take into consideration the era itself, and where the art form was at that time, what things were important to dancers and audiences then, as opposed to what is important now.

 

[Gabi]

Judging a dancer from the mid-twentieth century by the tastes and standards of today does both the judge and the dancer a disservice. If you watch movies of Olympic Gold ice skaters from the 1940s-1960s, you will see some of the same things in them that are being mentioned about Nagwa here, including a kind of gracelessness and lack of polish that we have come to expect in both modern belly dancers and ice skaters. In order to truly appreciate a dancer (or ice skater) from another era, you have to take into consideration the era itself, and where the art form was at that time, what things were important to dancers and audiences then, as opposed to what is important now.

This is very true, however, I find her to have certain attributes that I don't like compared to other dancers of her era - that's much personal taste I would think *shrug*.

She may indeed be qualified to judge dance and this also, as we have seen in figure skating and gymnastics can be wildly varied in the final opinion. Regardless of the judging ability or qualifications I would hope for a dignified and polite demeanor without arbitrary body language or other comments.

 

[sedoniaraqs]

Just for clarification, I'm not judging her against the Dina, Jillina, or the belly dance superstars. However, to me, in comparison with her contemporaries (Mona el Saiid, Sohair Zaki, Fifi Abdu, just to mention a few) she often looks graceless. I have never seen Fifi or Mona look graceless.

Sedonia

Judging a dancer from the mid-twentieth century by the tastes and standards of today does both the judge and the dancer a disservice. If you watch movies of Olympic Gold ice skaters from the 1940s-1960s, you will see some of the same things in them that are being mentioned about Nagwa here, including a kind of gracelessness and lack of polish that we have come to expect in both modern belly dancers and ice skaters. In order to truly appreciate a dancer (or ice skater) from another era, you have to take into consideration the era itself, and where the art form was at that time, what things were important to dancers and audiences then, as opposed to what is important now.